Listening to TMA as a Londoner is weird but not for the reasons you’d think. The victoria line being haunted by the buried? Plausible. A cursed book being in an oxfam? Plausible.
But the idea of Martin living alone in Stockwell? Now that is scary.
Yesterday I saw an old woman at Victoria Station, she wore a cardigan and little square glasses, had a bandage on her neck and looked at me like she wanted me dead.
I’m 99% sure that woman was Gertrude Robinson.
I listened to the majority of The Magnus Archives whilst on the underground, which meant there were some big chunks of audio that I simply did not hear! As a result of that, here’s some key details that I completely missed and took me embarrassingly long to figure out:
-which person was Tim and which was Elias (okay I figured this one out mid season one but it was still really embarrassing)
-Elias was evil (this took until after the unknowing for me to figure out, somehow, despite my friend telling me she hated him. )
-Micheal Crew and Micheal Shelley were different people (took me til mid season 4)
-who Melanie was (this one was confusing I don’t remember the time line but I remember not knowing and then knowing)
-the stranger and the spiral were different things (honestly I wasn’t sure on this until I relistened)
-Jon was recording supplementals (I missed so many of these 😭 hard to say when I figured it out.)
-Martin and Jon were Canon (I think i clocked it mid season 5 after they said I love you? Had to relisten to episodes to make sure I wasn’t going insane.)
The appeal of Jon and Martin as a couple is similar to that of Basil Hallward and Dorian Gray… A soft, loving, creative, and their beloved scholar who’s driven into powerful evil by sheer circumstance and perhaps too much hubris…
The problem with couples like this is that one always seems to end up having to kill the other.
I see a lot of TMA headcanons about people being short, but I think the funniest possible height related headcanon is that everyone is pretty average but Elias is short as FUCK
There’s currently a massive heatwave in England, so naturally here’s what I think the characters from TMA would be doing in this insane heat:
Jon: In his office, cursing the fact that the building doesn’t have air conditioning. Yes, it would be nicer to be ANYWHERE but here, but alas, things have to be done.
Martin: Busy explaining to someone that hot drinks are WAY BETTER for hydration than cold drinks, and tea is absolutely the best drink during this weather. He’s making tea for Jon. (Jon will not drink it.)
Tim: He’s probably wandering round shirtless-he seems like one of those guys that for some reason believes it isn’t a major health risk to walk down Oxford Street with that much exposed skin.
Sasha: With Tim, trying to convince him to put his shirt back on. Or at the very least WEAR SOME SUNCREAM!
Daisy: Enjoying the shade of Epping forest!
Basira: Doing paperwork outside on cheap, crappy garden furniture. It’s really inconvenient but at least she’s not stuck inside!
Melanie: Angry about something or other. Everyone is angry in this heat so she’d have no trouble picking a fight!
Elias: Foresaw this entire thing and is sitting peacefully in his air-conditioned office with an iced drink.
People that aren’t from the UK, drop the wildest thing that TMA has made you believe about London and I’ll tell you how accurate it is.
Jon - 3/10
Would never intentionally give money to them, he’s too busy to be involved in that, but he might on occasion just to get them to leave him alone.
Martin - 7/10
On an intellectual level I’m sure he knows that he really shouldn’t , but they’re working so hard in the street and they make such a compelling case! Also it’s too embarrassing and stressful to say no.
Tim - 2/10
He might do it to impress a prospective partner, but he’d probably be the type of guy to say “no sorry I don’t actually support charity.” or something like that.
Sasha - 5/10
She probably would if they were respectful and it was for a good cause, but she seems like a financially cautious queen.
Melanie - 1/10
She’d hate being stopped in the street by them and have a policy plain and simple to never give them a single penny.
Daisy - 0/10
She’s the knife crime they’re trying to prevent.
Basira - 3/10
In theory she would, but she probably has a direct debit set up for the charity that she prefers so unless she’s feeling generous she just won’t.
Elias - ? /10
I literally have no idea, does he even really use money?
Distortion Micheal - 0/10
Would subject them to the amount of torment that every person ever stopped by them wants to.
*(I’m sure other cities have these too but they basically hang around busy places and yell at you to donate money to prevent knife crime and they’re really rude and they get paid to do it and nobody likes them!! They prey on tourists and the vulnerable, and are just generally really nasty.)
Everyone’s attracted to me because of my sexy English accent and my ungodly otherworldly powers.
Elias ‘Your Mother’ Bouchard
As an edgy alt fashion wearer in London I get a lot of tourists sneaking photos of me. I love the idea of Gerard Keay himself getting papped and some poor tourist later finding out they snapped a pic of someone who was very almost convicted of murder.
I just want to be stabbed by my lover in a desperate bid to save the world from my awful power whilst we both cry over the stupidity of my betrayal (that was inevitably going to happen and we both knew it) and beg the universe to let us wake up someplace better, safer, together! Is that too much to ask?
I keep seeing all these posts about Dracula daily and every time I see Jonathan I’m like
“Jonathan? Jonathan Simms? The archivist? Of the magnus institute?”
And then I realise that the situation in question has not and could not happen in the magnus archives.
What if Jon had a Snapchat when he was staying with Georgie?
I like to think about Somewhere Else as much as the next tma listener, but more often I find myself mulling on its absence.
There’s something so morbidly beautiful about complete and total death. Two desperate lovers begging for something better and getting precisely nothing.
All they went through, everything they did being totally pointless. Two beautiful beings of hope and light fighting with all they have against all the odds only to be completely destroyed, gone.
Everything they did meant nothing, and yet still it meant so much. Years of life and love recorded on tapes with nobody left to listen to them. A fleeting existence marked solely by its bleak, sudden ending.
People talk about those they love being taken too soon, “before their time”, but Jon and Martin always had their clocks marked. Whether by otherworldly powers of fear, those that surrounded them, or even the trappings of the narrative, they were always supposed to die then and there. In each others arms, and no amount of effort or exertion could have changed a single thing.
But despite this awful suffocating end that they were always bound to they loved each other. They shared moments that belonged to them and they laughed and they talked about cows and stumbled through misunderstandings and they got to show each other just how much they were worth.
Sometimes, I think, the inevitability of the ending makes those moments all the more beautiful.
“I wish I could talk it through with Martin. Or Tim. Or Sasha. But we never really did that, did we?”
Uhh no I’m not really into music anymore. I prefer to have a depressed academic whisper horrors into my ear, thanks.
I know that your Leitner book caused irreparable damage and countless deaths, but mine is different! it would never do that, it’s changed!
How are you even supposed to fill out a return to work form after all that?
There’s something so grotesquely thrilling about the unknowing being a dance. As an art form dance is uncomfortable, painful, and even causes lasting damage to the dancer; but above all it is something that MUST be beautiful.
“I just want you to join me for a dance!”
Such an innocent statement, even if you know that it isn’t.
To think of a partner dance: Perhaps a waltz where your partner is much taller than you, their position forcing your arms out of their sockets as you struggle to keep your form.
A solo dance? Ballet without training, elegant poses that stretch your tendons til they snap; pointe work without shoes, the weight of your body crushing the bones in your feet.
Or musical theatre! Your body moves at a pace you can’t control as your throat grows hoarse from singing louder than you ever should. A smile (or perhaps a grimace) plastered painfully on your face.
What about contemporary? Your soft unprepared body meeting the harsh ground from a leap that ended too soon; something tears inside you as you draw yourself up gracefully in a way you wouldn’t think possible.
The pure raw confusion of your body doing something you never allowed it to know how to do. What is this body? What is this movement? What shape am I being twisted into?
“so effortless!” an onlooker exclaims, as another bone snaps.
You’d scream, but the punishment for not smiling is worse than this pain.
The harsh gaze of dead, automaton eyes watches you from the wings, judging and critiquing. It’s not good enough, your performance wasn’t perfect; but if you’re lucky you won’t live long enough to hear the feedback. You wouldn’t understand it anyways.
Books in my collection most likely to be Leitners
I collect old books, and the Leitner book storyline is one of the things that really got me hooked on tma so here we go!
Ciceronis Opera (1768?)
Got this one in a charity shop near Brighton. It’s a famous Latin opera. It’s partially leather bound, the pages are made of laid paper, and the edges are gilded. It’s difficult to date, from looking at it I’d have said 1800s, but the numerals in the front (MDCCLXVIII) indicate it’s from 1768! Not totally sure if this is right judging by the good condition of the book, but oh well!
Pilgrim’s Progress (1893)
Got this one from the basement of a book shop near Tottenham Court Road. It’s severely damaged and leaves black marks on absolutely anything it touches! The writing in the front says it was a gift to Hugh Cecil from his mother. It’s leather-bound and the edges of the pages are painted bright red. It has several printed pictures throughout.
The Charm Of Old Portsmouth (1959)
This is possibly the most ironic. I bought this from the Oxfam at Notting Hill Gate (before I listened to tma), it’s more modern than I’d usually buy, but when I picked it up some photos of an eclipse fell out, so naturally I had to buy it. It’s cloth bound with a paper cover, and is a nice bit of proof that that oxfam is marked by the vast!
The fact that Elias knew about Martin’s feelings for Jon drives me insane. Like how long did he know? Did Martin already have feelings before the archives and Elias just decided that that would work best? Did he choose to give Jon an assistant who would go to any and all lengths to protect him? Maybe. But the real question is, did he ever expect Jon to reciprocate?