(set after the events in chapter 36, aka, Jon Got Better)
“What did it feel like?” Jonah rests his cheek over Jon’s heart. It’s still beating fast from their lovemaking. Their skin is tacky, and the air is muggy, window cranked open to the night sounds of Edinburgh.
Dying, he means, but doesn’t clarify. Not when he can feel his thoughts stretched thin like spider silk, like instead of the reality of Jon petting his hair, Jon is instead drawing out the threads and spinning then between his fingers, fondly examining the contents of his mind and soul in an effortless show of power.
(Jon loathes comparisons between him and the Mother, so Jonah tucks that analogy away into a deeper recess that Jon won’t probe at without good reason.)
“Cold,” says Jon. His tone is flat. “Cold and vast and empty. Like I was every atom between the stars, every grain of sand on every planet, but I was also the in-between, the nothingness that separates everything.”
“An abstraction,” Jonah suggests.
“No; an absolute, unrelenting reality.”
There’s a shift, and Jon’s palm smooths down to cup Jonah’s nape, his thumb digging into bone, sending little flames of pleasure and pain radiating from the point of contact until there’s a bonfire behind Jonah’s closed eyelids. “I was in the air you breathed as you walked the hallways of Rayner’s mansion, I was in the drops of blood a dying mother shed on the other side of the world. I was there, and I was nowhere. Contained and ever-present.”
Jonah contemplates that. His flesh crawls with goosebumps. “No dreams, no vagueness, no respite. No you.”
“No me,” agrees Jon, still in a monotone, as if every death-tinged memory and sentiment has been wiped bare of color, leaving a stark chiaroscuro where passion should have thrived.
There’s a reason they don’t speak much on the matter of Jon’s death.
But never again. The stage is set, and the Watcher’s Crown is waiting. The Eye is opening.
Understand that there is a beast within you that can drink till it is sick, but cannot drink till it is satisfied. Understand that it will use the conventions of the visible world to turn your tongue to stone. It alone knows you. It does not wish you well.
—Frank Bidart, excerpt of “The Third Hour of the Night”, in Half Light
Taking someone’s cigarette out of their mouth: Multiple meanings - used a lot in media to convey control, power play, very masculine, I’m your boss and this is mine now, get over it. Mildly flirty, look at me, all in your space and shit, seductive. You’re not allowed to smoke, because I say so.
Putting the cigarette back in their mouth afterwards: Ground-breaking. Would be less erotic to just fuck honestly. Who does this?
jonelias makes me so sad because legitimately if elias wasnt doing this whole evil plan thing or if jon was just down to be fucked up and evil they would really get along well. right. like even outside of the fact that theyre both spooky eye dudes they have so much in common!!! and bro was supernaturally inclined to learn more about things and just. never really truly sat down and talked to the guy who knows literally everything about the eye shit and the magnus institute and has hundreds of years of first person lived historical knowledge on the occult. and then he kills him.
to me s1-s3 jon is regularly listening to elias talk about the occult in between kissing him. its just not on the tapes because jon would never let such impropriety get on them.
Lmao I love the implication that this is where Jon might draw the line. Like. Breaking and entering, stalking his coworkers, suspecting his boss of murder is all fine, but smooches??? Nope. Can’t have that on tape.
Also!!! Consider: I don’t remember the exact quote, but at one point in s1-2 Jon says that Elias’ knowledge of the supernatural is unparalleled, or something to that extent - which means that he must have heard Elias talk about it?? Or does Elias give lectures? Does he write articles? Did he review Jon’s work while Jon was still in Research? Please I need to know more, this one line has been driving me insane for weeks o-o
Breaking and entering just shows he’s very dedicated to the job!!!! But smooching Elias means someone might get the idea that he didn’t deserve his Head Archivist position that he already feels like he doesn’t deserve.
Like I’m half joking about that but I would say they’re friends at least purely based on how rude S1 Jon is to Elias.
LIKE HELP I WOULD NEVER SAY THAT TO THE HEAD OF WHERE I WORK. JON!!!!!
But yes!!!!! I know the quote you’re talking about! I do think Jon coming to Elias for advice (on things he’s researched thoroughly so he looks smart) is so charming. Them bringing each other fucked up books to read. And omg imagine him reviewing Jon’s research, doing it in full view of Jon and making disappointed faces all to the feed The Eye >:3
i mean he doesnt control a lot of the times that the tape recorders appear and start recording so theres a very real chance the Beholding is just homophobic as fuck
Oh trueeeee beholding is homophobic or Jons sitting in his underwear in elias living room splicing the tapes.
(Actually splicing the tapes to cut out secrets is never addressed in the show. (Ithink?) but could happen and is now intriguing to me. Someone please write something on this im begging)
holds a microphone out to the crowd. jon was carrying cigarettes on him by at least mag 78, though he said he hadn’t smoked for five years. do you think he always had some on him just in case he ever felt like making a bad decision, or did he start doing that at some point during the course of the show?
In mag 39 Elias says “He’s not smoking again is he?” Which means that he knew Jon smoked at some point and it was something he learned directly from Jon or he would have risked Sasha asking how he knew that? Also Sasha didn’t question it at the time.
Given that Jon says he’s gonna have a cigarette at Jurgen which leads to him getting killed by Elias I had it in my head that one of the lighter’s powers, if not just a property of it being an item directly tied to The Web like a fetish, was to make Jon need to smoke again if not all the time then at least precisely at that moment to get him away so Elias killed Jurgen, and we know The Web likes to manipulate people through their addictions specially if they’re trying to quit or have done so already.
So I’m not sure of exact dates but I’d venture to guess that the moment he got the lighter it began to work on his mind to make him smoke again.
re previous reblog everyone in this fandom has their own way of projecting their problems on jon and mine is being a Non Smoker Now who is like this at the mildest temptation
re previous reblog everyone in this fandom has their own way of projecting their problems on jon and mine is being a Non Smoker Now who is like this at the mildest temptation
also “i haven’t smoked in five years” is such a thing that people who still smoke a couple times a year say like ooh it doesn’t count because i’m Not A Smoker it’s just Sometimes i love smoker lies
I love it when Elias is like. trying to be normal boss and Jon keeps hitting the right words.
“Look I can’t let you down there because of Normal Reasons. You could get hurt and stuff. Also we don’t have the budget to let someone else do it.”
“But Elias. I need to know.”
And then Elias relents because his good little eye in training is producing the proper motivations but he still can’t just say “oh well by all means if you’re feeding all your observations into that lil tape of yours I’d love to listen im so eager to learn about the other fears and see you get yourself so deeply tangled in this also hopefully you’ll get some sort of horrible fear mark down there” so he’s just like “…fine”
Thinking about Elias using pet names for Jon, calling him dear and such with the same subtly affectionate tone he uses every time he talks to Jon so it doesn’t even register to him as anything out of the ordinary
I need to be made into a weapon I am stubborn and quiet and afraid I want you to gently pull me by my collar and put me where you want me I want to be taken and molded I need to be shown how to turn my gaze towards the correct target I need to be taught to use my power I need direction I need a handler I need someone who sees my divinity and gets excited thinking of all the ways they can force it out of me make me hold a gun your fingers hovering over mine as I shake with wide eyes whisper your lesson into me I want it! I want it!
one thing i respect about beholding avatars is that when one of their little schemes fail even a little bit they’ll immediately resort to incredible acts of violence
eye avatars when the tried and true method of being a Massive Bitch stops working:
ive been practicing my watercolors.. im still trying to figure out a techique that works for me but i feel like I’m getting closer… eventually i may even throw a background in there but for bow you guys just have to inagine really hard for me okay
anyway.. jonah + his brothers and jonah harrassing mordechai
Outta nowhere but I think it’s really neat that the one time Elias had a villain laugh moment in the whole show that I can remember is when he’s completely alone with only his corpse (and the tape recorder) as witness. He is NOT doing this for anyone else. He is doing it for HIMSELF thank you very much!
feel like most of the avatars in tma hating jon on sight makes a lot more sense when you consider that he basically rolled up with no skills no experience no training at all and just consistently failed his way upwards into being the greatest eye avatar the world has ever seen (in no small part due to the jonah magnus’ and the web’s machinations but unless you’re in annabelle’s highly exclusive dms you wouldn’t know anything about that) making the average avatar’s quarterly sacrificial statistics look like a joke and upstaging all those embarrassing failed rituals by not only simply succeeding in his first attempt but also bringing not just one but every single entity fully into our reality. and on top of all that him ending the world means that you have to actually show up to work at your job as an employee at the torture labyrinth every single day for the rest of your life. you have no choice. oh and he can literally explode you with his mind now. yeah i’d want that guy dead too.
[Audio description: part of the Magnus Archives blooper reel.
Tim/Mike: Well, me neither. But here we are. So my proposal for you is this: either kill me or fuck off. [shocked pause] No. He. Did. Not!
Elias/Ben:[offended] A swear. A swear??
Tim/Mike: [offended squeaky voice] A swear?
Elias/Ben: [in-character, angry] Tim. I might be an eldritch monster, but that is unacceptable.
[laughter]
Tim/Mike: In eldritch horror lore, this is not part of the process that we go through.
Elias/Ben: [in-character, enraged] We aren’t here “effing” and “jeffing” like a common street harlot! This is the Institute, dammit! [pounds on tabletop] We have decorum!
Alex Newell: You’ll say “blimey,” and you’ll be glad of it!
Elias/Ben: [threatening] Yes. Maybe a darn if you’re feeling lucky.
End audio description]
[Image description: the “I can excuse racism” Community meme, edited to say “I can excuse being an eldritch horror, but I draw the line at swearing.” End image description]
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