#There's also the one (1) thing I *know* we picked up from Jonny Sims a couple years back: the everpresent “Still (comma)” lol.

[queer-omens-in-the-archives]

Have you noticed your style change over time?

Hi!! Thank you for the ask. <3

We haven't really noticed that, no -- we're aware our older fics don't read quite the same as our more recent ones, but we don't tend to notice the changes happening in real time and would struggle to pinpoint exactly what changed.

Part of that is plurality-related. We don't all write the same to begin with -- actually part of our editing process now, especially for longer projects, consists of getting as many of us rereading the text as possible (separately over a period of time and/or together at the same time), so we can smooth out differences where needed or (more rarely) exaggerate them when warranted (e.g. for added character flavour in subjective narration). In the past we didn't go through that Collaborative Smoothening step, and we did a lot less editing to begin with (we same-day wrote-and-published a lot), so many of our older works are more clearly One Guy's Writing. We can usually tell who based on the way they're written, but this isn't style evolution so much as like... us writing differently at baseline.

Part of that is that we have two types of approach to writing: either we write so rarely that too much time passes in-between for us to remember our previous writings clearly, or we write so often that any overall changes are too gradual for us to notice. Nowadays it's more the latter -- with the MelloNears, we've been writing/editing at least a few words every single day since November 1st, in mostly the same two AUs/series, so we're not really seeing the style evolution that is probably taking place because we're standing too close to see the big picture.

[fanfic/author ask game]

[a-ghost-really]

If it’s also the, may I request something with Jonathan Sims where he has a younger sibling? Maybe teenage years?

Thanks for the request!! So with this one it will be set throughout each of the seasons and be mostly about how their relationship evolves. Since Jon's parents are dead, his younger sibling will be living with him since he is legal adult and they are around 16. I'll try to keep him as in character but he might be little ooc. Also reference college band au and his younger sibling likes angry girl music. Enjoy!!! -🦝

note: this was written by the other owner of the account. Editor (hi -🐀) got lazy and stopped editing halfway through. sorry

Season 1-Readers POV:

Jon told me he got moved to the Archives earlier today! So I've been preparing; I got his favorite takeout and some movies to watch. I waited quietly by the door with a party popper in my hand. I hear the floor outside the door creak and see the doorknob turn.

"Congratulations!" I exclaim as Jon walks through the door, pulling the string on the party popper and throwing my arms around him as confetti falls though the air.

Jon rolls his eyes, "I shouldn't have told you before I got home," He grumbles, then pats my back as a sign to let go.

I take a step back and smile at him.

"Welp, it's too late to regret that now," I smile proudly. "Now, there's takeout on kitchen counter and plethora of DVDs in living room. So get food and pick a movie while I clean this up."

"Okay, okay," he says simply and heads towards the . I get broom and clean up the colorful confetti before getting my own food and joining Jon in living room for the movie.

I flop down on the couch with my food as Jon is on floor looking though the DVDs.

"Alrighty, what are we watching tonight?" I asked happily.

"Well, since the only genre of movie you rented is 'chic flicks'," he sends a joking glare towards me as my laugh tumbles from my lips. "Our choices are either legally blonde or 10 things i hate about you."

"Ooh, we watched 10 things I hate about you last week, we can watch legally blond!" I answer excitedly, and Jon nods and stands up to put the DVD in the player.

"Legally blonde it is."

_________________________________________

Season 2 - Jon's pov:

I know I shouldn't have left Georgie's in the first place. But I owed them some sort of apology for all of this. I gripped the plastic bag in my hand, my younger sibling's favourite candy and drink contained inside. As I finally reached Georgie's door I took a look around before slowly opening the door and stepping inside.

My ears are immediately greeted with Bad Reputation by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts blaring full-volume. I nearly jump out of my skin, whipping around to figure out where the sound was coming from, only to see my sibling singing into a broom like it's a microphone and dancing around the kitchen. I lean against the door and put my hand to my chest, taking a deep breath to steady myself.

They hadn't heard me come in yet, and if the noise I hear coming from their speaker was any indication, they probably aren't able to hear anything at the moment. I sighed and looked at the Admiral, who was sitting on back of couch and enjoying the show.

The sight of them like this lightens my mood by a fraction. I still felt bad for uprooting their life and having them hide in my ex's house, but I couldn't risk putting them in the hands of somebody else. I had to take care of them.

I straightened myself out and walked further into the house. I walked over to couch, crossed my arms, and waited. They turned around and screamed.

"Jesus, Jon! You scared me," they complained, trying to catch their breath.

"Turn down the volume. How many times do I have to tell you, you're going to burst your ear drums," I sighed.

"Whatever you say, Dad," they mock me as they turn down the volume and pause the song. I roll my eyes "what are a starting band in here or something?" I ask jokingly.

"You would think that, Mr. Jonny D'Ville," they smirked.

"How do you know about that?"

"Oh, there is a very interesting box in the attic with some photos and CDs from your college days," they were smiling ear to ear.

I looked over to the hallway door and booked it to get rid of the evidence.

"Don't you dare, you rat!" They yelled and chased after me.

I wasn't able to get to attic before they tackled me. They are now eating their candy and playing a recording of a concert I did back college. I am suffering.

EXTRA:

Reader: Supplemental! My brother is weirdo.

Jon: ...Don't.

[Reader snickers.]

Reader: Supplemental, Jonathan Sims looks like a cat.

Jon: I swear, if you don't put that down I will hit you with a pillow.

[A pause.]

Reader: Supplemental, Jonathan Sims has threaten me with his noodle arm.

[Jon quickly walks closer to the recorder.]

Reader: Supplemental, Jonathan Sims is trying to kill me.

[Recorder falls.]

Reader: Jon! Jon, no!

[Running, followed by a thump on ground.]

[Reader bursts out laughing.]

Reader: Jon, stop! Don't hit me with pillow. Georgie, save me!

Jon: No one can save you now!

Season 3: Reader's POV

I was walking back to Georgie's. I had gone to the gas station and gotten some snacks for all of us. Jon seems to be feeling better these days. I'm glad, I turned the corner on Georgie's street when I saw it. The door was open, I didn't even realize I drop the bag all I could feel was panic. I ran though the door yelled for Jon.

"Jon! Jon, are you here?" Nothing.

I fumbled with my phone trying to find Martin number. Jesus, where was is it come on. Finally I found it clicked the phone icon. It rang ...and rang ...and ra- "hello?". ' Martin do you know where Jon is?" " What?" " I just got back from the gas station and Jon is not here. Where is he". I had started pacing I needed to know my brother was safe. " Hold up coming over I'll let the boss know. We will find him" with that he hung up I was alone. I hate being alone.

.....

It has been a day, they didn't know where he was and they keep talking about something called avatars. I don't understand but I do know there here and not looking for my brother. Why won't anybody look for him!

.....

They found him... he looks shaken ... He seems off ... But he is here ..he is alive... I can hear his heart beat, I can feel his arms around me ...he is alive.. he came back.

I don't know how long I was crying, how long I was standing there in my brother's arms but he didn't pat my back so I cling on. "Shhhh, I'm okay, I'm okay" he chanted in my ear. I pulled back and wiped my eyes. "Come on wanna watch the princess bride'' he asked and all I could do his nod. We were back at Georgie's... for now at least he put on princess bride and I slowly fell asleep. He was back and that all that mattered.

Season 4: Reader POV

Why does he keep doing this! Coma, coffin, ALASKA for gods sake and he never tells me. I always hear it from Martin, Melanie, Basira for goodness sake. But never my own brother he just leaves me.

...

It's been awhile since I contacted any of my friends. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I don't know why... I miss them ... Why can't I call them.. im so tired...

...

After Jon's kidnapping, Martin message me at least once a day and kept me up to date on things. I saw him in hospital when Jon was in coma. We would talk we both missed him we both loved him. But I haven't heard from him awhile he stop I don't know. I feel so alone. I know people are out there but I can't reach them. I think that makes it worse.

...

Jon been around more but I can tell he is keeping something from me. He always sounds sad and paranoid. Why is he acting like this?

...

Jon fell asleep on the couch, he hasn't slept in while. He is a talking in sleep something about saving Martin. Is Martin okay?

...

Basira came by today she was angry, she drop off a tape and left....Jon's been 'feeding off people's trauma' apparently. What the hell is going on. Martin is okay, I guess or at least he seams okay.

...

He is leaving me again! For Scotland! With Martin! He says I have to stay here! What is his problem!? Why!? Why is leaving me ?! I don't want to be alone! WHY!? Why!? Why? Why... Why does he leave me?...I'm alone they're out there...but I can't be with them... It does make it worse...I just wanna cry ...I'm scared... I..I

Season 5: Reader's POV :

The world is disarray, it a literal apocalypse... I hate it..but I'm powerful.

It is a quiet neighborhood perfect houses, perfect yards, perfect roads, perfect neighborhoods. Venessa is home alone but it's been days. She hears them, her family. She even seem them outside but every time she goes out there is nobody. There is never anybody. No friends, no family, no neighbors nobody is here.

It like that for all of them glimpse and whispers just enough to know there is somebody but they can never reach them. They are afraid, their fear makes me feel powerful. I hate it.

...

I see him I know it's him. It been to long for it be fake. He coming this way. He is covered eyes and looks stuffy but it is here, right?. I can't move what if not him. What if I'm really just alone. Why if- I feel him he is hugging me he is cold. I hear him his voice is soft. He was here,Jon was here.

I look over shoulder when we pulled apart. I see Martian he's roughed up, but it still looks like him a little different but him. "Hey" I feel nervous and relief. "Hey" Martin answers, Jon just smiles at me. "Do you guys know what happened?" They side eye each other, Martin glances at me and nodes his head towards me. "What's up to with you two?".

Jon sighs and takes a step closer.

"I'm-" he takes a deep breath "it's my fault"

A pause.

"Hey Jon, quick thing that's not an answer"

"Excuse me?"

"You're excuses, but really you going all ' it's my fault, I'm a shitty person, blaah' doesn't tell me what happened"

I hear Martin snicker and glares at him

"well there not wrong, Jon." Jon groaned and ran his hands down his face. " Elias tricked me into bringing all the fear entities into the world so they can cause and feed on all the fear".

" Okay, follow up question, why do I not feel soul and mind crushing fear"

"cause though me you have a connection to the eye. So instead of being terrorized, you feed off of the fear of the people in your territory"

"who?"

"The people in town "

"Oh, okay."

"I don't like it Jon."

"...I know."

"it feels wrong."

"I know."

"They're suffering and I'm benefiting form it."

"Yeah."

"I hate it."

"I know." He sighs. "I know... and I'm sorry."

I look up to him.

"I know you are," I softly reply.

"You're going to leave?" I ask; it been clawing at the back of mind since he got here.

"Yes."

"Can I come with?"

"No, you're safer here."

My heart stopped. He was going to leave me. Again.

"You're going to leave me here?"

"Yes."

No, no, no, no-- he couldn't.

"...No, please don't me here."

"I'm sorry."

"No, don't leave me!" My heart was going to beat out of my chest-- he wouldn't leave me here. "Not again, take me with you."

"No, you're safer here."

"Jon, just think-"

"No, Martin, they're my younger sibling, and I'm not putting them in harms way."

"Jon!" I yelled.

I needed him to take me with. I was so scared to be left alone again.

"No!" he yelled at me- he never yells at me. "I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry, but I cannot and will not put you in danger."

I just stared at him, betrayed. He is leaving me again. I tore my eyes away from him and looked at the ground. My eyes filled with tears and body shook. Jon wrapped his arms around me.

"Please Jon, don't leave me alone."

"I can't, I'm sorry."

"You have to leave now?" I asked, hoping he would say no.

"Yes."

Wishes never did come true, did they?

I sighed and pulled away, then whispered, "Promise you will come back for me?"

"I promise."

I sighed and nodded.

"Okay, well see you later then."

"I'm sorry, see you later" with that he states to walk away with one last look and wave from Martin. they where gone. I'm fully alone my brother was gone I'm scared.

...

I woke up they world was back to normal-ish some thing changed but it wasn't apocalypse anymore. I got up with a jump and ran down the street I had to find him. I took a bit but I found Georgie by the old Magnus building it was in ruins tho. " Georgie!" She looked back and saw me

"Hey!" She opened her arms and gave me hug. I was so happy to see her.

" Hey! Oh my God how are you?"

She laughed "I've been better but I'm alive ".

I laughed with her "yeah, I guess have you seen Jon?". Her face became one full sorrow " Georgie? Where is Jon?" She looked at Basira and Melanie. Melanie shift form foot to foot and Basira shook her head. "Georgie, what happened to him?"

"I'm so sorry" she said

"Georgie, no please no"

"he didn't make it"

" No,no,no,no, this can't be happening". My breath quicken. I searched for him he couldn't have... "No,no,no,no. He promised!". He's not he couldn't be

"hey, take a deep breath it will be okay" Georgie put her hand on my shoulder. No,no it wouldn't not if he's .... I pulled harshly away from her falling on the ground. I didn't even feel the gravel under me as I got up and ran away. It couldn't be true it just couldn't be.

I ran for what felt like forever, I ran till couldn't anymore. I turn into a ally and slide down wall curling into myself. It couldn't be true it-he promised he-. But he wasn't here and I was alone. I did only thing I could do and cried and cried. He was gone, my last bit of family was gone. why? Why? WHY?. WHY DID HE LEAVE ME? why did he leave me alone.

I hope you enjoyed

-🦝

[dangerous-disposition]

On Tragedy vs. Bad Endings

[Image ID: user @frostyfrogz​ replied to your post “my mag171 #thots: I fully agree with. I love jonmartin I want nothing but the best for them. I know my answer today was an obvious twisting of dialogue but its just frustrating sometimes because it seems like people dont understand some sort of tragedy will indeed happen. I have never and will never suggest that something will happen to Jon and Martin’s relationship I’ve just been saying the shows not going to end well no matter what.]

So I have a lot of thoughts about this very subject, and too much for the replies on my post, so allow me to try to articulate what I mean, and what a lot of us mean when we say “it does not make sense for either Jon or Martin to turn evil in the end,” even in a show that has been advertised from day one as a tragedy.

First of all, no one thinks this is going to end happy. The few who do are usually unaware that this show is billed as a tragedy, and are quick to be corrected. I didn’t know it was a tragedy until I was on season 3 and someone told me. It’s overall just best to assume that the OP knows it’s not going to be a happy ending, because “reminding” people or “explaining” to people that the ending is going to be sad is a fast way from people to get annoyed and defensive.

Anyway! It appears, above all, that people have either fundamentally different ideas of what a tragedy is or accomplishes, or that people have a fundamentally flawed understanding of tragedy and it’s place as a narrative device/theme.

My thoughts are that tragedies hurt, and tragedies can be devastating, but they have to have a message and they should not be cruel to the audience.

A cruel ending would involve leading the audience to believe one thing for the entire book, show, movie, podcast, what have you, just to rip it away at the last minute like a big “fuck you” to the audience. Those sorts of endings are inherently mocking of the audience, and ultimately disrespectful. The only people in the audience that “benefit” from this sort of writing are the cynics who spent the entire show talking down to everyone for seeing the silver lining in the impending tragedy, even if, up until the finale, the silver lining was always part of the narrative. Like it took actual twisting and outright ignoring of the narrative as it’s written to be cynical and sceptical all the way until the end.

That is, plain and simple, bad writing. Jonny Sims is not a bad writer.

Now tragedies often have “happy endings,” they just also have an element of sadness colouring that ending. A good, tragic ending should, in my opinion, feel bittersweet. We should see it coming, we should know it will hurt, but it should be for the greater good and should further the narrative that has been told from the beginning.

I said a few weeks ago that a tragic ending without a silver lining is just torture porn, and I stand by it.

Now, if Jon or Martin are revealed to be Actually Evil in the end, where is the silver lining in that? What narrative has even possibly hinted at this outcome, without putting on cynic glasses?

Every single plot point and plot “twist” in TMA has been clearly detailed, never relegated to pure subtext that you would have to comb through a single interraction and analyzing the tone in which it was said (which could easily be actor shortcomings or error). They have always been obvious, at least in hindsight. This is why, for a while, I subscribed to the Web!Martin theory, but due to recent episodes I’m more inclined to believe those “obvious things” were red herrings.

Throughout The Magnus Archives, the common theme in every. Single. Season finale is that “we are stronger together.” What do I mean by that? Well, here’s the general idea:

Season 1: The one time someone gets separated by the group for any significant length of time, like I mean the main group, she gets killed by the NotThem and replaced.

Season 2: Jon is alone, due to his intense paranoia and his reluctance to reach out for help. This leads to a disastrous series of events that leaves him a suspect of murder, and his friends even more doubtful of his character.

Season 3: In the episode just before they deal with the Unknowing, Jon literally says that isolation was his downfall, and he was going to work on trusting his friends more. When they got separated during the Unknowing, things went to shit. When they found each other again, they were able to rally and they “succeeded.” Conversely, they are also teamed up with Melanie and Martin who hung back to bring down Elias. They were successful, working as teams on separate objectives, etc.

Season 4: This is, by far, their most “successful” feats while simultaneously their least. The whole season was again showing the downfalls of isolation. In the season finale, Jon has Basira and Daisy’s help, and while bolstering himself with their strength, and the strength in his conviction to save Martin to be with Martin, Jon was successful in stopping Peter Lukas and saving Martin. Conversely, Martin and Jon’s isolation in Scotland could be, theoretically, implicated in how Jonah Magnus was able to succeed in the end like that.

Now evidence of this same train of thought in season 5? Jon literally says it: Gertrude would not have done well in this post-apocalyptic world, because she had no friendships, no anchors, no reason to stay human. And then Jon says “you are my reason” to Martin.

It is in the text of the story that the only way to succeed, or win, or survive, is through trust, friendship, and love. One of the main factors in so many of the statements, on why the statement givers succumbed to the fear in their story, for even a moment, had to do with very little personal ties to anyone else. Many of the statements feature isolation and, as Jon put it, “lack of corroboration.” On the flipside, many of the statements that ended with the statement giver escaping successfully, and surviving long enough to be reached out to for follow-up questions, involved them having close personal ties to someone else that kept them safe, somehow. Like the girl from Italy; remembering her mom saved her from the Lonely. Or, more ridiculously, the guy and his dog that escaped the spiral because he was so distracted by his dog and had to be home for dinner. In MAG170, it was Martin’s love for Jon, and his trust in the love from Jon and his friends, that saved him from the Lonely again. Jon’s incredible amount of love, and respect, and trust in his friends is what’s kept him from becoming another Jared Hopworth or Jude Perry. In MAG155, Cost of Living, he expresses open disgust in how that particular avatar of The End justified her actions, killing and killing and killing again because she viewed herself as more worthy of life than that person. In that same episode, he talks of not blinding himself because he hopes to use his powers to protect his friends, that without them they’re too vulnerable. Honestly, this is the same reason Peter Lukas is unsuccessful, because Martin only helped him at all to protect his friends. The fact that he didn’t see his failure coming was hilarious.

Gerry said in Family Business that there is no “entities of love”, and that might be true, but love and trust is literally what saves you from fear. How many of us deal with things that are scary in our lives, if only because we have some level of trust in the people or things around us. How many of us have been brought out of a panic attack by someone we love and trust?

So all of this has been presented to us, over and over and over again, which is what I, and others, mean when we say “it does not make sense for one of them to be evil.” That’s what we mean when we say “it would be Bad Writing to make one of them evil in the end.” The entire show has driven home the message that we need love, we need personal connections to survive fear. To rip that away from the main characters at the last minute and call it “tragedy” would be a spit in the face of every single listener who took the story at face value, without picking it apart and reading lines out of context. And Jonny Sims and Alex J. Newall have both said they hate lazy writing.

Now, none of the JonMartin fans I follow are deluding themselves to think this show will have a happy ending outside of very self-indulgent fix-it au fanfics.

The way I see this going down is that Jon and Martin will figure out how to put the world back to the way it was, but Jon will not be able to be part of the new world with Martin. That’s the tragedy; that the world gets saved, and Jon helps save it, but he doesn’t get to benefit from his efforts in any way. The tragedy is Jon loves Martin so much, and they deserve their happy ending, but they don’t get it. But, they still saved the world so others can have their happy endings.

Idk about you, but between the “Jon turns evil in the end” and “Jon stays good and sacrifices himself to save the world” endings, only one of them has me in tears right now as I type this out, and it’s not the former.

I’m not against sad endings,I’m against bad endings that punish the audience for having even a bittersweet hope. I’m against sad endings that are just sad for the sake of being sad, with zero pay-off or reason to happen, especially when those endings throw out 5 years of hard work.

And hey, I might just be forced to eat my words in the end, but not before I fly all the way to England and make Jonny Sims eat a knuckle sandwich.

This was a lot longer than I meant for it to be, but I just have a lot of feelings.

[themagnusaesthetic]

Wow an original post? On this blog? Wild! This blog hasn't existed for that long, but I have been listening to tma for A While now, and I think that I, 3 episodes before it all ends, have figured out how it will end. I have laid the puzzle pieces out in front of me, put them together, and filled in the gaps. I am more sure of this theory than I have been of any of my previous ones, which is why I am posting this one here for everyone to see.

Obviously I dont have the full detailed script, but I think I roughly know whats going to happen, and I even have enough hubris to say I think I know what the final lines in the show are going to be, bear with me here please.

This theory works on the premise that they definitely will execute the plan Annabelle laid out for them in MAG197.

Basira will take Jon's lighter and set off the explosion (her character narrative has reached its end and shes running on borrowed time from when she escaped the dance at the Unknowing, she's not coming back from this, I'll be sad to see her go but at least she gets to commit arson and go out with a bang), someone else will go fuck up Jonah.

I haven't quite figured out who this second person is going to be, but thats okay, I think it will be either Melanie, Martin, or potentially even Jon (if I stretch it, it could even be Georgie because shes technically still running on borrowed time from her encounter with the End). In any case, someone will go kill Jonah.

Once all that is successfully set off, and I do believe they will be successful, we'll get some sick soundscaping of the fears rushing along the tapes and through the dimension hole, which will end with a Big Ol Noise and things will go silent for a sec.

Then a tape recorder will click on, probably the last one left in this dimension, now non-spooky flavoured cuz all the fears are gone. Whoever remains after the panopticon destruction will have picked it up and say smth about how the deed is done, how the world is broken and scarred but at least people are free to start living again, and how they hope the next dimension will fare better than their own. (if Jon is still around by this point, I think he'll be monologuing this, and he'll start to sound more and more like he did at Upton House as he goes on, indicating that yeah hes free now but being without the Eye still fucked him up big time and it's going to get worse from there for him.) Then the tape will click off.

Then there will be a slightly longer pause than usual, a final tape recorder will click on, and the last lines will be as follows:

"Test… Test… Test… 1, 2, 3… Right.

[COUGH]

My name is Jonathan Sims. I work for the Magnus Institute, London, an organisation dedicated to academic research into the esoteric and the paranormal. [...]"

After Jon says 'paranormal' his lines will start to fade out as the outro music fades in, overlaps them, and then drowns them out.

The Magnus Archives will end exactly how it began, because the real tragedy is the realisation that the dimension we witnessed in full is not the first iteration of the fears bringing pain and suffering and a terrible apocalypse, and it is also far from the last.

And thats my theory,,, As I said at the start I'm quite certain of this one, and perhaps that's a sign of how filled with hubris I am, but I'm going to hold onto this as my final theory and if I'm wrong then I guess Jonny Sims himself will break into my house to knock me off of my high horse.

[rayofspades]

How to Write a Horror Story: The Magnus Archives

This post is kinda weird since most tumblr fandom content is based on the assumption that Everyone Has Seen The Thing, but since this is a transcript of a video essay, it’s more broad. 

I might link the video in a reblog since, you know, tumblr doesn’t like links.

Anyways, here’s the post:

Hello Jon, apologies for the decep-

I’ve seen a lot of mystery shows in my day, and some supernatural shows, and the common thread between them is that they kind of...fall apart as they go on. 

Obviously, this is a generalization and I haven’t seen every mystery show or every paranormal show, but it’s a pretty common problem. 

At this point in pop culture criticism, it’s basically common knowledge that these shows fall apart due to a lack of planning. If a mystery series is making shit up as it goes along while trying to surprise the audience, it’s going to stop making sense at some point. And if an episodic paranormal show is constantly trying to up the stakes, eventually it’s going to become absolutely ridiculous and stretch the audience’s suspension of disbelief past a breaking point. 

Other people have already talked about this stuff to death, but today I want to talk about a paranormal mystery show that actually succeeds at what it set out to do.  

The Magnus Archives is a podcast written by Jonny Sims and directed by Alexander J. Newall. It ran from 2016 to 2021 and it’s...really really good. It’s an episodic horror story, taking place at the fictional Magnus Institute where the head archivist reads various statements about people’s encounters with supernatural entities. It’s got it all; scary stories, mystery, an overarching plot, office comedy, office romance, office tragedy, a villain that’s making straight men everywhere question their sexuality, and an overall really solid structure. 

If you listen to the Q+As put out by the writer and director, you’ll hear them talk about how they planned the series from the beginning, setting up the layout for each season. Some things were definitely changed throughout the actual writing process; that’s just inevitable and necessary when you’re working on a long running show, but in a general sense, they knew where they were going. But, writing a good story doesn’t just involve knowing where you’re going; it’s about executing whatever plan you have effectively. And I think the execution of The Magnus Archives is pretty brilliant, so I want to talk about it. 

And for the record, I said “brilliant,” not “perfect.” I do have a lot of criticisms of this show, and I’m definitely going to talk about those too, because honestly? Even the problems with this show are interesting in their own right. 

Ok, let’s go. 

Oh, spoilers by the way. For the whole plot. Whole thing. 

Part 1: Horror and Mystery 

Ok, so The Magnus Archives has two separate plots going on: the episodic stories that can be listened to individually, and the underlying meta plot. The former is where most of the mystery storytelling takes place, and it’s a really engaging mystery. It’s starts off slow, and almost undetectable at first. The main character, Jon, also known as The Archivist, is just reading out old scary stories that people have delivered to the Magnus Institute. Stuff like; a college student sees a ghostly inhuman figure asking for a cigarette, a woman’s fiancé dies and she finds herself trapped in an empty graveyard, there’s this goth kid who apparently murdered his mother and then skinned her? But she’s kind of still alive? What the f*ck? Hope we never see that kid again. Also, this “Jurgen Lietner” guy wrote a bunch of cursed books and Jon knows about this? Are more books gonna come up? And then you’re like, wait is the goth kid who killed that burn victim the same goth kid who killed his mom like 8 episodes ago? Holy shit the family of that girl’s dead fiancé FUNDS THE MAGNUS INSTITUTE? Did this famous youtuber meet one of the missing people from episode one? The goth kid is back and he’s looking for Leitner books? The name “Michael” has come up like 6 times? Are they all the same guy? I just—who the f*ck is Jurgen Leitner? 

So yeah, as you can see, a lot of these stories connect in cool ways, and I’ve only mentioned like, 0.2 percent of all of those connections. Furthermore, these stories are told out of chronological order, and sometimes the same scenario appears in more than one statement, told from different perspectives. This asymmetrical storytelling and odd doling out of information creates a mystery that’s really interesting. It also makes for a great re-listen, since you can retroactively see what elements were set up before you even realized that they were going to come back.  

The audio format contributes to this too; you can’t just see that the table from episode three matches the pattern on the box in episode eight. You have to pick up on clues that were mentioned and pay attention to what people are describing, and it’s highly rewarding when the pieces all start to fit together. 

There is a bit of a downside to this though. Technically The Magnus Archives is a horror story first and a mystery second, and these two elements can mesh in weird ways. 

The horror is element is really strong. Each story is completely different, sometimes focusing on psychological horror, body horror, or supernatural versions of more primal fears like heights, darkness, enclosed spaces, etc. Basically, if you’re afraid of anything, there will be at least one episode of The Magnus Archives that gets under your skin. 

Jonny Sims can really sell his stories through both his writing and acting. He plays Jon, by the way, and plagiarized his own birth certificate for the character name. (For future reference, Jonny is the actor, Jon is the character). Overall, he’s really good at writing prose, and each narrator has a very distinct voice even though the large majority of the stories are being read by one character/actor.  

Obviously not every episode is a bull’s eye. Sometimes it’s due to the subjectivity when it comes to what you as an audience member are scared of, and occasionally it’s just weird writing decisions. I’m thinking specifically of episode 21 where the line “the sky ate him” is said, and it is the worst line in the entire show. The whole goddamn show. That’s it. That’s the number one worst line. 

But still, overall, the horror storytelling is incredibly solid, and some episodes even gave me brand new fears, like the unholy isolation of being in space, or the concept that someone you love could be replaced by someone completely different without you noticing.  

But here’s the thing; 

A lot of good horror is based on the absence of explanation. Most of the episodes that gave me the most visceral reactions of genuine terror come from the first two seasons, because that’s when the audience has the least amount of information. 

For example, in episode two, a really terrifying coffin is introduced. It’s creepy, it reacts very strangely to water for some reason, and appears to compel people to try opening it. By the end of the episode, the audience never finds out what’s in that coffin and that is a good thing. That is a huge part of what made that episode so unnerving.  

And then a few seasons later, we do find out what’s in the coffin, and to be fair the answer is both very creative and very scary, but it also takes a lot of the punch out of episode two. 

 No matter how f*cked up your thing is, it’s not going to compare to whatever the audience can conjure up in their own mind after such a creepy set up. This problem isn’t just stuck in this one scenario either; there are a lot of early episodes that, while still good, seem a lot less creepy in hindsight after you learn more about the scenario. 

I don’t think it’s bad writing, but I do think it’s a double-edged sword. Jonny Sims even mentions this sort of issue in the first Q+A. 

But yeah, to sum up; the narration is good, the ideas are creative, and seeing the mystery unfurl itself is deeply compelling. And for the record, the mystery elements aren’t of the Sherlock Holmes variety. It’s less about finding out who did the thing, and more about discovering how all of these individual points are intricately connected, pulling on each other as they move. Woven together like a... oh shit what’s the word? Gah, it’s on the tip of my tongue. Ah, whatever, I’m sure it’s not like a running motif or anything.  

Part 2: Stakes 

One of the main reasons I stopped watching Supernatural is that it devolves into complete f*cking nonsense. At the end of season five, the boys literally defeat the devil, and then the show...keeps going? Which would be fine. It’s also, largely, an episodic show, so if they have more creative ideas, they could definitely keep going with it. In fact, there are some post season five episodes that I thought were pretty good. But as they kept trying to outdo themselves with Bigger Bads, it got kind of difficult to suspend my disbelief. And the final nail in the coffin for me was the end of season nine, when Crowly basically points out to the audience that the main characters keep dying and coming back to life, so there are no stakes. The most-badest bad guy can always be defeated because some new Thing can just come out of left-field, and dying isn’t even on the table as a threat since people have tons of ways of coming back to life. 

The Magnus Archives, while being a show based in the supernatural, notably doesn’t bring anyone back to life, even though some very beloved characters die. I say “notably,” because in the season three Q+A, Jonny even says, “We make a point not to bring people back from the dead in Magnus, I know it sometimes feels like that, but we are very careful to never actually resurrect anyone.” 

Upon listening to this I said “oh my god, these guys are the only writers left who at least kind of know what they’re doing.”  

Also, as far as plot progression goes, The Magnus Archives is lowkey structurally perfect in the way the threats escalate in the underlying plot; both in terms of destruction and power and in terms of emotional consequences. Season one starts off with one major threat that’s dealt with by the end of the season, season two reveals the main villain, season three lays out the grander forces at play, season four ends the world, and season five is about un-ending the world. The difference between season one and season five is vast, but how we got there makes perfect sense. 

As for the emotional stakes, let’s talk about themes and characters. 

Part 3: Themes and Characters 

At the very end of season two, it’s revealed that the supernatural happenings in the Magnus universe are the result of entities far beyond our understanding. Since their existence is so fundamentally different from what we can comprehend, they interact with the world through cursed items, creatures, and humans who have dedicated themselves to an entity.  

A lot of people read this as a metaphor for late-stage capitalism, and I am one of those people. A bunch of faceless entities exploiting humans through means of dehumanization and causing people to suffer because it feeds them seems like an appropriate metaphor. 

While we’re on this topic, I do want to talk about Elias, since he’s the main villain of the entire series and also one of my favorite villains of all time. The Magnus Archives is a series that deals with a lot of moral questions and has a lot of characters who do morally questionable things, so one might assume that the villain of said series is, you know, morally ambiguous and sympathetic to some extent despite being “the bad guy.” 

Nope! No stops, full bastard. It’s great. 

He falls under what I’ve deemed the “unbeatable boss” archetype. He just doesn’t tolerate insubordination or resistance, and that combined with his lack of empathy means that anyone who crosses him is either killed or brought to heel. His power set is cool too. On the surface the ability to see out of any eye and read minds sounds useful, but not deal breaking, but the way he uses that power to manipulate people and anticipate threats...yeah, it makes him kind of impossible to beat.  

He’s just...so evil and he loves being evil and every single f*cking thing he does pisses me off and makes me want to kill him. It’s. Great. 

Anyways, I think Elias’s role as the central antagonist is what makes the capitalist reading so common. He’s the head of the institute, he’s wealthy, he’s powerful, and he dehumanizes people in ways that are both brutal and chillingly indifferent. He seems like an appropriate stand in through that lens. 

I also love how voice actor Ben Meredith plays him like’s he’s trying to seduce the audience.  

With all of that said, I wouldn’t call this the critique of capitalism a direct allegory or anything; in much looser terms, this could be a metaphor for any power structure that exploits humans. Organized religion or cults might be even more on the nose, considering there’s a lot of mentions of rituals and worship within the show. 

But if we boil it down to its barest aspects and focus on the avatar characters, The Magnus Archives is a series about people becoming monsters. Or, at the very least, becoming worse versions of themselves. That can mean a lot of things to different people in a metaphorical sense; the tense relationship between desperation and morality, the eagerness to please at the cost of one’s own mental health, the psychological traumas that lead people down dark paths, and how personal choices can still be dictated and manipulated by outside influences. It’s kind of heavy stuff, but put into a digestible package through the show’s abstractions. 

Well, for the most part.  

There’s some debate as to whether or not Daisy’s arc was handled tastefully. While her demise and Basira’s character arc were clearly meant to condemn police brutality and the deeply corrupt system that allows it to foster, it’s still a weird subject to discuss in such a fantastical context, and there is a strange sympathy for the devil angle that can get kind of uncomfortable for some listeners.  

Okay, stepping back from that for a bit, let’s talk about Jon and how he fits into this whole “people becoming corrupted” thing. 

Jon has one of my favourite brands of character arc, which is one based in deterioration alongside growth. The most obvious way this takes form is his departure from humanity as his relationship with the Eye drives him to psychologically harm others, and he finds himself sympathizing more and more with the people he was afraid of, stating in episode 152 that anyone listening to his recordings might compare him to the other avatars that have had their minds and morals twisted. 

Over the course of the series, he is repeatedly traumatized and the show makes a point that he is being both physically and emotionally scarred. These happenings are what drive his motivation for revenge in season five, and he even states that revenge is making him a worse person. As a character he’s constantly berating himself and his own monstrousness, much to Martin’s dismay.  

That’s why the finale destroys me in the best way. Upon seeing that Jon has betrayed him and basically given himself over to the Eye, Martin asks “how much of you is even left?” And when Jon tries to reassure him that he’s still himself, Martin’s response is “how would you even know?” This cuts through me every time. Up until this point, Martin had consistently stood up for Jon and Jon’s humanity, even in the face of Tim’s doubt, Basira’s mistrust, Elias being cryptic, and Jon’s own self-hatred. This is the ultimate breaking point, the point where even Martin, the love of Jon’s life, doesn’t really recognize him. It’s brutal. Because at the end of the day, Jon is still himself; he’s a deeply broken person trying to make the right decisions.  

We’ll come back to the finale later, but for now I want to talk about the romance. 

Jon’s emotional growth throughout the series is largely tied into Martin. Martin’s the first person that Jon really opens up to, and this later grows into trust which then turns into a genuine emotional connection.  On the flip side, Martin’s growth in season four is largely tied into Jon. Martin starts season four basically waiting to die, but Jon’s return gives him a reason to keep living, and he’s later able to recognize his own value outside of the pure utility of ‘you need to set yourself on fire to keep everyone else warm.’ Both of them give each other reason to push onward despite everything becoming more and more hopeless.  

It’s a good romance. I wish the two had had a few more scenes together before the culmination, but it is built up over the course of four seasons and comes together in an utterly fantastic confession.  

And yeah, the scene with Martin and Jon in the Lonely is cheesy as hell, but it is the highest quality of cheese. These are some gourmet nachos.  

Umm, also kind of stating the obvious here, but it’s also pretty cool that the main character in this horror story falls in love with another man. You don’t see that a lot, and it’s cool that no one even makes a big deal out of it. It’s just a normal romance, but with two guys. It’s nice. 

So, they go to Scottland, they hang out, they’re in love, Jonalias starts the apocalypse through Jon, the world ends, and season five starts! 

...Let’s talk about season five! 

Part 4: Season 5 

At the very start of this post, I said that supernatural mysteries tend to get worse as they go along, and I am deeply sad to report that I don’t think that The Magnus Archives is an exception. It just goes downhill in a very different way than its ilk. 

And, so we’re clear, I don’t think season five totally tanks or becomes unlistenable, it’s just, in my opinion, notably worse than the rest of the show. 

As discussed earlier, it doesn’t fall apart due to a lack of planning; everything still makes sense, but the presentation has changed drastically. The episodic statements are no longer scary stories, but more like slam poems about the various hellscapes that Jon and Martin are trekking through. Honestly if these were published in a book of slam poetry, I would probably think they slapped pretty hard. I genuinely believe that Jonny Sims is a good writer, but as a podcast a lot of these statements just made me zone out. There’s at least four that I don’t even slightly remember. Myself and many others have noted that they just...aren’t scary, unless there’s a specific episode that really gets under your skin due to a certain fear or phobia. 

To quote my friend, “it’s harder to feel a solid impact when the setting is literally divorced from reality. People would either go numb or insane to the point where their fears become unrelatable.” 

And, to be honest, I think that this same surreal odyssey set up could have worked with a slight shift in narration. Two stand out episodes for me were “Strung Out” and “Wonderland.” Both of them show the tormented target actively trying to resist and interact with their tormenter, instead of just trying to escape or live through their situation. “Strung Out” is also more of character study; you learn about Francis’s life before the apocalypse through their interaction with the Web hellscape. Meanwhile “Wonderland” is just...f*cked, and you get to see Jon take the perspective of first-person Bad Guy throughout the whole thing, which is its own level of disturbing. 

But the majority of episodes feel so abstract that I kind of forget the people trapped in them are supposed to be characters and not just concepts, so it’s harder to feel their dread and pain. 

But I’m still here for the metaplot, the drama, and the romance. And when that’s good, it’s great! I think the final handful of episodes are really solid in that regard. 

Buuuuuuut... 

A decent chunk of season five is dedicated to the “kill bill” plot. Jon discovers he has the power to smite people, and while at first, he’s embarrassed about this, since he actively enjoyed killing Not!Sasha, Martin is super into it! He’s encouraging Jon to murder people.  

This is actually the set up for a really good arc. As Jon gets more and more into his own avenging angel persona, Martin could get more and more disturbed by it so by the time they get to London, Martin could be really upset that Jon is so willing to wreak his own divine justice by killing or torturing all of the avatars. 

And this does kind of happen. We do reach this end state, and it makes for a good final conflict, but the way we got here was borderline nonsense. Thematic gibberish, if you will. 

Throughout the journey, Martin is clearly motived by a sense of justice; these people are bad, and so they should die. Whereas Jon is clearly more motivated by revenge; he only goes after the avatars that hurt him personally. At one point, Jon admits that maybe all of this killing isn’t making anything better, but just making him worse. Martin apologizes for egging him on, Jon absolves him by saying he started it, and then Martin’s like “I’ll keep my apology then.” This is the second worst line in the entire series, right after “the sky ate him.” And it’s close. 

But it kind of feels like we’re back at square one. Jon is back to being ashamed of killing and Martin is still keen on his justice stance, but now just less pushy about it. The arc is basically half resolved at this point. 

But then it doesn’t matter, because Jon kills Helen anyway. So, Jon’s back on his revenge/justice thing. Then what was the point of his earlier revelation? Why have that if it’s not going to matter and the conflict that was escalating still culminates with Jon leaning into the avenging angel stuff, and Martin being disturbed by it? It just makes both of them look like huge hypocrites! I f*cking hate it when they’re in the tunnels and Martin says “you weren’t meant to enjoy it this much,” regarding Jon’s smiting. Where did this come from?! Why didn’t you say this earlier? Third worst line in the series. 

And yeah, I’ll say it; the boys fight too much in this season. I loved their romance up to season five, and their cute moments and more lowkey serious discussions are still good in this season, but God, they fight so much. And I’m not saying couples can’t have fights or tension, that’s just realistic and also stories need conflict to be interesting. Jonny Sims is on the record saying that balancing a healthy romance with the stress of a literal apocalypse was a priority, and I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’s well balanced.  I’m just saying that sometimes it feels like they don’t even like each other and it really started to grate on me. 

Maybe it would have been better if the beginning of this season was dedicated to charming romance at first, so we as an audience could better appreciate how strong their love is and how it’s truly being tested. But obviously that was never on the table— 

ALEX NO. 

So, yeah, I have a lot of problems with season. I think it’s the worst one by far, even though there is a lot of it I still enjoy, including the ending. 

As I mentioned before, the moment where Martin confronts Jon in the panopticon absolutely kills me, and Jon’s reaction kills me even harder. Throughout the season, Jon had largely been motivated by revenge, martyrdom, and the subconscious call of the Eye, and all three of those factors led him to his position as the pupil. He’s getting revenge against the powers, sacrificing his humanity to get rid of the Fears, and taking his place as wearer of the watcher’s crown. But all of this gets thrown out the window when he realizes that Martin is going to die. And not only is Martin going to die, Martin is going to die specifically because he loves Jon and refuses to leave Jon alone to die horribly. Martin had always been an underlying motivation for Jon, his “reason” as stated in episode 167, but now love as a motivator has come to the forefront, and Jon can no longer go through with his plan because of it. But at this point in the series, they’re both utterly doomed, and Jon concludes that the only possible chance they have of surviving, however unlikely, would be to sever the pupil of the eye, technically killing Jon, but maybe, just maybe, allowing them to escape with the Fears. Whether that’s meant to be literal or more ethereal is left unclear. Hell, maybe Jon’s just making it up completely and creating his own potential happy ending. It’s a pretty potent ending in emotional terms; Jon has to release the Fears and Martin has to kill Jon, and those are the two things they were dead set on not doing.  

The Web, arguably the real main antagonist, basically won, and their manipulation of Jon worked. The destruction spread, and there is kind of a bleak underlying tone to that. 

But at least this ending has some semblance of hope to it. I’m not saying that releasing the Fears was objectively the correct moral decision; the entire point of the dilemma is that there was no objectively correct moral decision. But, while Jon’s solution does have merit, it was also the most hopeless. I think dramatically, any one of the choices on the table could have worked if the writing was well executed, but thematically this one seemed like the perfect combination of grim and optimistic. Like, all of the evils that plague humanity can’t just be defeated forever and things could get worse, but maybe not. Maybe everything works out... 

So yeah, The Magnus Archives...is a podcast. And it’s a really good podcast. Great, even. I can complain about season five all I want, but regardless of how that worked out, you can tell throughout the entire show that the people working on it were trying to tell a genuinely excellent story. 

It’s good. Go listen to it. Even though I spoiled the entire thing and if you’re still here, you’ve probably already listened to it. Listen to it again. 

[abduct-me-helen]

Class 108's Apocalypse Field Trip | Chapter 1.

The world ended on a Tuesday. Quite suddenly, halfway through class. After the sky split open and green light bathed the earth, things changed. Some lived.

Some didn’t.

Class 108 stayed together, for the most part. They took up a base in the school, and boarded up the windows and doors.

Sydney was the one who first learned they didn’t need to eat. Other revelations of that sort followed. Sleep was not needed, nor was water. Air seemed to be, though, as they learned after Cal passed out from holding their breath.

The first one to die was Cú.

They don’t talk about Cú.

-

Of course, some things are unavoidable in the end. Logically, Sydney knew it was only a matter of time before something managed to slip under the cracks and they’d all get killed; god knows they’d narrowly scraped by enough times to be considered cosmically lucky. Tabitha had been spreading rumors, as was her nature, about the school itself being sentient, trapping them inside with false promises of safety.

On the worse days, Sydney believed it.

Sydney stepped into the classroom slowly, craning her head to where Tabitha and Rosie were explaining their theories. She didn’t know which theories, but she’d heard most of them by now.

“G’morning.” She said.

It was night.

No, she thought, the sky is dark, but that doesn’t mean it’s night.

Rosie gestures towards a desk, and she avoids the chair toppled over at her feet as she sits down on top of it. She takes not of who else had decided to attend this “session” of theirs today. There are 12 students left out of the thirty who had originally made up the class. Ten of them had disappeared after running away from the school in shock after the eye in the sky had first opened. They hadn’t been in homeroom during the “blink,” which is what they’d taken to call the eye opening, and hadn’t seen any teachers since that day.

She remembered it vividly.

Ms. Bruis had tensed, eyes wide in shock, before telling them to calm down and stay indoors. She immediately went outside the room to check on everyone else.

That was the last time they’d seen Ms. Bruis, but not the last time they’d seen her face.

Besides the initial chaos, there wasn’t anything attacking the school. It was just shouting and screaming and running. Sydney had stayed in the classroom, clumsily trying to close the blinds on the window.

People just, left. And they didn’t come back.

The first venture was when they lost Cú. She doesn’t like to talk about him, never mind think about him. Nonetheless, her mind often drifts towards his death.

It was about four hours after the chaos. People had been nearly sucked out of the building, teachers included. The only ones that remained were the thirty students of 108.

Sydney didn’t know why they were the only ones to remain. She still doesn’t now.

The students decided to have a short party go out and scout. Sydney, Katie, Cú, Tabitha and Rosie. Four survived, one did not.

Rosie was always the thinker of the group, and as such she took the front. Katie was chosen for her seemingly nonchalant disposition to going, and Tabitha for her mind, which was always going too fast and often arriving at far-out conclusions. Despite this, she was a quick-witted person and had been selected for her dexterity and speed. Cú was selected for his physicality. He was a teddy bear, but a strong teddy bear.

It didn’t save him in the end.

And Sydney, well, she was cautious. She wonders if she could’ve saved Cú if she’d been just a little bit wearier.

They wandered a few blocks before hearing the sound of skin and bone splitting. Tabitha immediately ran toward the sound, as was her nature. The rest, Rosie at the lead, followed, hiding behind a corner.

Katie didn’t make a face, but even she was visibly pale.

When the sound came again, louder, and a creature made of wet flesh and twisted muscle stepped out of the alleyway, she became practically white.

Sydney retched. She’s not ashamed to admit it, you would’ve too. Anyone would’ve retched if they saw that sight.

It got worse.

“Hello?! Someone! Help me, please!”

It was Ms. Bruis-no, it looked like Ms. Bruis.

Cú ran. He dodged the creature, running to Ms. Bruis and starting to try to pick her up off the ground, before he noticed she was rooted to the cement. His eyes widened as blood ran down her face

She smirked.

Sydney will always remember the flash of teeth before she plunged her hand-no, her claw-into his stomach. He made a choked sound before the creature bounded back over and ripped his jaw clean off.

They ran. They ran. They ran.

And then they came back to the classroom, and they wept.

There were more expeditions after that. They lost seven more after that, but in those ventures, they collected knowledge. This knowledge went on Rosie’s list, though it also doubled as a rulebook.

-

THE LIST

1. Some creatures can make copies of people you know in order to trick you. They don’t bleed, so your best shot at not meeting eyeball daddy up close is to yeet the fuck outta there//bold of you to assume I don’t want to meet eyeball daddy uwu//

2. Don’t trust meat. Ever. Meat comes alive. WE ARE VEGANS IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2018(?)

3. Don’t answer the door, even if you’re armed. No, Eric, we do not count your big muscles™ as a weapon.

4. If you MUST answer the door, don’t. You have been stopped.

5. A short section on the happenings of the places(?) known to us as “nightmares.”

Nightmares trap humans in these crazy places. We’ve only seen two, but they are extremely dangerous, and both encounters ended in casualties. They trap your mind and make you experience terrible things, and like the rest of the world (to our knowledge at least) don’t follow normal time or space rules. Basically, if you want to avoid a ,’ , |,’_’, you should not screw with that shit.

6. Always check with someone else before eating or drinking. Sometimes, your mind will play tricks on you and you won’t notice that you’re eating something…not good. Honor cal for their sacrifice regarding this matter (sorry cal)

7. Always shut the blinds. Eyeball daddy is watching you//YOU DID NOT NEED TO SAY THAT TABITHA

8. Don’t leave the building without consulting all of class 108.

9. Don’t read books that others haven’t read first, especially if it says it’s from the library of Jurgen LeitnerSTUPID IDIOT MOTHERFUCKING JURGEN LEITENER GOD DAMN FOOL BOOK COLLECTING DUST EATING RAT OLD BASTARD SHITHEAD IDIO//yes, Riko, we get it, but good point. Be Jared, 19.

10. Don’t invite anyone in.

-

“What are we on today?” Sydney asked.

“Tabitha’s on about the categories again.” Cal said.

“I really think it could work!” she said loudly. “Look, there’s consistencies in every single encounter we’ve had. Think about it. Remember what happened at the theater?”

Katie grimaced silently. “How could we forget?”

Tabitha ignored her. “The webs. Spiders and the rest of those insects are different categories. The wriggly silver worms are more like, bugs and wriggly things and judging from the infestation we had they all work together.”

“Like a hive?” Cal asked.

Tabitha nodded. “Exactly like that. Spiders are different though; you saw how many were crawling about during the amphitheater incident. And that whole thing was about control. All those people who were laughing…they, they were there. They didn’t want to do it! They didn’t want to laugh, you saw their eyes. They were being controlled. And when,” she paused, gritting her teeth, “and when Marcy died she was being controlled too. Puppeted.”

That’s two. Then we come to the next one, guns and murder and war and shit like that. Simple enough. But I think it has to be humans killing humans, because the thing that killed, killed Cú wasn’t like that. It was, it was different. I don’t know. I’ll get back to that.

“Then we have the cover up, or the anonymous things. Things like those little creatures that hide in your plates that you can’t notice are there until someone tells you. That’s why I’m confused, because I think the weird fleshy creature we faced was aligned with that but also with those meat things that broke Rosie’s leg. I don’t know how to explain it, but, ah. Sorry. I think they’re the same category.”

“I’ll humor you; can a thing be two categories?” Katie questioned her dully.

“I think so. Maybe it’s like colors? Really angry colors. They’re all separate, but the same because they’re all made of the same stuff. And they all blur together sometimes?”

“Yeah,” Katie snorted, “we’re being killed by really angry colors.”

Tabitha flushed. “Hey! It was just an analogy.”

Rosie seemed to be considering what Tabitha had said, before she looked up. “I believe you.”

“Y-you do?” Tabitha blinked, taken back.

Rosie nodded. “It makes sense. Really angry colors.”

“Really angry colors.”

-

A few hours-well, time was weird, but Sydney supposed it was hours-later, the class was doing yoga. Well, not “yoga” per se. They were beating each other on the head with torn up yoga mats.

“Hey!” Riko shouted as Tabitha tripped over her mat while chasing Cal. “Watch it! This is where I sleep!”

Tabitha stuck her tongue out and Katie snorted, not looking up from her book. Sydney wondered how she did that; Katie always seemed to have an astounding amount of situational awareness at all times.

“Real mature.” Katie groused.

Tabitha grinned, and Rosie smiled softly.

“I’M GOING TO MAKE YOU MEET EYEBALL DADDY!” she shouted to Cal, who’s eyes widened in mock fear.

“Oh no! The horror! OwO!” They said dramatically.

“Did they just say “OwO���?” Sydney asked in a deadpan. Rosie nodded solemnly.

“You ever wonder…” Sydney trailed off, the muffled shouting of their peers drowned out into the background.

“Wonder what?” Rosie tilted her head in question.

“What happened to Mr. Sims.”

“He’s probably…not with us anymore.”

“Yeah. Still, could you imagine? He was a bloody cryptid. He’d probably take all this with no sweat.”

“Maybe he’d give us concerts too.”

“Good ole Jonny D’Ville.”

Rosie snickered.

“You know how he always drew eyes everywhere? During tests?”

“Oh god, don’t mention that to Tabitha, I don’t need her going on about another conspiracy.”

Sydney grinned to herself and Rosie groaned.

“Well, I was thinking, maybe it was an omen.”

“An omen?”

“Yeah. I’ve never been spiritual really, but the worlds gone to shit so who knows what’s real. Maybe the Mayans were just a few days off.”

“Ah, the apocalypse calendar.”

“Indeed.”

-

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

A noise rang out from the entrance to the school, loud and imposing. Sydney’s heart started to thump wildly in terror.

They all shot up, and Katie got her switchblade out from her pocket. She was lucky enough to have it on her at the blink, and it was their best weapon.

Cypress shot inside the classroom silently, eyes wide, red curls bouncing. He clicked the door shut quietly, pale. “The others sent me. They’re hiding in place. I think we should just stay put.”

Rosie nodded, gesturing him to come over. She placed a finger over her lips in order to get them to stay silent, then nodded to Katie. Katie had always been gifted with really good hearing, and it had saved their assess more than enough times for Rosie to know that letting her try to hear who was at the door was the best safe bet for situation and the time being.

Katie closed her eyes, but after a quarter of a minute shook her head.

That’s when they heard it.

“Hello!”

Sydney brought a hand to her mouth to clamp down a scream.

It was Cypress.

Eyes wide, she glanced over to Cypress, her Cypress, who’s expression was now glazed over. Was his skin always that waxy? Why was his hair so smooth? It looked like that of a dolls, curls made of softly bent plastic.

Katie saw the flicker of light before she saw the blade, and she lunged.

Her switchblade pierced his skin-no, his stuffing, with a sound akin to ripping a toy. It didn’t seem to stop this not-Cypress.

Oh god, Sydney thought, today is the day I die.

There was a sound like static now in the air, and the faint smell of burning. Sydney began to feel sick, almost lightheaded.

The door swung open, and Sydney whipped her head around to see Cypress, who was trailed by…Mr. Sims?

[haberdashing]

Biting Your Own Neck (4/?)

Mid-season 2, Jon’s life is abruptly upended by the intrusion of two unexpected and eerily familiar visitors.

on AO3

Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4

“You want to talk about trust, about sharing things with each other?” Jon stood up from his seat--Sasha’s seat, a place he never should have had to occupy, a place he never would have occupied if it weren’t for the intruders in their midst--and looked right at Not-Jon (and Not-Martin, by proxy, since the two were standing side by side, nearly touching now). “Fine. You go first. Why are you here?”

“We’re from-” Not-Jon began, but Jon cut him off.

“The future, or a dimension that’s essentially the future? Yes, I got that much already, thank you. Why did you come here from there?”

“We didn’t mean to.” Not-Martin said.

“Martin!”

Jon looked over at Martin when he heard his own voice call Martin’s name; Martin, for his part, was looking right back at him with an expression that seemed somewhere between surprised and terrified, but it was Not-Martin that spoke up.

“Look, Jon, I’m not going to just- just lie to them about what happened-”

“I didn’t say that, did I? I just meant-”

Even before he looked over, Jon could feel Tim and Martin’s gazes darting between him and the actual speakers, Not-Jon and Not-Martin, who apparently also used the names Jon and Martin for one another as well as having the same voices that the actual Jon and Martin did...

“Can we start by having you two pick different names? We’re-” Jon waved his arm in a sweeping gesture to indicate that he was including Martin in particular. “-already using Jon and Martin at the moment, as it happens.”

“I’m not going to stop calling him-” Not-Jon gestured towards Not-Martin, and Jon noted with a sinking stomach that the gesture was eerily similar to the one he himself had just made. “-Martin. That’s his name.”

“Fine, then, you two can call each other whatever, but we need something for the rest of us to call you, unless you want me to just keep thinking of you as Not-Me and Not-Martin for as long as you’re here.”

Not-Jon and Not-Martin both paled visibly at the words; Jon wondered, idly, what their own experiences with Not-Sasha were, if they really were from the future, presumably one where she hadn’t been so suddenly unmasked by another duo of imposters. Probably not terribly pleasant, judging from the grimaces on both their faces.

Not-Jon nodded once. “Fair enough. Perhaps just a variation of your name that you don’t normally use would work--Sims, perhaps, or Jonathan...”

Jon shook his head. “No. Those are still my name, and you’re still not getting any part of my identity out of this.”

Not-Martin let out a soft sigh and a slight shrug of the shoulders. “Did you have something in mind, then? I mean, it is your plan and all...”

“Er...”

Jon had not in fact had anything in particular in mind, had only a nebulous idea of what he didn’t want these doppelgangers going by, but as he thought about it, an idea came to mind.

“You want a version of my name that badly? You can be Jonny. Nobody’s called me that for some time now, so there should be no chance of confusion.”

Not-Jon--no, Jonny let out a rough laugh. “Fine by me, though don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing there. But if you insist, I will be Jonny D’Ville,” Jonny leaned forward in an exaggerated bow. “Your humble captain.”

Jon could feel his face heating up, which only intensified as he heard Tim call out “First mate!” from his seat nearby.

Jon was only able to stammer out a soft “That works” before Tim spoke up again, this time looking Jon’s way as he spoke.

“Hang on, since when do you know about the Mechanisms? Don’t tell me you only get won over by my musical tastes in the future-”

Jonny replied with a quick “No” before Jon could bring himself to do the same.

“So what’s the story, then? You said you weren’t into them!”

Jon let out a sigh before responding. “Technically, what I said was I wasn’t in the habit of listening to their CDs.”

“Close enough. Did you just change your mind, or what?”

Jon looked away from Tim, only to see Jonny was gazing his way as well.

“You might as well tell him.” Jonny was grinning and looked a bit like he was trying to stifle a laugh.

“Tell me what?”

He wasn’t getting out of this one, now, was he?

Jon pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes briefly. “I’m pretty sure most musicians aren’t in the habit of listening to CDs of their own work, Tim.”

“You’re... you’re saying you were in the Mechanisms.” Tim’s gaze darted between Jon and Jonny. “You’re saying you’re Jonny fucking D’Ville?”

“...yes.”

Tim raised an eyebrow. “Prove it, then.”

Jon did his best to mimic the gesture as he looked back at Tim. “Why would I lie about this?”

“I mean, either you were lying then or you’re lying now, so...”

“It wasn’t technically...” Jon let his speech trail off as he realized that fighting over the point was probably detrimental to the whole trust thing Jonny was trying to encourage in them. (Had he predicted this happening, or even somehow orchestrated the whole thing?)

“Alright. Alright, I’ll prove it.”

And then Jon began to chant. It was the first thing that came to mind that would serve as proper proof, not just something that would show his vocal talents but something that even most fans of the band wouldn’t have bothered to memorize...

“Y'AI 'NG'NGAH, YOG-SOTHOTH H'EE-L'GEB F'AI THRODOG UAAAH-”

Jon was pretty sure he heard somebody quietly laughing in the background, though he couldn’t recognize the laugh by sound alone and didn’t want to look around, didn’t want to see all the strange expressions that must be on everybody’s faces just to know who the culprit was.

“-OGTHROD AI'F GEB'L-EE'H YOG-SOTHOTH 'NGAH'NG AI'Y ZHRO-”

Jon did, however, glance over at Jonny briefly, only to see that not only was he not the one laughing, he was either mouthing or singing along to the chant. (It was hard to say which, especially when Jon knew well enough that Jonny’s voice would sound the same as his own, so he couldn’t just listen for a different voice joining in.)

Jon went on for another line or two of chanting before trailing off, looking over at a dumbfounded Tim with a half-suppressed grin on his face.

“Is that proof enough for you?”

There was silence for a moment before Martin spoke up. “...what kind of band is this, exactly?”

Jon looked over at Jonny, though he couldn’t say exactly why, but Jonny just shook his head. “Think you can handle this one on your own.”

“It’s a, a band of immortal space pirates that all live on the same spaceship, Jonny D’Ville being the lead singer and, and also the first mate, they tell stories based on folklore and mythology but all adapted for a science fiction setting...”

“God, you’re talented.”

Jon glanced at Not-Martin first before finding the actual source of the words in Martin, whose face was rapidly reddening as he added, “Well, I mean, I, I knew that already of course, but... Musically. I didn’t know you were so musically talented.”

Jon let out a harsh laugh. “If you think I’m talented, you should meet Morgan. He played four different instruments for the band--four! All I can do is sing and work the harmonica a bit.”

“Still...”

“Why didn’t you just tell me about all this when it came out before?” Tim interrupted. “You knew I liked the band, after all, so why not just take the credit?”

“I, uh.” Jon could feel his face heating up again. “It, it was shortly after I got promoted, and I just, I didn’t think-”

“Oh, I see. You didn’t think being part of an awesome band of space pirates fit the image you were going for as ‘Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London’, is that it?”

Jon wasn’t sure what to focus on--the truth of Tim’s accusation and how petty and simple those worries about his professional image seemed now, how eerily accurate Tim’s impression of how Jon started every statement tape was, how he could hear his own voice softly laughing as Jonny quietly cracked up...

Jon settled for resting his face in his own hands such that he could avoid looking at anyone.

“So we’ve got my name settled, then.” Jonny said, the voice enough to get Jon to look up again. “But what about Martin--my Martin, I mean?”

Was there something weirdly possessive in the way Jonny said my Martin, like they were a unit, two halves of a whole, or was Jon imagining it?

“Er.”

“Um.”

The two Martins stared at least other for a long moment, neither one rushing to give a response, and Jon couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of it. If their story was a lie, if this other Martin was just an imitation of the real thing, Jon had to admit that it was an awfully good imitation.

“Kay?”

It took Jon a moment to recognize that Not-Martin hadn’t just abbreviated the word “okay” there, was in fact proposing Kay as a name for himself. Kay as in the letter, presumably, as in the middle initial in Martin K. Blackwood that Jon still didn’t know the full version of, even though he’d done rather a lot of research into his coworkers in the last few months...

Martin hesitated for a moment before tersely nodding. “Yeah, Kay, that works for me if it works for you.”

“I wouldn’t have suggested it if it didn’t work for me, would I?”

“...fair point.”

“Sounds like we’ve got that settled then. I’m Jonny, and he’s Kay, at least as far as you lot are concerned.”

“Who are you calling ‘you lot’?” Tim asked. “And why don’t I get a freaky supernatural future double like you two do, anyway?”

Jonny and Kay exchanged a glance before the latter spoke up.

“...I think we’d better save that particular story for a bit later on.”

[humanisation]

freckles, tea stains, lavender for the asks?

freckles: 5 facts about you

1. i was involved with a prestigious music organisation for 2 years due to my mostly self taught piano and entirely self taught composition skills

2. the three colours i have dyed my hair since i shaved it off last year are blue, pink, and white (j left it bleached). trans rights babey

3. jonny sims high fived me because i told him about the gay trans horror story i was writing and then after i finished talking to him my phone hit the floor and the screen shattered into irreparable pieces

4. the two main things i remember about being 12-13 are listening to the mountain goats a lot and reading the detective pony homestuck fanfic (the one that gets a little into literary theory) and this i think is a good replacement for any amount of facts i could tell you because i think that explains every single thing about me

5. my friend made an OC for a motw campaign and named him bobo the clown. this clown has blue hair and is gay. we did not realise until after he showed up in campaign that i was the perfect bobo faceclaim

tea stains: 3 followers you would like to have tea with

man idk how to pick just 3. theo, andrew, tal? but then also like. oscar, danny, mary, all of my Friends. let’s just All sit in the gay teashop near me that has a whole book of different teas

lavender: describe your perfect day

god. yesterday. sitting with my friends in a field mostly fucking around but playing some sleepaway, got given my new binder from one of them (i’d had it delivered to their house because parents) which is fucking incredible i literally don’t know how i coped with the old one, got home and sat in voice chat with my other group of friends and played jackbox. i mean ideally there’d be more tea shops, hugs and full meals involved but it was pretty good as is.

[ncfan-1]

ncfan listens to The Magnus Archives: S1 EP022 (’Colony’), EP023 (’Schwartzwald’), & EP024 (’Strange Music’)

In which a lot of plot material is dropped on us.

No spoilers past Season 1, please!

EP 022: ‘Colony’

- So we’re back from where ‘Freefall’ left off, with Martin retelling his close encounter with Jane Prentiss. What happened with the container full of worms that he presumably brought into the Archives, I don’t know.

- Jonathan’s silence after Martin says he can vouch for his sanity is so awful it winds up being hilarious.

- Martin picked up on the same thing that I picked up on the first time I listened to ‘Arachnophobia’—namely that the description of the worms rings a bell.

- It says something about how sketchy the Archives has become to me even at this point that I didn’t bat an eye that Martin regarded breaking and entering an acceptable part of “due diligence.”

- “I get closer, and I see that it looks more like a worm of some sort, maybe an inch long, with a silver, segmented body that goes black at one end, almost like it’s been burned.” This is a description of the worm. It stood out to me, and I’ll explain why at the end of the section.

- I wonder—did the edges of Martin’s shadow move because worms were moving in it, or does proximity to the Flesh Hive (or a host of the Flesh Hive) by itself have that effect?

- Oh, Martin, Jonathan didn’t once think about it in terms of you having disappeared.

- Because I have a slightly dirty mind, I assume Jane Prentiss was naked under that coat. Obviously, the holes in her body and the general state of decay her body was in would have distracted from that. Those images from Planet Earth of different species of cordyceps growing out of different species of animal corpses is firmly impressed upon my mind.

- I wonder how much of Jane’s mind is even left at this point. Like, by the season finale, I can only assume that she’s dead and the Flesh Hive is running around with her corpse, but was she even properly alive anymore at this point? I honestly don’t know.

- If I’d been trapped in my home by Jane Prentiss and the worms for thirteen days, I would have been screwed. Like Martin, I keep upwards of a week’s worth of food on hand, but a lot of my stuff is frozen. Also, since we live out in the middle of nowhere, if we lose power, we also lose running water, and about the only thing I drink anymore is water.

- I imagine Martin doesn’t want to think about it (and who could blame him?), but I wonder if, while Jane and the worms were stalking Martin’s home, any of his neighbors tried to stop by. Or any of their pets. Does Martin have pets? (Did he have pets?)

- It’s a testament to how seriously Jon takes Jane Prentiss that he isn’t nasty to Martin at all after he’s done making his statement, that he volunteers to ask Elias to hire extra security, and goes so far as to offer Martin the use of a room in the Archives until the danger’s passed.

- Martin’s stunned stammering when Jon says all this is kinda heartbreaking.

- “Keep him. We have had our fun.” Y I K E S.

- Now, I talk about the worms—namely, the description of the worms, and why it stood out to me that these worms, the manifestation of an entity that hates the Magnus Institute, look the way they do.

Let me tell you about the silverfish. The silverfish is a small insect, ranging in size from half an inch to one inch long. It has a silver, segmented body that’s darker at the head, and it looks like this:

It doesn’t look exactly like the worms. It has legs and antennae; it’s not a worm at all. The funny thing about the silverfish, however, is that it’s the bane of many an archive in a humid climate, because among other things, one of its favorite things to eat is paper. I wonder if this was an intentional choice on Jonny Sims’s (the writer’s) part.

EP 023: ‘Schwartzwald’

- This is my favorite of the set I’m doing today, and it’s one of my favorites of Season 1. It’s just so lovely.

- So, was Jonah Magnus of German descent? Von Closen remarks upon his very strong opinions about the German confederation, and I get the impression that it is (or was, or possibly still is) much in use as a Germanic and a Scandinavian given name and surname.

- I listen to von Closen’s description of the Black Forest, and I wonder how it compares to the forests I know. I’d believe that the trees are taller, but the forests here are very dense, and the undergrowth can make them very difficult to navigate.

- I’d say finding a cemetery in the middle of the woods is incredibly creepy, but old, small family burial plots are so common in the South that it’s not out of the question that you’d stumble across one if you started walking across the backwoods in a really rural area. You can see a lot of them in farmland, far from the road at the tree line. My family’s old burial plot is in a cow pasture. One of the raised tombs is broken.

- Okay, I’ve read enough ghost stories to know that when a creepy old man tells you it’s dangerous to do the thing, that’s your signal to turn right back around and forget about doing the thing. From a more practical standpoint, even discounting supernatural elements, you shouldn’t do exploration of the kind von Closen is doing by yourself, because of the risk of being injured so far from civilization is a very real one, and it’s worse if you’re by yourself.

- And we have an intermission with Martin! And it turns out that Jonathan has been coming to the Archive well before seven in the morning for a while. Yeah, that’s not unhealthy at all.

- I would not be surprised if the books von Closen found in the mausoleum are of the same class of book as Jurgen Leitner’s stuff. Most of them were damaged past the capacity to read them, and the world is a better place for it. The fact that the one book he took away from the mausoleum is unaccounted for is… worrisome.

- A wall seemingly made of (probably evil) books molded together is a nice, evocative image.

- More eye imagery.

- The fact that the book von Closen found was probably in Arabic is kinda funny to me, because in Lovecraftian lore, the author of the Necronomicon was Arabic, and I think that’s the original language of the text.

- The text on the coin von Closen found, “Für de stille,” made the recording go staticky. It’s German for ‘For the silence’, if Google Translate can be trusted, and yeah, I know that’s a tall order.

- The date on the coin, 1279, is the year Ulrich II, Count of Württemberg, died. He was twenty-five.

- And now we get a story behind the creepy mausoleum. ‘Johann’s steps’ seems to carry on a long tradition of egregiously risky childhood games. And, indeed, what was it they were seen by?

- I can’t tell if Johann von Württemberg is supposed to be a historical figure or not.

- I love the detail about the old man being able to see despite having no eyes, and his head jerking up like a hunting dog’s responding to a signal. It so effectively signals that the only human thing about him is his appearance.

- The stinger is great—apparently this friend of Jonah Magnus’s nephew is the ancestor of another collector of the arcane, Mary Keay, and her son, Gerard Keay. Mary’s birth date struck me, though, the fact that she was born in 1924. Gerard was described as being in his late teens, so somewhere between seventeen and nineteen, in 2002 (‘Old Passages’)—I’d assume the reason Dominic Swain assumed him to be in his late thirties ten years later in ‘Page Turner’ was down to rough living. That means that Mary would have had to have been in her late fifties or even her early sixties when Gerard was born. It’s not impossible for a woman to have a child (and apparently her first) at that age, it’s just extremely rare.

EP 024: ‘Strange Music’

- I’m like Leanne; I’m not scared of clowns, but I don’t think they’re all that funny, either. Dolls can occasionally be creepy, but for the most part, they’re not—at least, not by themselves.

- Budel is a town in the Netherlands, it turns out.

- A loft is an… interesting place to keep something like a calliope organ. The fact that the organ and the steamer trunk full of mutilated dolls are the only things in the loft makes me think that Nikolai was hiding them there, like he couldn’t get rid of them but wanted to forget they were there.

- One does wonder how exactly the broken calliope organ played.

- The clown doll sounds like a Pierrot-style doll. I think the clown doll from Poltergeist was like that as well.

- The only way I have ever heard Calliope pronounced is “Cuh-LIE-oh-pee.” I’ve never heard it pronounced “Call-ee-OH-pee,” and I’ve certainly never heard it pronounced “Call-ee-ohp.” Who exactly pronounces it “Call-ee-ohp?”

- “Faster, faster” sounds vaguely demonic in origin. Just something about how frantically fast it is and how completely carried away Leanne gets while playing it, how lost in the music she gets. That and the fact that playing it immediately gets the clown doll’s attention.

- Wonder what Josh did that proved him to be “just another asshole.” From the context, it sounds like he cheated on Leanne or stole from her or something like that.

- I also wonder what it was that made the entity of the episode decide to target Josh and not Leanne. I really doubt it respects the fact that she’s the granddaughter of the person who owned the calliope organ.

- And some sinister delivery men (gee, I wonder who it could be, she says sarcastically) broke into Leanne’s house just to get at the organ and the trunk.

- And it turns out Leanne’s grandfather Nikolai Dennikin was an organist for a creepy circus called the Circus of the Other. Given that name, ‘Circus of the Other’, I expect that to come up again.

- And the stinger of this episode is that the sinister calliope organ has somehow ended up in the Archives’ artifact storage room. Which is a good stinger, I’ll admit.