My headcanon about Michael Shelley and Gerard Keay’s gender is that Michael is very well-read on gender studies. He’s very well educated on the topic and if you asked him about his pronouns he’d go into a long conversation about his gender identify and what it means to him in specific.
Then if you ask Gerard his gender identity it would just be this conversation:
Jon: “And your pronouns are?”
Gerard: “Wherever the wind takes you.”
Jon:
Jon: “Would you like to elaborate?”
Gerard: “That’s all I’ve got.”
I couldn’t recommend Marble Hornets enough for anyone who likes Jonathan Sims as a character.
The main character in Marble Hornets, Jay, absolutely went to Jon’s school of “You don’t understand. I have to go aimlessly walking through the woods to find more knowledge because not-knowing will drive me crazy faster than the horrors,” and I love him.
He’s the most eye-coded character to ever exist outside of TMA, and honestly so is the series in general. The main plot is about Jay finding old tapes from his college days and then getting sucked into a world that he both refuses to walk away from and can’t walk away from… which should sound really familiar to a TMA enjoyer.
So yeah anyways this is me trying to spread my Marble Hornets agenda because it was my first taste of internet horror content and absolutely one of the reasons why I was so interested in TMA when I first heard about it.
Do you think fear entities hate April Fool’s Day because people are less-likely to think their manifestations are real and more likely to think they’re just a prank by someone? Because that seems like it could be a problem for them. Especially The Spiral and The Stranger who rely on people doubting their perception of reality.
avatarofthearchives:
The Tumblr app is an avatar of The Spiral who functions by always making itself just a little worst but never enough to make its last few users leave.
Tumblr desktop is an avatar of The Spiral who functions by always making itself just a little worst but never enough to make its last few users leave.
Melanie King and Jonathan Sims are very similar characters. This is pointed out in Melanie’s conversation with Georgie in Season 5. when she acknowledges that their similarities probably have something to do with why she dislikes Jon so much. However, I’d like to point out that they’re so alike they even have similar backstories using the story Melanie tells Jon about why she got kicked out of the ghost hunting community.
Melanie realized that there was a huge list of places that her colleagues stayed clear of and decided to investigate. = Jon spends the entire series poking his nose into things most people would stay clear of.
Melanie’s friends started to distance themselves from her because she started crossing unspoken lines = Again, Jon through the whole series really, but a good example of this is when Jon awakes from his coma. His survival crosses an unspoken line, and everyone except Martin and Daisy push him away because of it.
Melanie started hearing not so subtle warnings about straying from the path but she felt like she couldn’t go back after she had seen something strange. She couldn’t ignore the call. = Jon gets told by EVERYONE at some point that he’s walking a path he can’t easily find his way back from, and yet he keeps going because he can’t ignore a call once he’s heard it say his name.
She started talking to people less. She stopped sharing her research. By the time something bad happened to her and needed support everyone had already given up on her partially as a consequence of her own reclusive behavior = This is just Jon’s arc in Season 2. He stalks his coworkers and doesn’t hide at all how little he trusts them. He hides the things he’s investigating from them, and when the time comes when he DOES need their support, Tim has already given up on him and he and Martin aren’t as close as they could have been.
Melanie and Jon are the same person, just in different fonts. Which was basically a death knell for any friendship that could have been between them. Both of them are too filled with too much self-loathing to be able to look at another person and feel comfortable seeing a mirror back. And that’s really the biggest cause of conflict between them.
“But doorkeay doesn’t make sense because Michael and Gerard never met in the canon timeline -” Canonically, Gertrude has four different dates of death. The timeline is what you make of it.
Which Role The Magnus Archive Characters Would Have In A Murder Mystery
Gertrude - Gertrude is the detective who’s taken it on herself to investigate the case. She won’t stop until it’s solved.
Gerard - Gerard is the detective’s assistant who’s helping Gertrude investigate the crime. He is mostly there to be witty but he will point out something that rolled under a bed/couch/chair at some point and a say “What’s that?” while Gertrude goes to pick it up.
Elias - Elias is the culprit of this case. He really just can’t help himself.
Peter - Peter is the one who Elias tries to frame for the crime. After Elias lost one too many bets to him, he decided the only way to get him back was to frame him for murder. It almost worked too. If it weren’t for those meddling Institute workers.
Michael Shelley - Michael is the victim. He is doomed by the narrative even in a Tumblr post. He was killed because he walked in on Elias trying to steal a Leitner tome from Gertrude’s purse.
Georgie - Georgie is the party host. She didn’t want to be involved with a murder. She just wanted to have her friends over and eat a cheese board, which is far too much to ask for when you’re in the middle of the murder mystery genre.
Jon - Jon is the red-herring that everyone is initially suspicious of. The last time anyone saw him before the murder he was going to look for Michael to ask him for help clarifying something about a statement. Which made him the prime suspect for a period of time.
Sasha - Sasha is the vital eye-witness. She see’s Jon on the porch at the time of the time crime (he decided to smoke a cigarette before talking to Michael) and therefore she’s able to clear his name.
Basira and Daisy - Basira and Daisy are the cops that show up near the end with extremely relevant information about the past that is somehow very relevant to the present case. In this AU let’s say they’ve confronted Elias before on suspicion of stealing a Leitner, but nothing ever came of it.
Melanie King - Melanie is the one who saves the day. She tapes Elias giving a heated confession to Gertrude and that end’s up being the prime evidence of the case. Or she just like…jumps him. IDK go with your preferred interpretation.
Martin - Martin is a house party version of the butler. He just wanted to bring everyone tea and snacks and he ends up wrapped up in a murder mystery. This time the butler didn’t do it.
Tim - Tim personality guest. He is just there to be entertaining and fill in a chair, but then he gets super into it and ends up having a pretty good moment where he confronts the killer.
My favorite Jared Hopworth fact is that he worked for the mafia for a little while and then decided to become a gym owner with no elaboration. Which, of course, is before the apocalypse where he becomes a “gardener” in his dominion.
You can say what you will about Jared, and most of those things are true, but I will say none of the other avatar’s are beating him in terms of work resumes.
I think the most mundane thing that will tell you so much about a person is who they play in Mario Kart. So here’s me applying that thought to the Magnus Archive characters:
Gerard Keay plays as Dry Bones.
Jonathan Sims plays as Daisy.
Basira Hussain plays as Metal Mario.
Peter Lucas plays as Ice Mario.
Elias Bouchard plays as King Boo.
Daisy Tonner plays as Baby Peach. (Small Elaboration: Much how she enjoys the irony of her nickname, she also enjoys the irony of absolutely wiping the floor with her coworkers while playing as a baby.)
Tim Stoker plays as Funky Kong.
Michael Shelley plays as Lakitu.
Sasha James plays as Lugi.
Martin Blackwood plays as Toad.
Melanie King plays as Roy.
Gertrude Robinson plays as Cat Toad.
Georgie Barker plays as Yoshi.
Thought about Tim Stoker for more than five seconds
Live footage of me listening to The Magnus Archive for the first time and hearing this:
(I was homeschooled)
“Even now I can’t fully bring myself to regret that part of the events that led me here, and had we reached the Valley as planned, I believe we would have been far happier than most.” Is a line that’s extremely relevant line to The Magnus Archives as a whole. So much of the series is things going wrong in every way they could go wrong up until the apocalypse happens. And yet…it’s so hard to imagine any of the cast fully regretting all of the parts that lead to the end of TMA 200.
I can’t imagine that Melanie regretted getting to know Georgie more in her search for the truth about the supernatural, and I can’t imagine that Georgie regretting falling for Melanie…even though it meant she became a cult leader and got involved with The Institute at the end. I can’t imagine that Basira regretted every moment with Daisy. At the least, not the long car rides where they would listen to “The Archers.” I doubt Daisy regretted that part either, even as she grew to rightfully regret every other path she walked on.
I can’t imagine that Tim would have regretted growing up with a brother, or knowing Sasha, and the friendship they shared. I can’t imagine that Sasha would have regretted joking around with Tim in The Archives, even if she knew their words foreshadowed their fates. I can’t imagine Martin regretting that he doesn’t have to be alone anymore, and that he can finally be seen. I can’t imagine that Jon fully regrets getting the answers that plagued him, even if he does regret where they ended up leading.
And of course, all of this doesn’t mean they don’t have ANY regrets. I’m completely sure all of them wish things would have turned out very differently. But…if they could have reached the valley as they planned, and lived the better lives they wanted with the people they cared about, then they could have been happier than most. And that’s such a hard thing to completely regret.
I’m thinking so many scattered thoughts about the relationship between Graham Folger and Oliver Banks.
Was Oliver around when Graham first found that table? Did he barely avoid getting intertwined with The Stranger before he became connected to The End? Is there an alternative universe out there where Oliver dodged becoming an Avatar of death only because he was replaced by Not! Them?
How did their six year relationship end? Was it from a normal cause like growing apart? Or was their some kind of fear manipulation involved?
How messed up is it that Oliver doesn’t even remember the man who indirectly lead to his breakdown? The blonde haired Graham in his memory isn’t the same black haired Graham that he was dating, just like Sasha he was overwritten.
What would Graham think about Oliver’s fate as an End Avatar? Did Graham’s fate have anything to do with Oliver’s connection to death? Did Oliver ever gift Graham a little bag of crystals, and did they ever have a cute little thrifting date? I have all these questions and more.
Oh relationships that have little to no substance in canon, how I like to think about you.
I experienced an unfortunate consequence of being a Magnus Archives fan tonight.
I decided to go out and eat and when I got to the restaurant the waiter comes up to my table and says “Hi! My names Michael. What can I get for you today?”
The second he said his name I wanted to joke “Which one?” before remembering that there is a very decent likelihood that he would have no idea what I’m talking about and I would sound insane.
This is the danger of becoming a fan of a British horror podcast.
I want a statement from Lee’s perspective but like…not about his experience with Grifter’s Bone.
Rather, I want a statement from Lee’s perspective about his super weird coworker who somehow knew he saw a haunted band preform live and was confident enough to bluntly ask him about it.
Like, seriously, imagine how scary it would be to live through a traumatic paranormal experience that no rational person would believe happened to you, only for someone you only really know through work to look over at you and go “I know you experienced that ghost thing.”
I’d fully think that my coworker was a ghost or cryptid or something at that point. That’s how bad it would freak me out. And then she beats someone to death with a hammer a few months later?? Yeah, I need Lee’s perspective on this statement ASAP.
I love that a huge chunk of the Magnus Archives fandom saw a ship between a goth guy and a door that never interacted in canon and went “What the hell, sure.”
There’s something so cruel about Not-Sasha’s “boyfriend” being named Tom.
His name is so close to Tim’s. It’s like the universe is taunting him with what almost was, with Tim nearly getting to hear his name every time Sasha talks about her new partner. But not quite.
It’s the perfect manifestation of the Stranger, but it’s likely not a manifestation at all. Someone who was probably Tom introduces himself with that name to Daisy YEARS before The Not-Sasha stuff happens.
So that means the Tom/Tim parallel is probably just a coincidence by the universe instead of a direct manifestation…which almost makes it hurt more to imagine Tim’s thought process when “Sasha” told him that she had given up on their “will they, won’t they,” story to date a guy that almost has his name.
Tim and Sasha are doomed in such a parallel line way. They always seem to run along each other somehow, but they’re never able to intersect.
My favorite character interpretation for both Jonathan Sims and pre distortion Michael Shelley is that they’re a little odd in general even without all the fear entity stuff.
Jon stares just a little too long when makes conversation. Michael moves in a sudden jerky way that would remind most people of a spider moving its legs. Jon always looks a little too…stiff. Like he’s a porcelain doll sat against the chair instead of a man. Michael never walks flat on feet, he noticeably puts his weight on either on his heels or his toes.
Jon’s eye, hair, and clothing colors always look a bit dull somehow. Like someone drew him and then turned the contrast down. Michael’s fingers and toes are noticeably long and quite a few people have told him that he has the longest fingers/toes they’ve ever seen.
I could pretend this headcanon is profound commentary on their humanity, but honestly I’m just very fond of viewing Jon and Michael as cryptid adjacent.
I’m rotating an “archivist Tim Stoker” AU around my head like a microwave rn.
I went on a five hour road-trip today and in those five hours I listened to “Another Twist” about five times.
Being a Magnus Archive fan is just consistently thinking about miscellaneous things that would make fun statement topics. So, here’s a few ideas that I came up with:
As someone who collects candles, I think a Desolation statement involving a hobby candle maker could be interesting. The plot could be that the candle maker’s candles keep lighting themselves, and then end up rolling off the counter, tilting over, or having the flame grow unnaturally high until it almost reaches the ceiling. All incidents end in something extremely important to the statement giver being burned in the flames of their own creation.
I think a “Bloody Mary” game gone wrong would be an interesting statement too. Maybe the statement giver could have played the game during a drunken game with friends and when they say her name a third time they see just a flash of a face. It’s gone before the statement giver can even make out the features, but to them that’s the worst part. The plot of this statement is that the statement givers gone mad trying to prove that they saw something and that there’s something more to the urban legend. I would corelate this statement to The Eye since it combines forbidden knowledge (calling upon a ghost just to see if it exists or not) with watching a mirror.
This one is admittedly based on my childhood experience but: A statement giver used to search for roly-polies (or otherwise called pill bugs) with their friends as a kid. As time goes on the statement giver forgets all about it, but then one day they find a roly-poly at work and all the memories come flooding back. They get caught so up in their childhood nostalgia that they decide to go looking for roly-polies and quickly become obsessed with finding them so they can pretend like they’re back in those warm summer days of childhood again. This statement would be related to The Corruption, both because of the bugs, and the corruption of nostalgia.
My account was terminated but I got it back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The avatar is back in the archives. Containment has been breached!
I can’t believe that Gertrude tells Gerry that part of the reason death would be better than living in a post-ritual world is because the fears could keep them alive and afraid forever, denying them the escape of death….Only to keep Gerry alive and afraid by binding him to a book and denying him the escape of death.
Oh Gertrude Robinson. There has never been a character as morally complicated.
I’m so convinced that Melanie King would love country music.
Not the “I love drinking beer in my truck while an eagle screams in the background,” type. But the “My husband cheated on me so I lit his car on fire with the help of his mistress.” type.
Since the creator of TMA says that Jon probably collects something just a little bit weird, I’d like to throw out a few guesses on what I think Jon might collect:
My first thought was that he collects pinned insects. Specifically moth’s and beetles, but he has a little bit of everything other than spiders. I don’t really have a reason to think this, it’s just the vibes.
Speaking of vibes I could also see him collecting pens that look unique in some way. Maybe some have signed some important document along the way, but most are just for aesthetic purposes. I could see him collecting unique looking pocket watches for the same reasons. Or old hand bells that have a pleasant ring.
Outside of aesthetics I could also imagine him collecting signatures from fairly important people. Jon seems like the type of person who would be proud to have something like that, which I don’t think would be as true for my other idea that he collects erasers. I don’t know why I think he would collect erasers, Jon just seems like that type of dude.
From a more “in-character” standpoint I could also see him collecting lighters. That would explain why he got a weird lighter in the mail and then never questioned it. I could also see him collecting book covers since he likes to read. And I’d also like to put forth the idea of him collecting old tea cups or mugs from all the Jonmartin shippers out there.
Anyway! This was supposed to be a short post but then I thought about all the “weird but not cliche” things Jon could collect and my brain started acting like a Jack Russell Terrier who’s been in a crate all day.
It’s so bittersweet that Tim is the one who goes back for Jon in “Hide And Seek.”
Tim has so many negative feelings toward Jon at that point. Most of which are warranted after Jon stalked his house and accused him of murder.
Yet, when Jon tells him and Martin to go home early because he’s “sick,” Tim is the one who decides that he and Martin should tail Jon and figure out what’s going on in case he tries to hurt himself or others.
It’s really an encapsulation of the thing I find most interesting about Tim and Jon’s dynamic: Tim is clearly angry at Jon, but he can never really seem to bring himself to fully hate him, despite always being at the cusp of that feeling. It’s like when Jon gets accused of Leitner’s murder and Tim at first assumes that he must have hurt Sasha too, only for his opinion to waiver a bit the second Martin points out that Michael or the Not! Them creature could have gotten her too…almost as if a part of him was still eager to believe that Jon was innocent.
I’ve thought about Jon and Tim’s dynamic a lot lately. It’s just so…they could have been such good friends in another universe. Maybe they are.
