#Barnabas bennett

[machrealgirl]

i think the lonely feeds on exclusion, not absence. i think it feeds not on the fact that no one can help you, but rather that no one cares to even try. if you know someone out there is trying to help you, you won't feel lonely, no matter how far away or unable to actually help that person is.

that's one thing that the statement of barnabas bennett can teach us about how the lonely functions, and how jonah magnus feeds it. he could have helped, but he watched. the indifferent watcher. an amoral gaze that only seeks to know. what's lonelier than being seen, but not helped?

i think the spiral feeds on doubt, not insanity. i think it feeds on your fear of betrayal, your fear of unreality, of being lied to. you belong to the spiral once you don't know what to trust anymore, once everything feels fake.

that's one thing that the statement of michael can teach us about the spiral's existence, and how gertrude robinson feeds it. the facade she puts up around almost everyone hides a ruthless woman, who doesn't care what or who she has to sacrifice to achieve her goals. this is the facade that had michael shelley fooled, and eventually, literally fed to the spiral. that moment of betrayal, of the mask slipping off, of realizing that it was all fake. do you think that that's when he realized that nothing was real?

eye avatars really, really have this tendency to feed other fears.

with that in mind, which one do you think jonathan "on good terms with oliver banks" "goes around ending avatars' existences" "dies at the end" sims has been feeding?

[blujayeyes]

The Magnus archives where everything is exactly the same but in episode 92 when Elias reads out Barnabas bennet’s statement he moves barnabas’s skull that he still has in his office for some reason(the reason is he’s ga-) like a hand puppet while doing a terrible impression of his voice from memory. And it’s been like 200 years since he last heard his voice so it’s like comically bad.

[sluttyjonahmagnus]

I still can't get over the fact that Jonah kept his bones. That Jonah cared for this man, not enough to save his life, but enough to keep him. To possess his remains and deny his family mourning rights. Or even the knowledge that he died, for all they know the man just went missing. Was his brother ever told?

All this as well as going to the man that essentially killed Barnabas to ask for those bones, possibly even demanded them. Has that ever been done before? Why did Mordecai agree? Is Jonah somehow lonelier with the bones in his possession?

And then he just kept them. Moved them from Edinburgh to London and kept them in his office for nearly 200 years. 'If you know where to look' are they viewable? Are they hidden somewhere, lovingly preserved? Are parts of the bones fractured or rubbed smooth from anger or sorrow?

I need to knoooow.

[natcatnhanh]

Fanshawe speak your truth 🤾🙏

[the-awful-dread-that-leaves]

it's. jonahbas time

yeah

[dcartcorner]

"Jonah Magnus did leave him in that place, John. He got the letter, oh yes, and was on good terms with Mordechai Lukas. He could have interceded, perhaps even saved him, but he did not. And it was not out of malice, or because he lacked affection for Barnabas Bennett: he retrieved those bones sadly enough when the time came. Bones that you can still find in my office, if you know where to look." (TMA Ep. 92)

[Commission for @chrisis-averted! Thank you for the support!]

[checkadii]

barnabas’s dirge

[thatstargazingaquarius]

Friend: shows me he’s on Mag92

Me: yaps a shit ton because there’s a lot of lore shit in that episode and I can finally talk about it. I also yap about Jonah and Barnabas and the bones still being in Elias’ office bc I love the gays

Friend: “Why would Elias keep the bones?”

Me: 😀😀😀

Friend: “Wait what if he’s whatever his name is.”

Me: “Jonah Magnus? The founder of the institute?”

Friend: “Yeah, him.”

Me: “I mean Elias was a stoner in college.”

Friend: “That could just be the story he made up and he’s immortal or something.”

Me: 😀😀😀

[fridayyy-13th]

relistening to MAG 092 - Nothing Beside Remains and going a little bit insane over the fact that this is a Lonely statement about Barnabas Bennett’s lifelong solitude, with no background sound but a ticking clock, just like MAG 170 is a Lonely statement about Martin’s lifelong solitude, with no background sound but a ticking clock

but the difference between them lies in that when Barnabas and Martin each call out for help, to Jonah and Jon respectively, Jonah purposefully leaves Barnabas to die, while Jon finds Martin again (and has been searching for him since he realized their separation), reassuring him that he will stay by his side.

and at the end of 092 Elias tells Jon that his assistants are nothing more than things to discard……but Jon refuses to see them that way, even going so far as to promise Martin “where you go, i go”…………Jon is fully an avatar, he is wholly the Archivist, but he is still so painfully, utterly human despite it all.

idk. something about victims of the Lonely and the Eye avatars they placed their trust in, for better or for worse.

[bamboo-is-a-lie]

Agnes Montague, with smeared lipstick: "if you think I look bad you should see the other guy"

*the camera pans down to Barnabas Benette, currently passed out and covered in burns*

[hauntedcoyote]

On the topic of bone-keeping

Okay, so you all remember this?

What if I told you that something like that happened in real life?

I don't know how much you guys know about German poetry, but the names Goethe and Schiller might ring a bell.

Anyway, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller were best friends for a really long time with Goethe having been the older one. Schiller got sick with pretty much everything at some point, however, and died, leaving Goethe devastated.

So what did Goethe do? Keep Schiller's skull in his office. You know, like friends do... On a blue velvet cushion because why not (He even wrote a poem in 1826 called Bei Betrachtung von Schiller's Schädel [While looking at Schiller's skull] like any totally normal person would)

The funny part is that until this day no one knows where the original skull is because it got lost at some point.

But I can't stop thinking about the implications of keeping someone's bones near you. There's absolutely no way you do this when you don't love someone. Like, you're literally keeping a very visual reminder of that person. Of their death especially. It almost seems desperate. Grief, loss, and love entwined for eternity. It's a constant memento mori and that's what makes it so tragic. With pictures you're reminded of who a person was but with this there's nothing but the need for acceptance that they're gone for good. There's no lying to yourself.

You loved and you lost and you have to live with that.

[pritchypitchperfect]

Barnabas Bennett and Jonah Magnus core

[blujayeyes]

Ok I drew it(ignore how inconsistent my design for Elias’s body is from the last time I drew him it’s been a hard week)

[thewormscientist]

Yes, more fanart for TMOJM. [visibly shaking] I am very normal about this fic, trust me!

On a more serious note, I really do appreciate your writing, @thetoadking1 . It's giving me a continuous source of inspiration.

~~~

Supplemental (aka me rambling):

Originally I had planned him to be more confident/ sinister, but after giving it some thought, decided that showing the little bit of humanity left in him was the better choice. After all, this is the making of Jonah Magnus, not him being super evil from the start. Additionally deciding to let Barnabas die is the pivotal point for him. Also I really liked that storyline and it got to me.

Making his eyes sad/regretful AND creepy was a challenge; I hope the emotions come through? I genuinely can not tell after staring at this for 6h :,)

Lastly, I am happy to get all my creativity out before I get locked in the biochem departments basement again. Thanks for listening to my TEDtalk.

[elias-rights]

Barnabas: I am a thirsty little flower. You have to water me. You have to use your emotional availability.

Jonah: I am... NOT doing that.

Jonah's last remaining desire to cling to his humanity: And just let him fucking DIE?

[disacurveball]

Jonah and the regency crew (sans Smirke, I don’t care for Smirke)