a weird theory that probably doesn’t actually work: (spoilers) Martin stabbing Jon is the Extinction mark
Some nights you just cry yourself to sleep curled up against boxes in the Archives.
It’s what happens when you never leave.
a weird theory that probably doesn’t actually work: (spoilers) Martin stabbing Jon is the Extinction mark
Ooh new headcanon just dropped (this is what it feels like sometimes, honestly)
In Season 5 normally, Jon looks like just Some Guy. Old jeans and a Mechanisms T-shirt with a sweater vest from 2016 over it. 5′2″. Hasn’t slept in ỷ̵̱ë̴́ͅa̷͕͒r̶̲̆ŝ̶͜ (corrupted because Time Does Not Work; says years).
But when he’s about to smite someone, he changes appearance. He’s suddenly wearing a long olive-green robe, floating in the air. Eyes open all around him and on him, but he looks…more real. A terrifying image of perfection, like a god. Invincible and omnipotent and more alive than anything could possibly be. Too perfect, too powerful, even.
(Martin thinks Jon looks amazing. This is obviously the real reason he advocated for more smiting.)
I read a fic where Tim is telling Sasha that the last time they went out for drinks, Jon talked about South American moths for forty minutes. Within the story, he’s saying it’s a bad thing.
*takes Jon gently by the shoulders* Jon, I would listen to you talk about South American moths for forty minutes. I would love to. Please, tell me about the South American moths. /gen, very very genuine
Oh, another thing, nowhere does it say they would be mean about Jon infodumping. The only thing we even have is Martin reminding Jon about when they went out for ice cream and Jon talked about emulsifiers, and his tone is not even teasing. Just listing what would help Jon remember the event.
someone called jon a huge coward in the notes of one of my posts and i will NOT put them on blast but i am hugging the jarchivist very tightly and taking him away from you, how fucking dare you.
a list off the top of my head of extremely brave bordering on self-destructive jarchivist moments:
- finding out one of his employees was being hunted by jane prentiss, who then threatened him directly, and went “well i guess you should stay here where we work, where i also am, so you’ll be safe.”
- sending martin and tim home so he could confront the notsasha on his own
- shaking jude perry’s hand
- going to see mike crew, on jude perry’s information, even after shaking her hand
- getting dragged out to the woods to be murdered by daisy, and then pushing that aside and working with her (even to the point of going out to investigate when it was just the two of them)
- taking gerry’s page, which he knew might be a death sentence, just to honor his last wish. (he easily couldve just gotten the information and left the page anyway, gerry couldn’t have stopped him)
- doing everything in his power to stop the unknowing, constantly trading his own pain and trauma for scraps of only MAYBE-useful information, even when a friend was telling him to just walk away, purely because of the strength of his own moral code.
- came up with the original idea to conspire to take elias down, when elias had at that point framed him for two murders and demonstrated his ability to read minds.
- actually, you know, went to and helped stop the unknowing, which he knew probably would and in fact did kill him.
- going into the coffin, somewhere NO ONE had ever escaped before, on the off chance he might save someone who wanted him dead
- going into the lonely to save martin, even after admitting he was terrified
- going on the run from the police TWICE over the course of the show, which let’s be honest is pretty badass
- refusing to bend to what everyone he knew wanted, and attempting to kill himself and the entire world, just because he honestly believed it was the right thing to do.
Why is it even arguable that Jon is a coward? We know bravery is basically the ability to do things that make you afraid. We also know the statements made Jon afraid, because they’re, you know, horrifying stories. And he still reads them; in season 1 even when he doesn’t yet need them. So he’s being brave every time he reads a statement.
it’s the same friend every time btw
Buried
“Godot is boring|but that’s the point” “I felt like I was reading a nightmare|the kind you just want to wake up from but can’t” “it’s depressing but like lethargic depression depressing” -me and my friend; | means it’s a different text bubble
“If you want credit you gotta pay” “Very true|Capitalism” -my friend and me
Corruption
“but mommy I WANT bedbugs”
“what if the coronavirus was human sized”
Dark
“Me every time a bird flies past the sun: THE SUN HAS FLICKERED! AAAAAAAA! THE END IS NEAR!”
a very annoyed Manuela, at the end of a long night of science: “The Beatles: here comes the sun[.] Me: yes I know”
Desolation
“true or FIREEEEEEEEEE”
“A Tom Dick or Harry will build a house for Carrie but then she’ll burn it down” referencing Carrie from Carrie, also a song lyric
End
“…it can be a metaphor for death. Because it will always get you no matter what.”
Extinction
“I just heard this weird whistle like a bomb dropping whistle and no one was here to whistle|I momentarily thought I was being bombed|I was very chill considering”
“We’ve got plague and pestilence at this point|Is war next|I’m worried”
Eye
“Grampa: ‘that lady’s (on tv) eyes are crooked. *pause* put your eyes back lady’”
Martin while Jon is in America: “I haven’t gotten an email back except the one with more eyeballs”
“*magic magic magic* instant zoology knowledge”
surely Jonny at some point: “I need ideas for a story so *ominous British accent* what is your worst fear?”
Flesh
“My bones just popped to the rhythm of we will rock you” -my friend
“like so cold your bones crisp” -my friend
Hunt
“a scavenger hunt no”
Lonely
“I am a lonely cow[.] MOOOO!”
Slaughter
“I have no idea why I killed him???” (a character I wrote)
“I shall try łë čhóp ćhôp”
Spiral
from a picture of a script: “(david kingsley enters. Perhaps 3 6 or 37. A iiuiM 0/ decided charm a\id d’\s[\}ic[\, treatiiuj eveiiiiig clothes, you see his while uniffler above ihe dark lopcoal.)” There is more, such as “i-rank jollows”, “sloirer ind sloirer”, and “Cjood morning, Jratik!”
“I’m all blurry for some reason”
Stranger
“I thought the you in the picture was really you but then I realized it was the other way around”
“didn’t river wear a fireman last year?”
Vast
“like an existential crisis is when you have deep thoughts about why we exist”
“You accidentally said ‘I won’t matter’ but mood”
Web
“The last sentence of the first paragraph makes it sound like humans bite the spiders.”
“Technically everyone who doesn’t believe in reincarnation is immune to karma”
Okay, you know how no new babies are supposedly being born in the apocalypse? I kind of question that since somebody’s domain has to have been childbirth-related, right?
But then this implies that either whichever entity has that domain (Flesh? Desolation for the pain part? End for the easy-to-die-especially-before-modern-medicine part?) would survive longest.
Or. The babies are fake.
OH wait new domain just dropped
Stranger domain. You birthed a baby. That is not your baby. That is Something Else. You try to birth another baby. That is not your baby.
Okay, you know how no new babies are supposedly being born in the apocalypse? I kind of question that since somebody’s domain has to have been childbirth-related, right?
But then this implies that either whichever entity has that domain (Flesh? Desolation for the pain part? End for the easy-to-die-especially-before-modern-medicine part?) would survive longest.
Or. The babies are fake.
wet spaghetti used to mimic the sound of evil worms
call that
call that a creepypasta
Jon: “No-one ever believes me when I tell them my age. I don’t know if it’s the already greying hair or something in my demeanour, but they always act surprised when I mention being a child in the Nineties.” (MAG 81)
1995:
An Adult: How old are you?
Jon, 8: *stares off into distance* ‘old enough to have seen horrors beyond your comprehension’ *continues staring*
An Adult: *slowly backs away*
2005:
Georgie: What’s your favorite band?
Jon: *has only listened to his grandmother’s records*…Glenn Miller. I mean, if you want a band, probably…the Andrews Sisters. *tries to think frantically of a normal band* Oh, and the Spice Girls!
Narrator: Jon did not know that the Spice Girls broke up in 2000. Technically, neither did the author until now.
Georgie: …how are you 18?
2013:
Tim: Jon, I need your password. What year were you born, 1964?
Jon: *as dry as humanly possible* 1987.
Tim: Wait, what? So, you’re like…25?
Jon: *sighs* I try not to think about it.
About six months after October 18, 2018:
Jon: Annabelle, did you have anything to do with Mr. Spider?
Annabelle: Perhaps. Wait, what? How could I? Wouldn’t that have been before I was born?
Jon: …no. It was in 1995. Are you less than 23 years old?
Annabelle: Wait.
Jon: …What?
Annabelle: Wait a minute. Are you saying you were a kid in the nineties?
Jon: …good lord.
Annabelle: You’re a MILLENNIAL? *starts laughing*
Jon: *sighs* I’m too old for this, millennialism or no.
via suffering-raisin: #youre telling me annabelle is a zoomer#what the fuck I meant to imply that she’s not Gen Z, since Jon’s Web encounter was in fact after she was born. She was also apparently in post-graduate study (that spider experiment) in 2010, so that makes her an older millennial. However, my new headcanon is that she is, in fact, Gen Z (making her 24 or less) and she was in that study as an eight-year-old.
I have so much tma fic marked for later. But do I read it? No. I just keep putting more stuff on the marked for later list.
I made a Jonmartin fluff for the anniversary of Jon saving Martin from the Lonely! It is on ao3. Here is the link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34090753
Rating: G; Relationships: M/M (Jonmartin); Characters: Jon and Martin; Genre: fluff; Word Count: 924
Title: Maybe Thou Shalt Find Valimar
Summary: Jon and Martin, Somewhere Else.
Oh, also: can someone help me with embedding the link so it shows up in that rectangle thing? Also just…formatting it better. Is there an easier way to do it than just writing this info out?
Something that strikes me as odd is that people think Jon is being stupid for not believing the statements/being skeptical. But this implies he has. No reading comprehension skills? If he was stupid, he’d read about the anglerfish and go, “Okay. This is fine.” Or. Something.
But he reads about the anglerfish and goes, “Yeah…an apparently human figure talking without moving his mouth and floating seems hard to believe, since humans don’t do that.” And when a little voice speaks up and says, “You saw a giant spider kill someone. Who’s to say this wasn’t supernatural,” he ignores it and tries to make up some alternate explanation for it. And even then, he’s still going to look at all the facts. He doesn’t flat-out say they were lying, or something like that.
He’s in denial, not stupid.
Also, there’s reason to believe most of the statements are fake. (There’s one a week, unless otherwise stated—if Jon is there 40 hours a week, or more, there are hundreds of fake statements.) So if he reads a real one, before he Knows it’s real, he’s going to think it’s fake too. The only evidence he has to the contrary are that it doesn’t record on his computer (which doesn’t really mean anything) and that sometimes, there’s vague evidence of the supernatural that comes up.)
I’m not actually sure why people interpret his skepticism as stupidity and not not wanting to believe the supernatural. Honestly, it’s a little mean. In the first season, you have the same knowledge he does, plus the knowledge that you’re listening to a horror podcast. Why would you call the main character of a story stupid for not having knowledge he can’t obtain (at least not yet, I guess)?
I just realized that the five seasons of TMA match the five stages of grief.
Denial = Season 1. Jon’s in denial of the statements; he doesn’t let himself believe they’re true. (Because of, well, of survivor’s guilt indirectly, which makes this interesting.)
Anger = Season 2. Okay, Jon’s less angry than paranoid. But I wouldn’t be surprised if that manifested as anger. (I can’t remember Season 2 that clearly.)
Bargaining = Season 3. He’s getting hurt in order to get info.
JUDE
That’s him. I know where you can find him.
ARCHIVIST
Where?
JUDE
Not for free.
ARCHIVIST
Okay. What do you want?
JUDE
Oh, nothing much. Just shake my hand. -MAG 89
Depression = Season 4. This is the Lonely season, and, well, the Lonely is a metaphor for depression. Jon is very lonely, too. (He also does bargain, with Jared, but no one said this was a perfect analogy.)
Acceptance = Season 5. Jon sees everyone getting hurt and he accepts that he can’t change that. (I mean, he doesn’t like it, but he accepts it.) He says to Martin that killing the avatars won’t change anything.
Here’s a trend I noticed with Jonathan Sims.
Jon thinks very carefully before he speaks. Trying to explain what he wants or what he is going through or what he Knows/knows is always a slow and meticulous process. It always takes him a moment after someone asks him a question to get to the response. He searched for accurate wording thoughtfully and when finally answering, his explanations are pretty clear and comprehensible for the most part. When forced to answer quickly is when things become unclear and frustratingly vague.
But the people he deals with are some of the most impatient people I’ve heard in my life (and yes this includes Martin up to a certain point in the apocalypse when he actually understands Jon’s thought process).
Seriously! I’ve been relistening to some interactions between him and Tim, Melanie, Georgie, Basira and when they ask him a question and he, heavens forbid, takes a moment which is obviously to consider how to best word his response, they beat him to the punch by impatiently nagging him to get on with it, to be more clear, to start talking already.
It really feels like there is a double standard with responses from Jon. On one hand people expect him to explain himself clearly but then on the other hand also want it done quickly and in their pace. And for Jon it just. Doesn’t work like that. You want a fast answer? It’ll be vague and need elaboration. You want a comprehensive explanation? Let him take his time, goodness.
Reason #47385848 why the neurodivergents have latched onto this man.
For another trip down memory lane, this is the first post I saw about TMA on here. (Which I somehow recognized as TMA? Technically this wasn’t the exact iteration of the post, someone else I followed reblogged it, so I guess they tagged it as such.) Anyway, between Jon being headcanoned as neurodivergent and him being (canonically!) ace…
Well, it’s what made me, who doesn’t like horror movies, listen to a horror podcast.
Okay, and you know what’s weird, is I only followed the person that reblogged it bc another person did (and reblogged their stuff) and I only followed that person because I was in the Umbrella Academy fandom. So I’m in the TMA fandom partly because (or maybe almost all because) I was in the TUA fandom. Weirdest pipeline ever.
Don’t ask me why I’m in that fandom, but I watched the first episode and then watched the rest of season 1 and season 2 last summer, when season 2 came out. So I was only in that fandom by chance as well.
Or is it chance? *web emoji*
All of this and also I love the contrast of low empathy Martin who tries his ass off to be a good and kind person and a caregiver anyway, versus hyper empathetic Jon who isolates and repress himself and initially tries to keep people at arms length and is prickly. Cause having too much can be overwhelming instead of practical and doesn’t necessarily make you ‘nice’. (reply from @sirmarsian )
Oh boy this is some MAJOR projection territory, but I have so many feelings about it!!
For one, I love the headcanon for why he sounds so much more emotive when reading statements than any of the others, Martin included–he gets so deep into them beyond the supernatural level that affects everyone. I could imagine hyper-empathy just making that exponentially stronger.
Also the way Jon keeps others at a distance? And HOW MUCH he changes as soon as he allows himself to get close?? It was never a matter of “Jon teaching himself to care,” but rather Jon letting himself care. Which…gets to an extreme that’s downright unhealthy, when he lets it.
Hyper-empathy feels like….having super over-sensitive hearing, but emotionally. I had to change majors from nursing because my entire body would hurt from empathetic pain just hearing about injuries. I cried for three days after a coworker lost her cat. Secondhand embarrassment is like being dunked into lava. Interacting with people going through grief can be so painful there’s a huge urge to just avoid them entirely. In fact, that last one can easily become a lifestyle–just insulate and shut down and not let yourself think about it.
I could totally see that in how Jon responds to the statements he knows are real in season 1–he just finished living through that person’s experience, but the response to being so overwhelmed is to just seal it off and pretend it away (which also ties into the “how coping mechanisms can still hurt other people” discussion!). Jon’s past habits of self-isolating and keeping people at arm’s length also fits this so well, because as soon as he lets go of that, he’s just….a constant raw nerve. I wasn’t able to find a lot of great resources on it, but going down a ‘common symptoms’ list, you got:
- Going to great lengths to avoid provoking strong negative emotions in others (arguing against going with the team for drinks in s4, tiptoeing around asking Questions in s3, sneaking away from Basira to give a statement he feels may upset her in TMA 179)
- Being unable to let go of something happening to someone else, to the point of barely being able to function (fixating on Daisy being trapped or Martin’s isolation)
- Bonding so quickly with someone whose struggle he relates to (becoming friends with Daisy despite being traumatized from her, his entire meeting with Gerry)
- “Allowing others to be unkind to you because you feel sorry for them” (where do I even START)
- Feeling ‘flooded’ with pain for someone else, but being at a loss of how to express sympathy or comfort (the constant stream of apologizing for things he’s not even connected to)
- Difficulty parsing your own emotions/separating them from how you feel about others’ (”I feel……sad. Very sad.” “ It’s hard to know how I feel about anything these days.”)
Like I know this is firmly in headcanon territory since we have so many factors feeding into all of this, supernatural and otherwise, but tbh that just ends up making the whole show feel like a metaphor for hyper-empathy and burnout/compassion fatigue to me.
This is where I got the headcanon from, or somewhere like it, but dathen says it better than me, so…here it is. From last year. I had barely heard of TMA last year. Somehow I found this post, though, in May 2021.
I seem to get like half my ideas from other posts, which I suppose is fine. I just wish I could credit them properly. Anyway. Edit: this post and this post
High empathy Jon and low empathy Martin. Jon, who gets into the character of each statement. Who’d feel their fear with or without the Eye. Who would commit one world to destruction for the sake of infinite others. Who’d do everything for others, even at his own cost. And Martin, who’s learned to care about other people. Doing acts of service like making tea. Who puts a dichotomy of good and bad avatars, and encourages Jon to smite them because they were bad.
(Not saying either high or low empathy is good or bad.)
OH
the anglerfish is using a person’s skin as a lure and wiggling it around
I just got this upon relisten
wow
Some nights you just cry yourself to sleep curled up against boxes in the Archives.
It’s what happens when you never leave.
jom with the jender
[ID: a simple picture of Jon Sims from The Magnus Archives on a white background. He is a thin brown person with grey-streaked dark hair, square glasses and scruff, wearing a maroon cardigan, a sage green jumper, charcoal grey boots and a coral red maxi skirt. They look down at themselves and their outfit, arms spread slightly. Above them is a post by tumblr user twinko, which makes it seem as though Jon is saying, “I don’t dress like a “boy” or a “girl,” I dress like you should not ask me to lift any heavy items.” End description.]
The conversation between Jon and Martin where Martin starts just asking Spooky Google, otherwise known as Jon, things is really good at being exposition without feeling forced. It’s things that he might actually wonder, or that he might wonder (is there a god? would we have succumbed to climate change?) and it sets up the boundaries of Jon’s omniscience (he can’t know the future, he can’t know whether other forms of the supernatural exist, he can’t know much about the Fears, etc.) really well!
I know people already did the ethics of the sending-fears-to-other-worlds, but I have a good way of setting it up (hopefully it’s good!). This is honestly more for me to have something written out than anything else.
So, I think Martin is being very utilitarian about it, where you have to do the most good, and that is final. That is how you make decisions, always. That is why I’m gonna use utiles, which are basically Good Points, like in The Good Place. In this, I’m only counting people dying into it, as 1 utile. You don’t get more utiles for saving Adelaird Dekker than you do Jonah Magnus. (Which is also an interesting point about this idea.)
Martin’s plan
· saves everyone in their world from torture and eventual, painful death
· potentially hurts millions of others, especially if the other worlds have apocalypses
· +7B utiles*, -1 utile (Jonah), potentially -2 utiles (at least Jon, if not Martin?), potentially uncountable negative utiles
Martin is not thinking about potentials here since he has a fairly black-and-white morality. So, his plan looks like this to him.
*I realize that technically they would die anyway no matter what, but that’s not really the point.
Martin’s plan, in his mind
· saves everyone in their world from torture and eventual, painful death
· kills Jonah (which is good!), might kill Jon??? (which is bad!)
· so it comes out to +~7B utiles
And since Martin isn’t counting potentials into it, he thinks Jon’s plan looks like this:
Jon’s plan
· condemns the Fears to one world, killing them eventually
· will torture and kill the entire world eventually
· -7B utiles
However, if they did absolutely nothing, everyone would still die. Therefore, Jon is thinking of his plan like this.
Jon’s plan, in his mind
· will kill everyone eventually
· but would certainly never hurt anyone in any other world
· for net zero utiles
And Jon sees Martin’s plan, with its ‘potential uncountable negative utiles’, as coming out to, basically, negative utilitarian infinity. Any plan seems better than that.
I don’t know what that ethical idea is, or if there is an exact one; I haven’t gotten that far in my class yet. But it’s just interesting to have that way to know how they see each other’s plans.
I don’t really know which one I’d pick, honestly. I think I’d go with Martin’s plan, but I get why Jon did what he did.
why
why is there someone saying Jon was dumb about breaking the table again
and saying Sasha had the most brain cells
they’re both high intelligence low wisdom
Sasha got two marks in one day, more than Jon ever did (in one day)
went and talked to some random spooky dude in a graveyard
like, I love you Sasha, but you’re not that wise
and the table
okay, so if it’s bound to the table, and Jon doesn’t see this thing literally lying on top of the table, bound, it must be literally in the table, by some dream logic
right? right
so if you break the table, you break the not!them
right? right
Michael calls him stupid because with the requisite knowledge, it was stupid, but he didn’t have said knowledge
how was he to know that something which pretends to be something else was Stranger and not Web when he didn’t know about the Fears? the Web is about lying and manipulation, anyway…
plus,
“It was long and thin, the tops of it bent against the ceiling and its stick-like limbs flailed from too many joints and elbows. Wrapped around it were thick strands of what I think was spider’s web“ (MAG 78)
“Against that darkness I could see the thin grey strands wrapped around the limbs of my former bully. And then, from inside, stretched two impossibly long limbs, bony and covered in coarse, black hair.” (MAG 81)
yeah, so the spider imagery isn’t gonna throw him off here. he’ll assume that the not!them is part of the web table. break the artifact, destroy the monster.
actually, given the similarity of this to the very first encounter with the fears he’s ever had, he probably really wants to destroy this table.
acting on all the knowledge he had at the time, that was not a stupid decision
This is partly inspired by a post headcanoning that Jon has dyslexia. (This is kind of long, sorry. I might ao3 it??? Did I just use ao3 as a verb? [Yes. Yes I did.]) Edit: I found that post! Yay! Link to the post
…
A small house in Scotland. The fire is blazing, since it is early October in the Scottish Highlands. Jon and Martin sit in surprisingly comfortable, green-upholstered chairs. They are reading. Jon is reading some five-dollar fantasy book Martin picked up at the village bookstore. Martin can tell he does not like the book from the expression on his face. He’s reading a romance novel. He had to defend this choice to Jon for some reason, even though he’d already bought the book and Jon probably knew it wasn’t fair to judge his reading choices, but his reason was that he just wanted some fluff for a change. Also romance novels tended to be profoundly un-Lonely books, as the end goal was intimacy.
“Oh, please,” says Jon. “This totally contradicts the lore in the previous chapter!” Martin can’t hold back a snicker. Jon glares at him from over the top of his book. “What, Martin?” he says, with no heat behind it. It still makes Martin nervous. It’s not like his glares have really changed since they were directed at him for being worthless.
“Oh, uh, um…nothing really. I’m just…I love to hear you ranting about that terrible book. It’s very…entertaining?” he says. That wasn’t the right word to use, was it? Jon wasn’t doing it to entertain. Jon raises his eyebrows and lowers the book. Martin wants to turtle into himself.
“I…see. Martin, it’s, it’s fine,” says Jon, seeing Martin’s reaction. He smiles gently. “Martin, I, uh, would feel the same way. Georgie used to rant over sexist movies and books all the time. I would be…enraptured.” Enraptured. What a nerd, Martin thinks fondly.
“Okay, that’s good. Um, now I kind of want you to read it to me, so we can both see how bad it is.” Martin’s expecting Jon to laugh a little, or at least ponder over the suggestion with good humor. He doesn’t expect Jon to whiten. Jon’s hands clench around the book, although he still looks right at Martin.
“I, uh, um. Let’s, um. I think. Um. Well, you see…” Jon rambles, not really coming to any conclusions. Martin looks at him, wondering why he’s so nervous.
“Jon, if you don’t want to, you can just say that. I’ll read it after you finish. I was just thinking, since your voice is so nice, and you read those, well,” he doesn’t necessarily want to reference the statements, “you’re a great narrator.” Jon looks more stricken, but smiles weakly.
“Th-thank you. Martin.” He sounds like he did before Prentiss here. Clipped. Curt. He only does that when there’s something he doesn’t want to say, when he’s hiding something. Well, or he feels actually irritated for another reason. “I, I believe I will pass here.”
“Okay! That’s all you had to say.” Martin smiles. Jon nods and returns to his book. A few seconds pass like that before Martin blurts out, “But why don’t you want to?” Crap, why can’t he just…keep his mouth shut? He flinches again, reflexively. He’s going to get yelled at, he knows it.
No yelling comes. Martin looks at Jon. Jon is looking at him with the most heart-melting look he’s ever seen, and this counts puppies. He looks concerned and afraid (why afraid?) and loving and those huge brown eyes are—Martin clears his throat. Jon blinks. The fire literally flickers. The entire thing, like a lightbulb.
“Um, sorry, I guess the Eye wanted to jump in there.” Jon sighs. He looks ashamed now. Why ashamed? “Martin, I…dear god. I’m terrible at…trusting? I, I mean, I trust you. I do. But sometimes trusting people for small things is, is harder in…practice than big things. At least, at least for me. Uh…” He sighs again. Martin frowns. “Don’t—ah. It’s just…I have dyslexia, Martin.” Martin blinks.
“Oh. Oh. So you didn’t want—oh, Jon! That’s not—I—but what about the statements?” he says.
“The Eye helped, like it helped statement givers tell coherent stories about their trauma. And, nevertheless...I still did mess up a little bit, early on.”
“Oh. Okay. And—and would you have read that story…” Martin can’t finish the sentence. He has the feeling Jon knows what he means, though. Jon looks conflicted now. He looks down at the book still gripped in his hands.
“…didn’t want you to think I was…stupid,” he mumbles. Martin can hear it, though, but doesn’t press. Jon looks back up at him. “It would have been…slow going. It wouldn’t have been, uh, fun, I guess, for you. Or, or me, really. I like reading and narrating, but when both are a challenge, and, and a separate one, I, uh. Don’t find too much enjoyment in it.” Martin nods.
“Right. I totally get that. But, uh, I…why didn’t you say that? I mean, I can see that you’re, uh, I guess, ashamed of being dyslexic, which is complete BS, but did you think I would…laugh at you? Like, really really, not lizard brain really.” Jon sighs and shakes his head.
“I…you…Martin, I…” Martin shifts in his seat but keeps his mouth shut. “No. I didn’t think you’d laugh at me. Or, or be mean about me having dyslexia. I didn’t really really, at least, as you say. It’s just that, it felt like a lie that I would have broken.” Martin doesn’t get it, but he keeps waiting. “You’ve…heard me. All those times. Reading statements. I know you, uh, you like listening to me, which I will admit activates the theater kid part of my brain. And, I, I didn’t want to destroy that idea of me.” Martin looks at him. Then it hits him like an extended, brutal pipe.
“Jon! I love more about you than your voice! Or, or your storytelling ability! Listen, I love those things because you have a very soothing voice and are good at acting. But, but Jon, I…they’re just parts of you! And I, I love you.” It’s there. He’s said it. “All of you. Which means, well, you’re…it’s not like I’ve never seen you before! I love you for the way your hair falls over your face and your dry humor and your trust that I can be worth something! If you never spoke again, Jon,” and he’s standing now. Why is he standing? His voice has risen in intensity and pitch. Jon is looking up at him in mild alarm. “If you never spoke again, I’d still love you. I love you,” and now he’s kneeling. Christ, why is he kneeling? “I love you, Jon, because you’re Jon. This is just one part of you. Because, Jon, I like you, not the Archivist.” Martin’s slightly winded now, for whatever reason. Jon’s eyes are brimming with tears. Has he done something wrong?
Jon slides down from his chair, putting his book on the table, and hugs him, bony limbs flying into his chest and under his arms. He lays his head on Martin’s shoulder, silvery and dark hair falling everywhere. So, no. Martin has not done something wrong.
“I love you, Martin,” Jon says, muffled in his shoulder. “I, um, I needed to hear that. You…you are worth something. You’re worth this. You’re worth, you’re worth that same speech you gave to me. That same love I don’t feel like I’m worthy of half the time, you, you are.” Why is Jon consoling him? “You are worth a safe future to make up for your past. And I will give it to you.” They’re both crying now. They stay like that for a while, fire blazing, books forgotten.
The next day is October 18, 2018.
…an incomplete list, as this is off the top of my head. Add on in the notes, I guess!
- breaking the table (as it is genre-savvy)
- figuring out where Gertrude kept her laptop by the squeak of a floorboard
- keeping Trevor from killing Martin so he could be used as bait without any Beholding powers
- figuring out how to smite Helen
- remembering statements by number (MAG 33)
- being skeptical of the statements, honestly (to an extent—people do not get encased in spiderwebs just naturally, Jon, and I know why you were in denial about that one in particular—but, really, he’s in an academic institution. We know they’re supernatural because the summary of TMA is “a weekly horror fiction podcast”; meanwhile like ten percent? Less? Very few people encounter the fears in the world of TMA)
- via ofdreamsanddoodles: being suspicious of his job, as someone had died there, and being suspicious of his coworkers, as they are the reasonable suspects (to add on, he was right about them hiding stuff, and Elias did kill Gertrude) (9/17/21)
- via dieanywhereelseart: hiding from the cops in the most surveiled city that isn’t in China, as well as from a Hunt avatar (9/18/21)
- via a post made by dathen: making the plan to arrest Elias in season 3 and noticing the date stamp on a statement (9/18/21)
Jon: “No-one ever believes me when I tell them my age. I don’t know if it’s the already greying hair or something in my demeanour, but they always act surprised when I mention being a child in the Nineties.” (MAG 81)
1995:
An Adult: How old are you?
Jon, 8: *stares off into distance* ‘old enough to have seen horrors beyond your comprehension’ *continues staring*
An Adult: *slowly backs away*
2005:
Georgie: What’s your favorite band?
Jon: *has only listened to his grandmother’s records*…Glenn Miller. I mean, if you want a band, probably…the Andrews Sisters. *tries to think frantically of a normal band* Oh, and the Spice Girls!
Narrator: Jon did not know that the Spice Girls broke up in 2000. Technically, neither did the author until now.
Georgie: …how are you 18?
2013:
Tim: Jon, I need your password. What year were you born, 1964?
Jon: *as dry as humanly possible* 1987.
Tim: Wait, what? So, you’re like…25?
Jon: *sighs* I try not to think about it.
About six months after October 18, 2018:
Jon: Annabelle, did you have anything to do with Mr. Spider?
Annabelle: Perhaps. Wait, what? How could I? Wouldn’t that have been before I was born?
Jon: …no. It was in 1995. Are you less than 23 years old?
Annabelle: Wait.
Jon: …What?
Annabelle: Wait a minute. Are you saying you were a kid in the nineties?
Jon: …good lord.
Annabelle: You’re a MILLENNIAL? *starts laughing*
Jon: *sighs* I’m too old for this, millennialism or no.
…an incomplete list, as this is off the top of my head. Add on in the notes, I guess!
- breaking the table (as it is genre-savvy)
- figuring out where Gertrude kept her laptop by the squeak of a floorboard
- keeping Trevor from killing Martin so he could be used as bait without any Beholding powers
- figuring out how to smite Helen
- remembering statements by number (MAG 33)
- being skeptical of the statements, honestly (to an extent—people do not get encased in spiderwebs just naturally, Jon, and I know why you were in denial about that one in particular—but, really, he’s in an academic institution. We know they’re supernatural because the summary of TMA is “a weekly horror fiction podcast”; meanwhile like ten percent? Less? Very few people encounter the fears in the world of TMA)
via whenwillthealiensabductme #i love seeing fellow fans drink their ‘jon wasn’t stupid actually’ juice It’s the best juice!
…an incomplete list, as this is off the top of my head. Add on in the notes, I guess!
- breaking the table (as it is genre-savvy)
- figuring out where Gertrude kept her laptop by the squeak of a floorboard
- keeping Trevor from killing Martin so he could be used as bait without any Beholding powers
- figuring out how to smite Helen
- remembering statements by number (MAG 33)
- being skeptical of the statements, honestly (to an extent—people do not get encased in spiderwebs just naturally, Jon, and I know why you were in denial about that one in particular—but, really, he’s in an academic institution. We know they’re supernatural because the summary of TMA is “a weekly horror fiction podcast”; meanwhile like ten percent? Less? Very few people encounter the fears in the world of TMA)
via dieanywherelseart: #also?? mans hid from the cops??? bro i know canonically they’re less likely to care about supernatural crimes#but jon managed to evade conviction as well as an avatar of the fucking hunt for ages#the surveillance in london is so cracked out i have no idea how he managed to do that#with like NO premeditiation either???#mans can really think on his feet like i would just cry Yeah, that’s true! I didn’t think about the surveilance part since we get that fact until like MAG 189 (and I don’t live anywhere near London, or England, or Europe).
…an incomplete list, as this is off the top of my head. Add on in the notes, I guess!
- breaking the table (as it is genre-savvy)
- figuring out where Gertrude kept her laptop by the squeak of a floorboard
- keeping Trevor from killing Martin so he could be used as bait without any Beholding powers
- figuring out how to smite Helen
- remembering statements by number (MAG 33)
- being skeptical of the statements, honestly (to an extent—people do not get encased in spiderwebs just naturally, Jon, and I know why you were in denial about that one in particular—but, really, he’s in an academic institution. We know they’re supernatural because the summary of TMA is “a weekly horror fiction podcast”; meanwhile like ten percent? Less? Very few people encounter the fears in the world of TMA)
#also objectively being suspicious of your job when someone has like#DIED there is not a bad move#&
arguably assuming a coworker is responsible shouldnt be considered
stupid when he did have someone working w him who wanted him dead (not via ofdreamsanddoodles Yeah, that’s not stupid. Did he go a bit overboard with it? Yes. But you’re right, it’s a reasonable decision. After all, the assistants suspect him of murder too.
Okay, I lied. *burns your hand* This is the last post of the night.
This is a thing I thought of, uncreatively called “Jon Reads A Creepypasta”.
Sasha can hardly hold in her laughter as Jon walks in to his office. Tim is trying his best to be disapproving, as it’s not very nice to Jon, but he finds it funny as well.
“Sasha,” says Martin, “what exactly have you done?” Sasha puts a finger over her mouth. Tim rolls her eyes. They hear Jon sigh from inside. It is a very heavy, put-upon, Dramatic Jon sigh. The acoustics are such that the assistants can hear him mutter “how old do they think I am?” Sasha frowns. She’s a little disappointed that Jon realized what the fake statement was so fast. Now he won’t read it.
Then they hear him mutter, “Oh, what the hell…” and click the tape recorder on. “Statement of Anonymous on 4chan, regarding…a hook man. Original statement given 19 June, 2012. Audio recording…” all very drily. Sasha and Tim look at each other in confusion at first, then in hilarity as he continues.
“man & girl go out to drive under moonlight. they stop at on at a side of road. he turn to his girl and say…” Jon’s warm, dry voice puts dramatic intent into every word, as if this is a Stephen King novel and not a terribly written Internet post. Martin, surprisingly, is first to snicker, breaking when Jon does not stumble at “at on at”.
He narrates the conversation between the couple, giving the man a very gruff voice and the woman an…old lady’s voice? Tim guesses he’s going for cartoonish damsel-in-distress.
“so the guy left to get full for the car”, Jon says with the utmost seriousness. Tim breaks into hysterical laughter when he says, “where is my baby” in a frankly ridiculous voice. Sasha soon follows.
It builds from there, Jon’s faux-seriousness bringing them all to tears, to the final words: “man door hand hook car door”, which he says slowly, ominously, as if they are words of power. He lets the final diphthong ring out over the archives, the sound lingering in the air, before saying “statement ends” with a smile that would have been audible if the assistants had not been quite literally rolling on the floor laughing.
Inside the office, Jon smiles. It is easier to not worry about professionalism when you can’t see your coworkers, he muses.
He knows when to give the people what they want. He was a theater kid, after all.
Jon picks up the next real statement and begins to record.
OG Sasha’s voice is so soothing, honestly
More vague Magnus Archives from my life:
My dad was driving me to kung fu and the car stopped on its own because it was getting too close to the truck in front of us. I was like “why’d the car stop” and he said the above. Then he said that “you think you’re in control of the car, but you’re not. It’s like life.” (paraphrased)
Me: *eyes emoji* *web emoji*
Him: “You think you have free will, but you don’t. It’s just all part of the machine.” (paraphrased)
Me: *MAG 147: Weaver flashes before my eyes*
Also, later he was hiding in the bathroom and whistling randomly because he knew it would make us confused. This is because whistling means to come to the person, usually for dinner. He was just doing this for no reason.
I know a Web avatar when I see one…/lh but still *eyes emoji*
and also the side gate is really creaky when it opens/closes and it sounds pretty much like a) any creaky door in a horror movie but b) especially Helen’s doors. So that’s what I think of every time.
Jon: “if I die, it’s just another monster gone” (or whatever it is he said, I already have too many tabs open)
Me: *takes him gently by the shoulders* that wretchedness you feel? That is so human. To feel so deeply that you have done wrong that your heart breaks. To rescue someone that would have killed you. And to want to be something more, that’s so, so human.
Okay, remember the post I made about Jon keeping Trevor talking so he didn’t kill Martin so he would be bait for Basira? This is sort of the sequel to that.
In MAG 187, when he smites Helen, I thought that was also really scarily smart.
ARCHIVIST
I see. How long have you been working with Elias?
HELEN
I’m not.
ARCHIVIST
[Faux-shocked] Helen! Is that… a lie?
HELEN
No! No, it’s not. I don’t know him. I’ve never even – Look, I’m happy here, all right? This world is fabulous, and I don’t want you to end it all because you’ve got a chip on your shoulder.
I don’t think this is a lie, here. Because Jon says later that she never quite lies. So, maybe Jon is actually suspicious, although you’d think he could tell. Although (again), he may not trust his own ability to see through delusion incarnate.
Anyway, Jon asks if it’s a lie, and Helen is very scared. (I mean, way to show your cards, being audibly scared in front of the chronicle of terror incarnate.)
So, Jon’s like ‘I will remember that’ and tries to figure out what Helen’s true nature is. Probably because he’s figuring out how to smite her. And when Jon asks Helen if she’s afraid of him, which he knows she is, as, you know, she was afraid in front of the chronicle of terror incarnate.
And why was she scared? Because Jon thought she was lying, or knew she was lying, whichever. She was scared because a lie would be her undoing, something that is categorically untrue. Helen is very afraid of the Archivist.
Maybe she should simply have been afraid of Jon. He really did trap the Distortion in a lie, catch her in a web of her own making, and unravel it, for she is made of half-truths and deceit, and she is the web of her own making, and she is the spiral that is straightened by the iron press of truth. And the unravelling may have been the Watcher’s doing, but the trapping was all Jon.
…an incomplete list, as this is off the top of my head. Add on in the notes, I guess!
Does anyone have the TMA swear chart post saved? I had it saved and now it’s not there and I can’t find it with tumblr search because it’s messier than Gertrude’s archives…
and I need it for a fic because it’s good to know while writing, how they swear. And, you know, I don’t want to have to do it myself.
I was listening to Across The Street again for…background Jon (as in background music, don’t ask)…and I’m confused by the sentence in this paragraph?
“I’d be tempted to dismiss this as hallucination resulting from long-term head trauma complications, but Tim came through with this one and managed to get hold of Ms. Patel’s medical records. God knows how he got them, but he’d better not be using Institute funds to woo filing clerks again. The records just don’t support the idea she was suffering those sorts of problems. Not to mention I usually trust co-worker testimony as far as I can burn it, but her job really doesn’t seem like the sort you could do with a compromised sense of reality. Ms. Patel has refused our request for a follow-up interview and seems to be trying to distance herself from these events.“
I don’t really get what he means by coworker testimony. I remember Jon also saying something about not trusting stuff from people in academia as it might be a trick, but Amy doesn’t work in academics.
I mean, it appears to be talking about Tim, but isn’t that an odd choice of words for Tim walking into his office and saying “yeah, she didn’t have head trauma”? I am just. Unnecessarily confused.
Edit: I have been helped to understand what this means now. That sounds so ominous, and it’s not (just look in the notes), but I am not going to change the wording to be less dramatic.
Jonny Sims really took ‘if looks could kill’ to a whole new level
if I was in a Spiral domain focused on corridors that trick you in some way (e.g. the Distortion, wizard prison), I would simply just recognize the trope and not care about whether it makes sense and just go with it, rip but I’m different
/tongue-in-cheek, but also (probably?) true
My mom is not convinced that The Magnus Archives is a scary podcast because she’s only ever listened to “The New Door” and “Literary Heights”, and I think she’s forgotten about the latter.
Granted, neither of those are that scary. (To me, at least.) According to her, “TND” is more of a mystery. Which, yeah…
It’s just funny, though. You really can pick and choose ones that don’t affect people.
“ARCHIVIST
Well, we’ll need to do some investigation into a few of the details that you [Naomi] raised, but at first impressions I’d say it was only real insofar as trauma can have a very real effect on the mind. Beyond that, it’s difficult to prove either way, but I would suggest you leave the stone with us, so we can study it. And it would likely help you move past this unpleasant incident. Some time with a more… qualified care professional might also prove helpful.”
Whether or not Naomi Herne’s experience was supernatural (which it was, as Jon and everyone else now know), his suggestion of her getting therapy is a totally valid suggestion!
She was so lonely that the death of her boyfriend caused her to almost lose herself in a supernatural metaphor for depression. Therapy might be helpful.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/33849190
“Jon had nightmares as well as good dreams, although they were his own, and not others he was forced to watch. The Fears still wanted to torment him every now and then, apparently. And Martin noticed that he could tell, if he was woken up by one of those nightmares, which Fear was bothering him, by what eyes opened on Jon’s body. “
I wrote a fic! I actually had it in my computer for a while, but now that I made an ao3, I thought I might post it and see if anyone likes it.
Here are the tags:
Hearing Lydia Nichols’s laugh in the bonus content is just :). She has the best laugh, honestly.
But it made me think that we never hear it from Melanie. Maybe a bitter laugh, but not a happy one, like that. We never see her hanging out with her friends and just…laughing out loud, randomly.
We never see that for anyone, really.
You know how every third post on here is vaguely reminiscent of TMA? Like, enough that we have not one but two blogs about it?
This probably happens to Jon and Martin if when they get Somewhere Else, but way more intensely, and probably…worse.
I mean, I guess that’s just called trauma triggers.
:(
I want to keep going on it but right now it’s walking a fine line between silly (because TMA brainrot is silly in a world where TMA is fictional) and angsty (because, you know, trauma) and if I keep going I’ll fall off.
Okay, there’s something weird that’s also really random about TMA. In the Season 4 Q&A, someone wonders how Jonny did the ritual in one breath. (I think we can assume that means the part where he invokes all the other fears? Because he clearly, for dramatic purposes, takes a breath after each other line.)
But the thing is, it’s not that hard to do just that part in one breath? Just the bring all that is fear paragraph, that is. I have, like, eight months of singing lessons and taking a massive breath beforehand to counter narrow airways and one working vocal cord, and I could do it.
So if I could do it, it doesn’t seem that strange that someone who was in a band and is a voice actor (and in a school choir, but the asker didn’t know about that) could do it. I mean, I have a bad respiratory/vocal system, as detailed above, and I could do it with proper technique and a massive breath (the two things one should always have with you in life, of course).
Right? I feel like I’m missing something here. Also, this is not to be mean to the poser of that question; I’m just confused as to why they were confused.
It’s hard, and I’m not saying I can do it as well as Jonny (obviously!—I had to take a massive breath, after all), but it’s not..as hard as they made it sound, I guess?
You know the quote in MAG 159 “I don’t just want to survive”? I always think he says “I want to live” afterwards, but he doesn’t. The implied second part is just so strong in my head that it seems like he does.
home - a tma pmv
OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHMYOGDJDSBJHDSB YOOOO EVERYONE NEEDS TO GO WATCH THIS RI GH T NOWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
I don’t know how wild a take this is, but I was thinking about how it’s kind of weird to make the Web sentient at the end, since it’s really one part of a fear soup and all that. Why would only one part of it be able to plan and think? Fear doesn’t plan anyway. It isn’t rational.
The Fears are shaped by humans, like how since Jonah and Jon think of the Fears in Smirke’s 14, that’s why the ritual is that way. (I can’t remember if I saw this somewhere else or not, but it’s possible.) How we think of them sort of defines them.
And the Web is all about manipulation and being controlled. So its avatars probably assume they are being controlled, carrying out some greater plan to widen the crack and all that.
But what if it’s not? What if it’s just…their collective unconscious? (Not necessarily specifically Jung’s collective unconscious, but maybe.) Like a Ouija board where people move the ring (?) to the letters…subconsciously? Because the avatars thought they were being manipulated, the Fears reflected that and it made a sort of…well, web between all of them. Throughout the centuries, all Web avatars planned this great plan to escape to other realities.
I suppose this weird idea implies that It Really Was Them All Along, which makes it scarier, I guess. It’s scarier if it was Just Luck All Along, because it’s like a landslide where every choice just pushes you irrevocably down a path of life. There’s no puppetmaster; it’s just you and everyone else and everything else.
I do want to note that it’s possible this fits into ”theories that can’t happen and would fit into red-string retrospective week”.
#are you kidding that makes way more sense#esp considering the whole show was essentially like#metaphor for capitalism#so many ppl talk about ‘the economy’ as if it has a voice#but it DOESNT#its just a collection of human action OHHHHHHHHHHH of course
Probably people have noticed this but it really makes perfect sense that Martin is so jealous. I mean, it’s irrational—Oliver never spoke to Jon, and Helen was not exactly flirting with him or something. But it makes sense.
Okay, so you know how the Lonely and the Corruption are kind of opposites. In a way? Like, getting corrupted usually follows being lonely. Like in the new statement, “A Hole In The Ground”, the main character was really lonely, and that made way for the creature to siphon her life away and have her give everything to it. If you’re lonely, you want to be loved. And the Corruption promises that.
But the Corruption is all about toxic love. Jealousy and clinginess. And Jon just pulled Martin out of the Lonely. He had no one. And now he had Jon. Of course he is clingy. Of course he doesn’t want Jon to be with anybody else.
I mean, I can pull an example or two from my own life. I’m a pretty lonely person myself (partly from hearing loss, as it’s kind of isolating, honestly, but that’s another story) and for a long time only had one friend. And right around the time when I made that friend I saw her hanging out with another person (which is how you live, I know, I was eight) and was jealous. Just platonically.
So once they’re somewhere else, Martin had better get some friends so he can deal with Jon talking to other people and caring about them. Because it may make perfect sense for his character, but it’s not a good thing. It could go really badly.
Listening to MAG 189, I couldn’t sympathize with the person in the domain. Like, everyone wants him to help because they’re his constituents and he’s like “AAAAA” and I’m like…sucks for you. Go help them. Everyone’s watching him as he tries to make a speech and he can’t do it because he’s got stage fright and I’m like why did you become a politician then dude?
I don’t know how wild a take this is, but I was thinking about how it’s kind of weird to make the Web sentient at the end, since it’s really one part of a fear soup and all that. Why would only one part of it be able to plan and think? Fear doesn’t plan anyway. It isn’t rational.
The Fears are shaped by humans, like how since Jonah and Jon think of the Fears in Smirke’s 14, that’s why the ritual is that way. (I can’t remember if I saw this somewhere else or not, but it’s possible.) How we think of them sort of defines them.
And the Web is all about manipulation and being controlled. So its avatars probably assume they are being controlled, carrying out some greater plan to widen the crack and all that.
But what if it’s not? What if it’s just…their collective unconscious? (Not necessarily specifically Jung’s collective unconscious, but maybe.) Like a Ouija board where people move the ring (?) to the letters…subconsciously? Because the avatars thought they were being manipulated, the Fears reflected that and it made a sort of…well, web between all of them. Throughout the centuries, all Web avatars planned this great plan to escape to other realities.
I suppose this weird idea implies that It Really Was Them All Along, which makes it scarier, I guess. It’s scarier if it was Just Luck All Along, because it’s like a landslide where every choice just pushes you irrevocably down a path of life. There’s no puppetmaster; it’s just you and everyone else and everything else.
I do want to note that it’s possible this fits into ”theories that can’t happen and would fit into red-string retrospective week”.