2022-09-03 1:40:09 ¶ ●

I’ve been reflecting a lot on my first listen through of TMA which has uncovered some very interesting memories! Like when I first listened to MAG 89…

It was early morning and I’d just got my coffee, walked out of the underground station, I was speed walking cos I was really into the story (I was probably running late too)and I somehow managed to time it perfectly so the exact second I stopped to cross the road, Jon shook hands Jude Perry, and i locked eyes with a COMPLETE STRANGER. Needless to say I jumped! But in my early morning delirium I just started giggling, and took way too long crossing the road.

2022-09-08 2:18:11 ¶ ●

The real reason Jon was so easily kidnapped by Breekon and Hope is because he broke the sacred London code. Everyone knows you don’t stop for people talking to you on the street. Jon knew he was being stalked, and yet he still confirmed his identity and stopped for a chat! He was practically begging to be kidnapped!

2022-09-13 2:26:36 ¶ ●

The realest queer representation in The Magnus Archives is Jon and Martin going to live in a cabin in the countryside together immediately after becoming official.

2022-09-20 0:26:30 ¶ ●

## Okay, so I’m a fan of TMA as much as anyone else, but there’s something about it that’s not discussed often enough, and needs to be addressed:

Hello, John.

Apologies for the deception, but I wanted to make sure you started reading, so I thought it best not to announce myself.

I’m assuming you’re alone; you always did prefer to read your statements in private. I wouldn’t try too hard to stop reading; there’s every likelihood you’ll just hurt yourself. So just listen.

Now, shall we turn the page and try again?

2022-09-23 18:04:33 ¶ ●

You see, Martin says ‘I grieved for you’ to Jon, but this doesn’t do justice for just what he would have gone through.

As most people know, having a loved one in hospital is horrible, but Jon’s case is an entirely different thing. Assuming Jon was initially taken to a hospital in Great Yarmouth, it would’ve taken Martin a while to get there, even if he left right away. He might have missed Jon’s emergency treatment, but he certainly didn’t miss the worst of it.

Many people assume that CPR is a quick, simple, lifesaving procedure, it is not. Jon was found not breathing, and without a pulse, so he would have had at least 20 minutes straight of CPR, and that messes up a body. On a person as weak as Jon it would badly break ribs, and cause a lot of bruising. Even if Martin didn’t have to watch Jon’s chest be crushed to no avail, that type of damage is often visible.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a dead body, but it’s different to an unconscious one in every way. Jon of course, was not dead, but he would absolutely look it. As I’m sure you know, blood being pumped is what keeps the body warm, and breathing accounts for a large part of what we perceive as living, so the absence of both of these, especially in a loved one, is jarring, and likely to send anyone into shock

In lots of TV shows you see doctors calling deaths, but in reality it’s actually quite a difficult thing to diagnose. It’s not a quick check of the pulse and you’re done, there’s a lot of tests; there are many conditions that can look like death. In Jon’s case his mind and nerves were still active, meaning it would have been picked up on fairly quickly, but Jon would have been assumed dead until these tests were completed.

The thing with a case like this, is there’s nothing the doctors can feasibly do; as Elias says, it’s an unknown quantity. The most likely course of action would be to make him as comfortable as possible, and redo the death checks every so often. There would be no hope for his recovery, but legally the hospital would have to do this, and would be able to offer very little comfort.

Although of course you want your loved one to survive, many family members of coma patients confess to hoping that they’d just die. The limbo of waiting is impossible to process, and having them there but having no way to communicate with them can be excruciating. There’s no way to properly grieve for someone if you always have it in the back of your mind that they could wake up.

Giving up on someone like that is terribly and awfully painful. You can tell them you’re sorry all you want, but you’ll always be thinking about how they’d have wanted you to stay. Having to create both sides of an interaction like that when truly you’re in control of neither is simply impossible to recover from.

Every action Martin took after Jon’s death was justified, logical, even. To succumb to the lonely after leaving the man you love, sentencing him to die alone?

It feels right.

2022-09-29 2:01:49 ¶ ●

Have you ever thought about what would have happened if Nikola had killed Jon when she kidnapped him? How the story would have gone? How things would have changed?

Elias would have been annoyed, obviously. But how hard would it really be to pick someone else? Everyone in the archives is at least partially marked by the fears, yes there would be delays, but how hard would it be to shape collateral into a usable pawn?

I don’t know how Tim would feel. How do you describe that rage of losing the one you blame for everything, combined with the grief of losing somebody who could’ve almost been a friend? Whether or not your original purpose remains, you’re displaced.

Daisy and Melanie wouldn’t be all too affected- an annoyance of course, perhaps a pang of loss, guilt mavbe? But what could stop them powering forward. There’s more important things at stake than just one man.

Basira cared about Jon. She liked him, even; thought he was funny. She’d be sad. Not devastated, but it’d be a loss. The kind you feel through a sheet of fog, you know the pain is there but you can’t quite reach it.

But Martin. Oh Martin. Can you imagine how he’d sob? How he’d fall apart? The loss of a love who loved you back whilst neither of you ever had the strength to say it? The denial of every idle daydream, every menial thought of cooking together, of cuddling on a sunny morning… Everything that mattered rotting away like wasted meat.

And the unknowing. Without Jon there to plan and organise, would Melanie and Martin have been spared the experience? Without Jon, Elias would have to reassert control, see who would be the best pick for the new archivist.

Would Martin watch frozen as Nikola paraded around, wearing Jon like a fur coat? His brain screaming at him that ‘Jon’s skin didn’t sit like that on his body’ whilst his heart rejoices at the return of his love.

And Tim, in that very attempt to tackle Jon, would he have been torn apart by fierce automaton hands? There’s no chance to click a detonator if your opponent isn’t who you thought they were; it’s impossible to react that fast.

Would it instead have been Melanie? Seeing this unfold before her, infernal rage unleashed by loss of control. Would she have watched willingly, as she sent herself, and her only remaining allies to fiery, painful deaths?

Perhaps.

But how are we to know?