#Tim jokes about killing Jon but to me it's more in a “Then Elias will have to pick you” way not a “I hate Jon and he should die” way

[i-will-change-this-someday]

I was talking with my brother about this a while ago, and I was telling him that, to me, the reason Tim reacted so strongly to Jon stalking him is because it was probably a really big betrayal and trigger for Tim.

It's implied, at least to me, that Jon and Tim were decent friends; Jon wanted Tim to join him in the archives, Jon trusted Tim not to pull a prank on him, Tim tried to calm Jon down when he was obviously stressed, and Jon even admitted to Tim that he wasn't doing well, (and coming from Jon, I take that to mean they were on pretty good terms.) Tim was helping Jon limp around in the tunnels, and didn't leave him when they got attacked, Tim happily threw Jon a birthday party.

So when Jon falls into a supernaturally induced paranoia spiral and starts looking at everyone like they're going to kill him, it's pretty bad for their relationship, and then Jon is stalking Tim's home and that's even worse for their relationship.

Tim explicitly says that he just wanted someone to support him after his traumatic experience, but Sasha is acting odd, and he's not as close to Martin, and when he turns to Jon, Jon is looking at him like he's a murderer.

And it is, again, at least to me, implied that Tim was a suspect in killing his brother. He was the last human to see Danny alive, and if questioned what happened to him, all Tim would be able to tell them was something that should be impossible. (In Ep 79 Tim wants to record what's happening because he wants evidence, and if I'm reading it right, they think Jon might try to kill himself, so Tim doesn't want to be suspected for the death of another person he cares about.)

[sleepybugeyes]

I read through all of Elias/Jonah's dialogue (as you do) plus some relistening and mentions of him, so here's a big list of some fun things and behaviors I noted!

I thought he made a lot of eye puns/jokes, but he only does it once in mag161, however he does enjoy making jokes. "Creativity never was their forte." from mag80, "You want my account? My sworn testimony? My statement?" from 82, "If you die, I’m afraid you probably won’t be able to claim your expenses." in 116 and "I only have two eyes, after all." in 120. no one ever laughs at his jokes only he finds them amusing

His last words telling Jon a sarcastic or mocking "good luck" are mirrored earlier as he also tells Basira good luck the last time he sees her, and Martin, as he's getting arrested

He loves gloating. "I forget how new you all are to this." from mag92, "Coffee is not as good for disguising tastes as you might think." in 98, "She’s hoping that even if I see it coming she’ll still be able to overpower me. She’s wrong, of course," in 102, "A masterpiece, isn’t it?" abt his panopticon in 158 and of course his whole monologue in 160

He does his budgeting on tuesdays and his scheduling on wednesdays

He also likes getting lost in work

in mag40 he makes up proper incompetency (said he didnt know how the fire system works, while he later admits he was actively waiting) just that once, but more so he acts like he doesnt get the full picture (doesnt know whats in the tunnels, whats strange about the institute) or acts too late and apologises (not stepping into jon's stalking behaviour). Which makes me think he is quite fine letting people think less of him but unless he has something to hide hes not actively looking to give the impression

in mag92 elias slides the papers for basira across his desk, but you don't hear him take them out before, meaning he prepared and got ready for this before he called the police

in general he's a very preparing man, Lukas steps in when Elias is arrested so has has control over who'd run it. in mag118 he says he prepared something to hurt martin (my speculation is that he likely has some trauma that could hurt you prepared for any person that could cross him, just in case he needs it). When he gets arrested he has something prepared so he doesnt get killed and ofc s1-4 is preparing Jon for his grand ritual

Elias admits the idea for his ritual kinda fell into place after Getrude didnt do anything about the people's church in march 2015. He shot Getrude and appointed Jon shortly after so "when you came to me already marked by the Web, I knew it had to be you." is pure dramatics as Jon was hired 4 years prior

also he got his ritual in 2018 so he managed to acomplish his life's goal in only 3 years, love his grindset 🔥

We never get a number for how many people Elias has killed in his ritual, the real life millbank has held over 1000 people at once, but id imagine his one panopticon held less than a whole complex

its really interesting to me in mag92 that hes SO sure they all know he's talking to them of his own free will. is he just that dead set on being in control or making sure they take no credit for his confession

there is a clock in Elias' office (but it's only heard in mag98)

He has killed people but Elias is very much not a blood thirsty person. Getrude and Peter are both surprised when he results to that. He's very much just ruthless and does not care, if to get his way he has to kill someone. It doesnt seem like he's ever happy to do so, maybe this is a quirk of being eye aligned and getting rid of any type of knowledge is painful (he does for example never want Tim to die at the Unknowing), or he just finds covering those murders up a hassle

for the Unknowing Elias books them all hotel rooms, how thoughtful

something cute to me that Jon was too good at the Eye that Elias couldnt meet him face to face post coma

In mag158 he implies that even Institute employees not in the archives are tied to it, at least enough that they could suffer or die if it burned down

between finding other people just as tools to watch and discard and saying empathy holds you back he was definitely a very very lonely man

He is a very breathy person. He sounds breathy when he talks. He takes deep breaths to ready himself and before he uses his powers. And he often breathes through his nose before speaking or during pauses

He has said Jon's name 62 times, only twice calling him "Jonathan" and called him archivist 25 times (24 in the mag120 statement, 1 in mag138 and 1 in mag161)(he also kinda calls him The Archive in 160)

other fun amount of words: know (65 times), see (42), martin (35), detective (20), eyes (20) and eye (9), afraid (9) and "bullshit" (1)

its still insane to me they added all of those sound effects of Elias' cuffs in prison, thats something fun to appreciate. It also means its canon he gestures quite a bit!

[ceaselesswatchersspecialboy]

More General SWAP AU notes while I slowly chip away at a full poster for it:

- Elias and Gwendolyn are twins, though the only noticeable trait they share is the eyes, and this will be important later.

- Elias’ first encounter with the supernatural is the same as it was in canon for the most part, and Allan was his boyfriend at the time. Gwendolyn later encounters the same Leitner but survives and makes a statement about it.

- Jon killed Gertrude, both on Jonah’s orders, and because he wanted to protect his Archive. She may be the Head Archivist, but he is The Archivist, and he is determined to protect what is his. He and Gertrude had a fairly complex relationship before this, and often she reminded him of his Grandmother. He almost misses her company. Almost.

- Elias kills Jurgen Leitner with a metal pipe still, stemming from a lot of built up anger at Allan’s death, and the belief a man like Leitner will only bring more harm upon the world, as well as other circumstantial factors. Bouchard Brutal Pipe Murder is a trait that cannot be eradicated.

- He also hits Not!Sasha in the head with a metal pipe too.

- Tim and Elias joke flirt with each other during s1 a lot. Neither is interested in the other, they’re just like that.

- Besides, Tim and Sasha are both fully aware Elias has a crush on Peter. He isn’t good at hiding it. They have bets on if the ever-bold Elias will make a move or not.

- Peter and Elias are both avoidant of their feelings and this is good for absolutely nobody.

- Melanie and Elias have an unlikely friendship and I know that sounds insane but this is Original Elias here, though the attempted murders do still happen, just in s4. They’re the Jon and Daisy of the Swap AU. They’re so funny and for what.

- Speaking of Jon and Daisy. Yeah. They’re fucked up here. Something something loyal dog and something something bite at the hand that feeds me.

- Georgie insisting she’s done with all the intense, paranormal bullehit after breaking up with Jon VS the Bouchards showing up at her door plagued by the horrors and needing help. Who will win.

- I should add Gwen and Georgie are roommates.

[drunkspacearchivist]

okay now that we’re on hiatus let’s talk about the parallels between the season one mag crew (and beyond) and the season one magp crew

If we take out Lena and Collin (and we’ll get back to them, I swear), we’ve got a gender flipped one for one version of the original Archive crew. I’ve seen a lot of comparisons between Sam and Jon, and also Collin and Jon, but I don’t think either of these are necessarily meant to be narrative parallels.

Let’s remember what the Archives crew was like in season one. Setting aside everything they become, everything that happens to them, remember what they were like at the beginning.

Jon was trying to seem as professional and official as possible. No one (save for Martin) actually looked at him as the boss of the situation, but he really wanted to be. He was trying to project confidence and control, tied to the Institute for an unclear purpose. Season one Jon wasn’t paranoid, wasn’t focused on the greater mystery, but wanted to be very good at his job. It was only at the end of the season that he started to realize that the job he wanted to succeed at wasn’t what he thought at all. That’s the position we left /Gwen/ in over the hiatus. I think that Gwen is meant to be the Jon stand-in, as much as any of them are supposed to be stand-ins for the old crew, and I think we can probably follow a lot of his character growth to make theories tied to where Gwen will end up: pursuing the power until it changes her irrevocably.

My biggest stretch out of the four is tying Celia to Martin, but hear me out. We don’t know much about either of them in the first season, and we still don’t know a lot about Celia. But the little we’ve seen shows that she’s a relatively sweet person, generally rolling with the horrors, and knows more than she lets on. We know that Martin had the potential to belong to the Web, but ended up towards the Lonely instead. I think we’ll see kind of what we could have had with Web!Martin.

Then, of course, we’re down to Sam and Alice. I’ve predicted that they would be our Tim and Sasha since the first episode, but it honestly hurts how much they’re living up to it. Sam, ignoring logic and reason to pursue the greater mystery like how Sasha followed Michael, how Sasha approached the thing in Artifact storage. Alice, who knows more than she lets on, barely hiding her anger and hurt under flirty jokes and jabs at her friends, and so close to her brother. The way that Tim loved Sasha, really loved Sasha, but she didn’t love him in the same way, the way that Sasha changed and Tim didn’t notice until it was too late, the way that Sam has changed and Alice hadn’t noticed until Sam had already left her behind.

Finally getting back to the two I put aside, it’s easy to draw comparisons to Lena and Elias, but they’re also very different. Sure, they’re both creepy bosses with secret power, but I don’t think people acknowledge how… incompetent Lena is? Sure she’s creepy, and vague, and everything she says feels like a thinly veiled threat, but she also is easily blackmailed by Gwen, and failed to kill the only person we’ve heard her attempt to kill. (And yet, Elias made a copy of the tunnel key for Jon, pretended not to believe the worms to suit his own needs. Is it a long con? Or is Lena like the fears, something familiar and yet undefined?)

Now, here’s my biggest thing. A lot of people have compared Colin to Season 2 Jon, but again, I think they’re forgetting what it was like to hear Season 2 for the first time. Jon didn’t know what was going on. He was lost, scared, and confused. He’d started to figure out the evil was real but his hatred was misplaced. Colin recognizes there’s a mystery, and he also seems to have a firmer grasp on the source of the issues. He’s not paranoid, per se, because he’s /right/. The computers are listening, and there probably is something more going on. He’s angry, and scared, but not because he doesn’t know the threat. He’s angry and scared because he does know what’s causing this, but he’s alone in it. His anger and exhaustion are driven by a need for this all to be over, one way or another. He seems to know that there is something evil here, and he doesn’t want to be a part of it. He wants to end it. Collin isn’t Jon. Collin is Melanie.

Now, do I think all of these characters are meant to be foils? No. Do I think we’re supposed to make predictions based on the past? Not really. But I think the parallels are where it’s really going to hit hard in the future

[somanyfuckedupiftruebooks]

Mag 28

Yes!! Hurray!! Queen bitch has arrived!! Get his ass Melanie!!

Honestly these two are hilarious.

Jon is taking his first live statement from a member of the public since he promised Elias he was going to 'be more lovely', and he basically says outright that he's not going to believe her which is the thing that got him in trouble with Naomi. C'mon Jon. He gets so defensive about the tape recorders that he immediately abandons all pretense of professionalism and comes for her entire career by accusing her of pretending to see ghosts (which is also the thing that he spends all day bitching about people doing). I love this man.

And Melanie my beloved is having none of it. At least people like and respect her! She may be sparkly, but she's a good researcher (unlike some people). Get! His! Ass!

I'm not the first to say this, but it kills me that the crux of early Jon and Melanie's dislike of each other is that they both consider themselves to be credible supernatural researchers, and the other to be wasting their time with superficial investigations into fake occurrences. Hilarious. 'You're giving ghost hunting (which is a good and valid career) a bad name' is such a great reason to dislike someone. Add to that that they are basically the same person in two different bodies, and you get one of the best dynamics in the entire series.

Yeah yeah, you're entire profession is a joke, but I'm still acutely aware of everything you do, the standards to which you hold yourself and the places you are likely to go. I know this because of normal reasons.

Great that Jon is so sceptical about her seeing ghosts when he just read a statement about a ghost with no eyes that eviscerates coin theives. Equally great that Melanie is so insistent that she has evidence of real ghosts, when a genuine encounter with the supernatural has shaken her so badly that she's ended up at the Magnus Institute.

Has anyone ever done a reverse au with Archivist!Melanie and Youtuber!Jon? That would be priceless.

Oh, a small group of people who routine commit crimes like tresspassing or breaking and entering in the name of researching the supernatural? Who does that remind me of?

Also Jon! Let the lady speak! He won't stop fucking interrupting her!

Well that shut him up. Jon probably didn't even listen to the rest of the statement because he was too distracted by mentally burying himself alive over the fact that he'll have to contact his ex to verify a story told to him by a ghost youtuber. How is this his life?

Also great that the reason Georgie had no issues working with Sarah would have been because her fearlessness made her immune to the Stranger's terrible offputting vibes.

I spent a while googling taxidermy to see if I could find an explanation for that floral scent, but came up empty. Still, Sarah obviously thinks it's suspicious enough that she's smoking like a chimney in an attempt to cover it up.

And speaking of suspicion, why does Sarah even give a shit? It's so great that she's some kind of skin-stealing monster (good luck to Tim reading this statement) but this is apparently just her day job. She's very clearly not trying to terrify any of the Ghost Hunt UK crew, so this is just a side gig that she is apparently doing to pay the bills? Were the Trophy Room and the Wax Museum not hiring?

A great example of avatars being Just People with normal people stuff going on in addition to all their spooky evil stuff.

Miss King, please tell us all of the official ghost classifications, I am begging you.

There's no really enough information to guess at what flavour of manifestation has claimed this hospital as their territory, but this could be a clue that it's some kind of Flesh avatar that absolutely loathes the Stranger. The reference to silk stitches over the top of Winnie the Pooh, who is known for being a stitched-together toy that pretends to be a real bear living in the woods, could be an equivalent of a 'trespassers will be shot on sight' sign.

Or it could just be weird graffiti.

[phantomrose96]

How did you feel about the tma finale? I thought it was fine but after all of Jonny's warnings that "it will be sooo tragic don't get your hopes up" I was kind of disappointed by how mild it was. Nothing against a hopeful finale but it felt a little bit like it fizzled out. Any thoughts as a Tragedy Enjoyer (tm)?

You know I'm just theorizing, but as someone who has only a fraction of a fraction of the audience TMA has and is a Tragedy Writer, I've seen how a portion of an audience can get really intense and antsy about "if this has a sad ending I can't take it." My impression is the TMA audience was both large and had a lot of interaction with the writers so like, I'll bet Jonny heard that kind of thing hundreds of times. I could easily see that becoming like "the safety of my mental health is your responsibility" kind of message from a lot of people, which could really push someone to err on the side of over-warning about the ending.

My overall thoughts on s5 are... hard to pin down? I do think it's my least favorite season, but not because of any quality drop but because I just kind of didn't love the structure of it, I think. The sort of linear "we're questing to London" structure... I dunno.

A number of the stand-alone horror statements were some of the strongest in the whole series, I think! Rosie's statement about working for Elias all these years and Knowing something was wrong but just remaining complicit--excellent, loved that one. Jared Boneturner's one about twisting people's body dysmorphia against them with flower metaphors really hit. The meat processing plant one with the years worth of lines. The hospital that would try to make you better or worse on a whim each day. And I loved the reveal about The Spider pulling the strings all along. I was totally fooled thinking the tape recorders were just The Eye's way of snooping, but the fact that they were The Spider's web all along *chef's kiss*.

Oh also I loved that Jon could smite people. Good for him.

But it's. hmmm. It reminds me a little bit of a problem with later-season Supernatural, where they'd killed off near the entire recurring cast save for like 4 people. Just steadily lost people to be invested in. Sasha's dead. Tim's dead. Daisy's dead. Bigger antagonists like Peter are dead. Eliajonah spent 90% of the season in the gay baby panopticon (and killing him happened... kinda way too fast and short for me? Jonah was really the main antagonist and planned this for 2 centuries and puppeted Jon into becoming The Beholding's Special Little Boy but he didn't have a countermeasure for Being Beholded by said Special Boy?) Helen was fun but then Jon killed her! :< Georgie and Melanie were gone for most of the season too. Basira was the only kinda-regularly-present central character. And you know it's always kinda been The Jon Show, but there was a little more fun in that when Jon was being a stuck-up curmudgeon. He's... understandably... a bit more of a downer in s5. (Also found myself liking Martin a little less this season, but can't pin down why exactly.) Oh and, VERY much just a personal thing: but the way Jon would need to compulsively make statements just sat uncomfortably with me. Basira was joking about the bathroom metaphor but it really was like that.

Also THIS part is inevitable and there would be literally no way to avoid this - so much of TMA was built up as a mystery and now that we have most of the answers in s5 there's just. less to be intrigued about. We have most of the puzzle pieces so there's not much left to theorize about. And besides The Spider reveal, there wasn't really anything in s5 that was able to surprise me. The ending felt very straight-forward. And I figured from just about the beginning of the series Jon wasn't gonna survive to the end so that didn't surprise me. I was kinda thinking it might do one of those "we take the 3rd option!" things where they neither follow The Spider's plan nor Jon's plan but.

Anyway! I relistened to Angler Fish yesterday and it DOES hit much harder with retrospect

[ieattaperecorders]

Hey PSA because I’ve seen concerning tags on some of my jokey “haha the end of TMA is going to destroy me” posts.

If you find yourself feeling really, deeply upset at the thought of these characters meeting a tragic end, it’s always okay to just stop listening. It’s actually good and important to stop if listening is causing you more pain than pleasure or negatively impacting your mental health!

If you’ve loved this story and don’t want to stop here but need a happy ending, find some no-apocalypse/fix-it fanfiction and make that the ending for you. Or take a break and come back to it someday, when you’re in a better place emotionally. Or wait for it to end, read about how it ends, then decide if you want to actually listen. Or stop all together and imagine that Jon and Martin killed Elias then escaped to the kayaking resort where Tim and Sasha have been hanging out this whole time. All of these are totally okay things to do.

Sometimes people like getting strong, intense, even seemingly negative emotions  from media - it’s why horror and tragedy exist as genres! It’s why I make “can’t wait for Jonny to murder me” jokes, because I do expect to have a lot of intense emotions over the ending! 

But there should always be a difference between “this is making me feel something intense, maybe even a bit painful, but in a way that is safe for me and has some pleasurable aspect” and “this is just making me feel bad.” 

If you think you might be in the latter category, this could be a good time to pull away. If you change your mind you can always come back later. Keep safe and protect your mental and emotional health!

[i-will-change-this-someday]

MAG 10, Vampire Killer

Trevor was 13 when his father died, in 1956; the statement was given in 2010, so he was 67, making him roughly 77 when he died.

“While I have witnessed them avoid direct sunlight if possible, and wear generally more covering clothes when moving around during the daytime, they seem to have no significant problem doing so.” Is there a reason for them to avoid sunlight? I really don’t think vampires are Dark.

“I just lay there watching as its stomach began to distend and swell, the now bulbous belly straining against the black dress it wore.” I’ve seen it theorized that vampires are Web, and this does remind me of the descriptions of Mr. Spider.

“I certainly don’t believe in wild tales of vampirism, but I can’t help but notice that the statement above appears to be a photocopy of a photocopy, and can’t find these supposed vampire teeth anywhere in the Archives or the Secure Containment Room.” Where are the teeth?

To be honest, I’m not really sure what entity the vampires are, like I said they’re theorized to be Web, but I see an argument for Flesh or Slaughter. Trevor is a Hunter.

MAG 11, Dreamer

“It was there, sleeping on my friend Anahita’s sofa, in the depths of my misery, that I first started to have the dreams.” I wonder why The End picked him, most statements have some explanation why they encountered an entity, but Oliver was just trying to sleep.

Another John this episode, John Uzel.

“It was your face and the expression upon it was far more fearful than any I had seen in eight years of wandering this twilight city.” We literally hear Gertrude die, and I don’t think she was that scared. Also, poor Oliver, dude hasn’t slept well in eight years.

“I had Tim look into it, as I don’t entirely trust the others not to have written it as a practical joke and slipped it into the archives.” Sometimes, I think about this too much.

The dreams are End.

MAG 12, First Aid

“I followed him asked what he was he was doing. I got no answer, but he seemed to know the code to the door immediately and strode right in, scanning the shelves for something.” I wonder how aligned Gerry was with The Eye, not enough to save him, but enough to Know some things, it seems.

“I just stood there and watched as he took out the scalpel, muttered some words I couldn’t make out, and plunged the blade into the centre of the chanting man’s throat.” Does he actually have to say something to be able to kill him? Or is he just being dramatic?

“Admittedly, if Martin speaks Polish in the same way he “speaks Latin,” then he might be talking nonsense again, but I’ve looked it up and it appears to check out.” Does Martin actually speak Polish? Also, I wonder if Jon knows Latin, he seems like the sort that would.

The unnamed man is Desolation, Diego Molina, I think; Gerry's Eye.

MAG 13, Alone

The first live statement giver, and, right off the bat, she insults the institute.

Jon was originally going to leave her to make her statement, I wonder if he chose to stick around for the later ones, or they all asked him to stay. Maybe Elias made him stay with the statement givers.

I'm guessing Evan never actually died, just "starved" himself until he went into a coma; Naomi's loneliness at his funeral gave him enough to call out to her, but he probably had to stay away from her, and go back to feeding The Lonely.

Girl, you probably should go to a qualified care professional, you lost the love of you life, all your friends, and then got hit by a car, and you decide to vent to research institute.

Obviously Lonely

[ajkal2]

the essay: childhood trauma, responsibility, and tma. part 1: jon

in a tma fic i published like six months ago, i left an authors note that promised an essay on jon and tim’s trauma to anyone who asked. several people asked, and so here i am!

the fic is called a deeply annoying child. it’s about being a kid and seeing something horrible, and it’s about jon and tim’s rocky relationship. 

this post isn’t actually about the fic. it’s a breakdown of jon’s mental state through s1-3. im going to make another post about tim, and then a final one linking it all back to the fic. i’ll chuck links to those on here when they’re posted!

but first, let’s talk about my boy, JON ‘JARCHIVIST’ SIMS.  

(fair warning- this isn’t a fully backed up meta post, it’s my interpretation of canon. any thoughts/queries/additions welcome! my askbox is always open <3) 

part o: a note on guilt

hey, you know what’s fucked up? an eight-year-old kid with survivors guilt. 

as a child, jon watched someone he knew die, due to circumstances that, while they were not his fault, were set in motion by his actions. children (and often teens!) think in black-and-white. complex logic often just doesn’t occur to them.  jon, at 8, looks at what happened, and says that’s my fault. i did that. jon didn’t like his bully, and wanted him to go away, and then he did. that instinctive reaction is something i think he never grows out of. when you already hate yourself, it’s easy to pile more fuel onto that flame.  he doesn’t think about risk, not to him, because he deserves whatever happens. he let someone die. he doesn’t ever forgive himself for that.

part i: belief (precanon+s1)

now, i have a headcanon about why jon doesn’t believe statement givers, and imma lay it all out for you right here. 

when jon was 8, and freshly traumatised, i think he tried to tell someone what happened. beneath all the layers, jon is compassionate, and tries to help people. now, picture this. a kid, one with a history of troubled behaviour and an atypical home life, goes up to someone (a police officer, his carer, a teacher) and tells them a giant spider ate someone. what’s that person, someone who is a rational adult, someone who doesn’t believe in silly things, going to say back? are they going to believe that kid? 

no. no way. they’re going to tell that kid that they’re making up stories, that they had a nightmare, that they should stop making jokes about someone who actually disappeared, jon, you need to be more sensitive about these things. 

now, that kind of dissonance- ‘this did happen, it was real’ and ‘everyone i talk to is telling me it’s not real’- is hard on adults. to a kid? devastating. 

jon, because he’s jon, would have been desperately searching for a way to explain this, and i think the thing he grabs on to is evidence. if he had some evidence of what happened, if he could prove what happened, people would believe him.*

but he doesn’t have evidence. and he resents that, and he resents that so much that by the time he’s an adult he’s settled into a mindset towards the supernatural somewhat akin to ‘i didn’t get believed, but you think you should be believed? what’s so good about you? you think you’re better than me?** fuck you! i don’t believe you!’   this is also a way of keeping himself safe. if the monsters aren’t real, they can’t hurt him.

and then, through s1, that mindset is chipped at. the statement givers start being real people, who come into jon’s office and cry when he dismisses them, and that clearly makes him uncomfortable. martin gives his statement, and martin has evidence. jon knows martin, and knows that he’s a good person, so martin having evidence isn’t likely to be an attack at jon. 

jane prentiss attacks the institute, and then suddenly jon’s shield of denial and anger is ripped away, because the monsters are real, and they can hurt him. 

*would they? i don’t know. people can be very attached to believing that the world is good, and kids are misguided, and there are a hundred thousand ways to explain away a piece of evidence, as jon comes to know well. 

** this ties into jon’s self hatred, as people saying they are better than him kicks him right in the Issues. 

part ii: paranoia (s2)

after prentiss attacks, jon is left floundering. his old I Do Not See It mindset has been smashed to pieces, and underneath all the trauma he’s been brutally suppressing is bubbling up. jon has no real experience in judging threats, because for the last 20 years he’s been burying his head in the sand and yelling he can’t see any threats. so he overcompensates, and assumes everything is a threat. his experience re:not being believed tells him that everyone around him is stupid and wrong and the only person he can rely on is himself.  

so he investigates. he’s convinced that his life is in imminent danger, that everyone around him is plotting to kill him. he doesn’t hold back, because you don’t hold back in a life-or-death scenario.  he knows something is wrong. something is very wrong. he’s sure it’s a threat to him, a threat to his life. but he can’t put a finger on what it is.

this is when his friendship with tim breaks down. i’ll talk about tim in a minute. 

jon spirals, and obsesses, and wrings answers out of the ether until it all falls together. he understands what is wrong, that it’s sasha that wants him dead. or, well, not sasha. he’s been winding up tighter and tighter all series, and he lets loose by striking out, acting for once instead of reacting. it is remarkably easy to buy an axe in central london, after all.

and then, well, that doesn’t go well. 

 part iii: desperation (s3)

after what jon did backfired so badly, he goes to georgie, because he has no other option. and he thinks, what went wrong? and the answer he comes up with is i didn’t know enough.* that’s why it all went wrong, because he didn’t know what he was dealing with. and so the solution is to find out more.

he’s starting to realise that he’s changing.** he wants to find out more about that as well, to control it. 

so he goes and finds out more. or, tries to. he doesn’t have many leads.*** jon is not good at judging threat, and doesn’t know the danger he is putting himself in. he’s stubborn, and locked onto getting more knowledge like a dog and a bone.****

and then he does get more knowledge, but it’s the knowledge that the world is ending, and he’s the only one who can fix it.***** he can’t process his trauma. he doesn’t have time. the world is ending. 

in late s3, jon is desperate. he’s overworking himself. he feels alone: daisy’s at his throat, elias is dangling information over his head, tim... 

we’ll talk about tim later. 

basira doesn’t trust him, georgie isn’t happy with him, melanie’s never liked him. he gets kidnapped for a month, and no one notices. the only person jon has firmly in his corner is martin.****** and he doesn’t have time to talk to martin, because he’s getting kidnapped, and jetting across the world chasing shadows, and desperately, desperately trying not to fuck everything up again. 

and he doesn’t! they build a plan. it’s dangerous, sure, but jon doesn’t even know what that means anymore. his whole life is dangerous. jon going into the unknowing is cautiously, waveringly hopeful. maybe this time it won’t go wrong. this time they know what to do, they know what they’re dealing with. 

and, the tragedy is, it doesn’t go wrong. they save the world. they send elias to prison. it all goes to plan. and tim is dead, and daisy is buried, and jon is lost in dreams. 

*👁️ **👁️ ***👁️ ****👁️  ***** he’s not the only one, of course, there are a whole team of people working on stopping the Unknowing, but jon is the Archivist. he’s the heir to gertrude’s legacy. 

****** this is where they fall in love, after all. which is a good thing, of course, but it adds an extra weight to every interaction they have, guessing and double-guessing how the other feels, until jon actually can’t talk to martin, not how he wants to, because he’s not sure if they’re there yet. (martin is there. jon doesn’t have time to be.) 

see yall next time 

i would like to cover s4 and s5, but this post is 1.5k already, and i’ve covered up to when the fic takes place! next time i will be ranting incoherently about timothy stoker, punctuated by bursts on uncontrollable sobbing. when that’s up, i’ll chuck a link here, and on the author notes of the fic i’m doing this for. see you then!

[supercasey]

What Your TMA OTP Says About You

By a dumb asexual who makes too many sex jokes

Jon/Martin: You project onto/kin at least one of these two fools, but no matter what, you are yearning for a relationship like theirs. You're also probably a theatre kid, at least spiritually.

Elias/Peter: You like the dynamic of Jonmartin, but you think it would be 10x better if Martin bullied Jon back and if they were both GILFs. You also probably have "Big Boy Man" as your ringtone.

Tim/Sasha: You believe that both of these characters deserved better, and you probably love the Archivist Sasha AU more than life itself. Also, Tim gets pegged.

Basira/Daisy: You are a hotbed of drama, which is completely unintentional on your part and you rarely participate in it at will; you just want some quality wlw content, and you will not be stopped from getting it.

Melanie/Georgie: You are completely done with Jon's shit, but you still find him somewhat endearing in his panic induced stupidity. You are also a wlw and want to live in a small apartment with your gf and cats, but only if the apocalypse is happening in the background.

Michael/Gerry: You like Jonmartin, but you also want to crank that shit to 100 and blast MCR in the background while they kiss. You also might kin Nico from PJO, and you are most certainly a scene kid.

Jon/Gerry: You are all about that sadboi content, and I honestly can't tell which of these depressed motherfuckers you kin, but I know you kin at least one of them.

Jon/Martin/Gerry: Same as Jonmartin, but you're dead certain that Gerry would be an amazing addition/middle man for them and that he would've gotten them into a relationship together by the end of season 1.

Gertrude/Agnes: There is literally nothing more heartbreaking yet addictive to you than starcrossed lovers that can never be together because of circumstances outside of their control. You're also gay.

Leitner/Gertrude: You honestly just find it so funny that Jonny Sims' parents voice these characters so that's why you ship them. You either hated or loved when they roasted Jon at the end of S3, there is no in-between.

Jude/Agnes: You are a Jude Perry kinnie/you want to set the world on fire beside the woman of your dreams. Probably a top.

Jon/Tim: You lived for the sassy bits between Tim and Jon in seasons 1-2 and you would give anything for Tim to have kissed Jon to shut him up midway through a rant.

Mike/Simon: You're here to love Mike Crew and fuck some GILFs. Press F to pay respects to our short king.

Jon/Michael: I don't know what's going on with you after S3, but dear God do you wanna fuck monsters, specifically if they look like a Bill Cipher humanization that you can only perceive while doing acid.

Jon/Elias: You are an Eliasfucker and you wear that badge with pride.

Martin/Peter: You are an Eliasfucker and you hide this fact at all costs. Also you probably have a very complicated relationship with your father.

Jon/Basira: You thought Tim was spot on about these two being good together; they're bookworm buddies!

Jon/Georgie: You cannot get enough of absolute off his shits college!Jon and frankly, good for you. You also want Georgie to peg you.

Melanie/Basira: Just a couple of gals being pals, and nothing is sexier than performing life-saving, non-consensual surgery on your GF so she doesn't start killing people... according to you, apparently.

Jonah/Barnabas: You heard Jonah say that he held affection for a character mentioned exactly one time even though he left him to die, and you went fucking feral. Tbh you just wanna get with a Victorian dude.

Jonah/Mordecai: This is just Elias/Peter but with more Victorian outfits and letters that would be considered incredibly scandalous, even for the era. Also it makes Elias/Peter 100x more uncomfortable, but I guess some people are into that???

Jon/Martin/Tim: Why be just friends when you can all be in a gay polyam relationship together and kiss? In other words, every fight between Tim and Jon has gutted you like a fucking fish.

Jon/Martin/Tim/Sasha: Same as before, but you stan the first season of the series so hard that people outside the fandom think it's an office comedy.

Gertrude/Elias: Somehow you came to the conclusion that if Elias got pegged then none of the bullshit in the series would've happened.

Melanie/Helen: You're similar to the Jon/Michael shippers in that you wanna fuck monsters, but more like the kind of monsters that make your eyes bleed and your brain melt when you fully perceive them.

Jon/Helen: You either started shipping this as a joke or to cope with the death of Michael, there is no in-between.

Jon/Nikola: You heard Jon admit that he got daily, fully body lotion massages from Nikola and you lost your fucking mind. Clownfucker.

Breekon/Hope: Breekon's statement made you cry for a hundred thousand years, and you will never be over it. Fuck getting a bunch of divorces like Lonelyeyes, you wanna stay with your soulmate until the end of time!

Nikola/Jane Prentiss: You want more wlw content, but specifically you want them to be cartoonish supervillains who can't stop kissing each other in the middle of trying to murder Jon.

Alright, that's all the one's I'm doing. Please don't send me any hate, these are all just meant to be jokes!

[staysaneathome]

This Was Not A Dare, Reigen

Jon glares at each of the— the suspects traitors in front of him, tape recorder clutched tight in one hand.

Martin, wringing his hands uselessly, eyes wide and beseeching. Tim, fists clenched hard enough for his knuckles to go white and returning his gaze with a death stare of his own. Sasha, arms folded to form a barrier between Jon and herself, expression a perfect mask of concern. Reigen, radiating disappointment in every one of his gestures and quips. Elias, eyes weary, fingers rubbing the bridge of his nose.

Some intervention this is turning out to be.

Jon wants to scream. Wants to reach out and shake someone, anyone, until they admit he’s making sense and it’s the rest of the world that’s gone mad.

Every single one of them (except Martin) could’ve killed Gertrude. He knows he has no proof that they did, but he has no proof that they didn’t either, can’t they see that? If they don’t want him to suspect them, it should be easy for them to actually give him proof of their innocence (like Martin did), instead of just repeating platitudes of “you know this isn’t acceptable adult behavior, Jon” and “you’re better than this, Jon”.

Who cares about knowing better or acceptable behavior when it’s your very life on the line? He’s half tempted to throttle the con artist, see how dignified or adult he is when he’s the one with a murderer on his tail!

…Not that Jon is a murderer. It’s just the principle of the thing, is all.

“Jon,” Elias says, tone soothing in all the ways he doesn’t want it to be. “This is absurd. This goes far beyond an unhealthy work environment. I’ll admit it’s partly my fault for letting it get this bad, I should have intervened earlier.”

Reigen cuts in with a hand gesture that is as effusive as it is dismissive. “That doesn’t make his behavior okay, Bouchard-san. It may be bad here, but Jon chose to follow me, Tim and Sasha, and yell at Martin, rather than going to the police or paying a detective, like Herlock Sholmes or something.”

Jon sputters. “Wh- It’s Sherlock Holmes, not—and he’s fictional!”

Reigen blinks sleepily, one eyebrow raised. “Oh? That doesn’t sound right. Are you sure?”

“Yes!” Jon all but shouts, rapidly reconsidering his stance on braining the sardonic little git with his tape recorder. “Don’t you even—an-and you’re deflecting again! Just like with your ridiculous ‘haunted gun’ nonsense!”

“I’m not!” Reigen says, clearly deflecting. “I’ve seen this kind of thing loads of times as the number one psychic. When a weapon kills lots of people over 100 years, the bad energy gets bigger and bigger until the gun grows an evil spirit and is hungry—”

“I refuse to believe Gertrude Robinson was murdered by a sentient blunderbuss!!”

“Be that as it may,” Elias interrupts, shooting them both a stern frown. “This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about, Jon. Given how badly it’s affected your work ethic, I will be taking direct action to ensure it does not continue.”

Jon can feel his shoulders hunch almost against his will, dread pooling in his stomach at the thought of whatever punishment is about to be unjustly inflicted on him.

Only Martin looks half as worried as he feels, glancing between him and Elias nervously. By contrast, Tim looks downright triumphant, smirk nasty and vindictive. Sasha’s somewhere between those two, not openly celebrating his soon-to-be-downfall, but not acting like she’d lift a finger on his behalf either, though he’s unsure why that feels like it should surprise him. She’s always been as neutral as Switzerland.

Reigen, oddly enough, has more in common with Martin than with Tim. He’s staring at Elias like he’s waiting for a bit of news he knows he won’t like.

Jon thinks he’d appreciate that more if he wasn’t about to be unfairly lambasted simply for trying to stop a murderer and bring justice for an old woman who probably died frightened and alone. Much like Jon probably will once he’s been hobbled by whatever Elias is about to say next.

“Such as by restricting access to the archives from members of the public who are ultimately doing you more harm than good.”

…Wait.

What?

“What?!” Tim, Martin, and Sasha echo.

Reigen glances between them all, blinking in confusion.

Jon shares the sentiment entirely. His punishment is…for someone else to be removed from the archives? Someone he doesn’t employ or even like that much, no less?

He must have misheard, surely.

Though maybe not, given how Tim looks aghast, glancing between Elias and Reigen. “Okay, no, Reigen’s clearly not the problem here—”

“I’m very sorry, Tim, but Jon has made several remarks about the disruptive nature of Mr. Arataka’s presence in the archives.” Elias sighs. “From the arguments like the one we just witnessed to the nonsensical purchases of oddities inspired by his presence, such as Duolingo subscriptions,” Meaningful glare at Jon who resists the urge to clutch his phone guiltily, “That are now billed on the Archives’ expenses, it unfortunately seems as though he is dragging down productivity for all of you as an active stressor.”

“But we’re much better equipped to take statements from people who don’t speak English because of that!” Martin protests, stepping forward. “Isn’t it an advantage to have a more, more international perspective for our work?”

“One positive in a sea of negatives does not an advantage make.” Elias says, sounding infuriatingly like he’s misquoting something. “And really Martin, how realistic is it that this would help in more than a few isolated cases? I expected better from you.”

Martin’s face crumples, and his shoulders hunch, making himself smaller.

Jon finds his own mouth opening to—what? Say something? What would he even say?

Luckily, Sasha intervenes before he can dig his own grave further. “That’s as may be, but he’s a wonder for morale. He and Jon are funny, not anything serious, and I don’t think we’d have come to you about Jon‘s behavior unless he encouraged us to—”

“Which only fits into the delusion where Jon feels an outsider is rallying his subordinates against him, which is not good for his paranoid outlook.” Elias replies calmly. “And it’s never a healthy work environment when one employee feels the others are making them the butt of a joke.”

“I’d say that’s not as bad as when the boss feels he has the right to violate everyone’s privacy whenever he wants to just ’cause he’s feeling sad!” Tim growls.

Elias begins to answer, before Reigen finally speaks up.

“Sorry,” The con artist says carefully. “But you are…«I know this one…» banning me from the Archives? Yes?”

“That is the long and short of it, yes.” Elias says, grudgingly

“Why?” Reigen challenges, eyes hard and searching. “What have I, personally, done that’s wrong here? What behavior do I need to correct?”

There’s a moment of silence. The whirring of the tape recorder sounds uncomfortably loud.

“Mr. Arataka, are you currently under the employ of the Magnus Institute?” Elias asks, brow furrowed.

“Ah, no, no, but—”

“Are you looking to become employed by the Institute at this point in time, as a prospective member of the Archival Staff?” He fires off rapidly.

“Su-Sorry, but if you could just go a little slower—”

“Then I am afraid that unless you’re looking to fill out an employment contract or a Statement form, we cannot help you, Mr. Arataka.” Elias spreads his hands wide. “We are an academic institution, a place of research and learning. The Institute cannot allow for social dalliances on company time, especially not when those visits are negatively contributing to the work environment and the wellbeing of our staff.”

Tim throws up his hands, “I-I cannot believe this!”

Reigen’s mouth works soundlessly for a moment.

“Arataka is my…what do you call it? First name?” He says, at last. “Using it in this context is…inappropriate. Please call me Reigen, if you would, Bouchard-san.”

“Of course. My mistake, Mr. Reigen.” Elias does have the decency to look somewhat abashed. “Though, regrettably, I am going to have to ask you to leave the premises within the next twenty minutes, or I will be forced to call security.”

Reigen nods, jerkily, hands stuffed in his pockets.

Jon almost wants to call out to the fraud as he turns to go, grab him by the shoulder, pick another argument, something. He knows he should be happy, be glad that this thorn in his side will finally stop bothering him, but instead he just feels—befuddled. Off-kilter.

What happened to the man who once spent three hours arguing for the “spiritual effectiveness” of entirely performative and useless rituals, saying that ensuring his clients left his office fooled and contented was better than actually uncovering genuine supernatural forces and learning all there was to know about them? Why is he going so-so easily now, when he’s made Jon fight tooth and nail in every debate he’s had with the so-called psychic?

At the door, the con man pauses.

“Bouchard-san. You said I could come back if I had a statement to give?”

Elias shifts in his seat, looking bemused. “W-well, yes. That is a service we do provide. Of course, the statement would have to be genuine, and verifiable as such before we let you back into the Archives.”

“We don’t even do that for most of the rubbish we do take,” Tim mutters under his breath, and though Jon is glad he’s not the one being shot a quelling look, he does have to agree.

The con man turns back.

He’s got that smirk on his face that immediately puts Jon’s hackles up on instinct, prepared to argue against whatever inane point he’s come up with now to defend his phony psychic title.

“Gotcha.” Reigen says, far too cheerfully. «Ja ne.»

Then he strolls out of the office, as cool as a cucumber.

Jon could even swear he hears him whistling as he makes his way down the stairs.

There’s a moment of stunned silence.

“I’d do him.” Sasha pipes up, unhelpfully.

“Sasha!” Martin hisses, scandalized. “D-don’t you have a, a—”

“Oh, I don’t have to worry about that.” She remarks, far too blasé for someone in a newly committed relationship. “Tom’s heard about him too, and he agreed he’s just our type.”

“And I’m not?” Tim jokes, but there’s a hard edge to it that Jon’s found himself increasingly familiar with in the past few weeks.

Sasha shrugs with a mischievous little smile, as if that mattered very little to her.

Elias coughs. “Right. Well. Whatever your relations to Mr. Reigen are, please try to limit them to outside the workplace in future.”

The rest of the intervention is surprisingly subdued. Elias gives Jon access to the footage from the cameras in the rest of the Institute, and Tim bodychecks him on the way out of the office, muttering about how nice it must be to never face any consequences for his actions. Sasha follows, the way she won’t meet his eyes a condemnation in its own right.

Even Martin doesn’t say anything to him, just bites his lip and hurries past back down to the Archives. It doesn’t sting. It doesn’t.

Even as he settles in to watch and rewatch the CCTV records of Gertrude’s last week alive, Jon can’t shake the ridiculous feeling of foreboding that’s dogged him since Reigen left.

Most of him wants to say it comes from the fact that despite the fact that Reigen has not appeared in any of the camera records for the Magnus Institute before he started his term as Head Archivist in 2016, isn’t banning him from the Archives just letting the con man run around London with impunity, with no way for Jon to ascertain his movements or motives? That instead of solving a problem, Elias has just given a potential murderer free reign to escape?

But a small part of Jon, one that never could deny the sensation of being watched, that is frozen in second-hand terror whenever he reads a Statement, knows, Knows that it this stems more from the idea that the fraud will actually accomplish what Elias has unwittingly challenged him to do.

The illogical but pervasive surety that he will do so.

Jon’s not sure if he’s more afraid that Reigen Arataka will vanish entirely, another unfortunate victim become an unsolved mystery.

Or that he’ll come back, and bring whatever he’s managed to unearth on his insane quest with him.

[misterghostfrog]

Oh number 3 with jmart pls 👀

So it took me a bit to come up with smtnh for this! but I think it was pretty good. Warning it is. Not edited.

3. A breathy demand: “Kiss me” - and what the other person does to respond. (CW; ALCOHOL USE/MENTION. them bein smashed is the ficlet im sorry)

They’re both drunk, and this is probably all a terrible idea.

It’s not technically either of their faults If you’re arguing semantics, Tim is the one who decided to continue the birthdays-in-the-archives tradition by celebrating ‘Jonny magnet’s’ centennial something. It was more an excuse to bring a bottle of wine into the archives- which didn’t get drunk because Jon had made it clear that while employee birthdays were somewhat acceptable for a small glass. In no way would he condone making up holidays.

It wasn’t actually to celebrate Jonah magnus of course. Things had been so tense with Prentiss looming and Martin living in the archives. Martin thinks he was just trying to lighten the mood.

It did sort-of work though. Mostly because he brought cookies too, and convinced Jon to let them play music over the course of the workday. Which, in comparison to alcohol on the clock was minor enough for Jon to simply ignore. 

Which, now that Martin thinks about it, might have been the point.

But, regardless of the purpose. There was a rather large bottle of wine left in the archives. And Martin didn’t intend to drink it, not in a million years. Tannins and all that. And he certainly never dreamed Jon would touch it. But...

He had a nightmare, the usual fare. And went for a nighttime wander, extinguisher in hand, just- just to be sure. And stumbled on Jon still hard at work at... three o-clock in the morning. A new record for sure.

Jon had been annoyed. And then... sympathetic. A new side to him that still didn’t hesitate to make Martin's incredibly traitorous heart skip in his chest. Jon offered to walk with him, if only for both of their peace of mind.

First they’d stumbled on the bottle, shoved in a cupboard in the breakroom. Then they’d stumbled on the worms. Somewhere on the counter by the fridge. Then the worms were a shriveled pile of filth and foam. And Jon had said the words ‘Fuck it’ out loud, opened the bottle, taken a swig, and offered it to Martin. And Martin, apparently out of his mind. Had taken it.

They’d moved to document storage, away from the worms. Found a good spot on the floor to empty the bottle between the two of them. And they were just... talking. Even getting along quite well, actually.

He’d caught a few glimpses of Jon when he’s not shuffling around as ‘mister-archivist-whos-going-to-staple-these-ancient-documents-no-i-will-not-take-criticism-get-back-to-work’. Particularly after Prentiss. And he’s seen more since, in the little moments after everyone else has gone home. Little jokes, laughter. A wry complaint about the archives themselves. Just... stuff.

But now he’s laughing, loud and openly at something Martin’s said. Martin’s laughing too, and his stomach hurts from it. He can’t even quite tell what they’re laughing about, but he’s leaning into Jon's side and can feel Jon's hand on his bicep as he tries to keep himself upright.

“Good lord Martin,” he says, and Martin can hear the effort to keep his voice steady through the wine “If Elias heard you say that- I think he’d have a heart attack on the spot”

Martin snorts.

“Look, if he wanted to worry less about sources of- of ignition in the archives. He would have- he- he would have put in the bloody CO2 by now” He waves an imaginary lighter in the air “It’s just- it’s um- it’s just motivation. To get us all not killed by a- a bloody worm woman.”

Jon starts laughing again. Loud and raucous. Martin’s not sure he even laughs like that sober. He laughs with him, too. And somehow finds himself pressed even closer into Jon as they both collapse in on their own laughter.

And then the laughter dies down, leaving them both breathless and giggling.

Jon looks up at him, he’s smiling and Martin can feel his own woozy grin prying at his cheeks. He’s almost dizzy from laughing- actually that’s probably the alcohol. He’s never had a good tolerance for it. He’s definitely drunk.

It’s takes him a moment to notice they’re both staring, neither of them have said anything. They’re just looking at each other. It’s quite funny actually, grinning like idiots over absolutely nothing.

Martin giggles. It comes out somewhere between a snort and a hiccup.

Jon's expression changes, he looks almost... perplexed. He tilts his head, ever so slightly.

“Kiss me.” He says, voice hoarse and out of breath from laughter. 

Martin blinks. Not sure if it’s meant as a demand or a request. Not that he actually minds either way. Jon has leaned ever so slightly closer, and he’s looking at Martin with a strange intensity that his hazy mind isn’t sure what to do with.

They’re both drunk, and this is probably a terrible idea. And if Martin were sober he would say as much, probably shuffle Jon off to sleep it off until he’s back in his right mind. 

But he’s not, he’s drunk. And sleep deprived. And a little hopeless.

So he obliges, or tries to.

He misses the mark somewhat, hitting the edge of Jon's lips with his own. Jon snorts, and Martin laughs. And then Jon tilts his head up to Meet Martin's lips properly.

It only lasts a moment. Because Jon's nose bumps into Martins, and Martin starts to giggle again. And then Jon starts to laugh, pulling back and burying his face in Martin's shoulder. Martin wraps an arm around him in turn, only partly because the room begins to spin again and he worries he’ll fall the rest of the way to the floor. And they laugh until they’re breathless again.

Martin leans down and buries his face in Jon's neck. He’s warm, and smells like dust. Which might just be from when he laid down on the floor earlier, who knows how often it gets cleaned.

He feels something move against his shoulder. And then warm lips brush his jaw before Jon's head falls back, nestling once again into his shoulder.

He presses a small absent kiss to Jon's collar in turn. Jon hums.

Tomorrow, he’s probably going to face the consequences of this interaction. And probably need to ask Jon, well. Why, and what the hell just happened actually. But... for the time being it’s just. Nice.

Eventually they end up on the floor, though Martin isn’t sure how. Jon's head still tucked into his shoulder, laying on top of his arm that’s wrapped around bony shoulders.

They fall asleep like that. Tangled up on the floor, an empty wine bottle sitting on the floor nearby. Jon, in his work clothes. Martin in his pajama pants. Both primed and ready for a hangover in the morning. And somehow comfortable all the same.

[fakecrfan]

Tova McHugh could kill Martin. This could be his way out. I know we already discussed in detail how this could possibly be an End of Martin + Tapes... but I beg you... can you share with the world the End of the Tapes AU where this hellish sitcom gets an end? It's just so good (even tho the canon is that nothing ever gets better and Martin will suffer always)

Behold! The oldest martin+tapes ask I have in my inbox! For reference, this is referring to this old part of the series, where I mentioned Tova McHugh being a problem. Anontypewriter here actually listened to me talk about some of my half-assed ideas about how that go, and demanded I share them here--but as you can see on the thread I linked, I ended up liking boombutton’s ideas better and also the ideas I had there were very.... final.

So this can all be disregarded as Not Canon for the AU, I suppose, but here we go! My old ideas for what happens with Tova McHugh. Mild warning for suicidality and The End (That Waits For Us All And Cannot Be Denied)

The first problem is that Jon, even actualized as he is, cannot See or Known anything about Tova McHugh when he tries. He and the other archives crew go up to Elias, convinced that surely His powers will be able to detect something.

“Ah yes, Tova McHugh, I am aware of her. Let me just look really quick where--oh, hmm. Yes it seems she’s gone completely out of sight.”

(cue nervous Eye shrieking.)

So they have to find out where Tova is the old fashioned way. Reading up on her appearances. Doing field work to talk to her contacts and figure out what she’s been up to. They find out that she is... completely missing. Apparently took a sabbatical. Where to? No one knows!

(cue even More nervous Eye shrieking)

Sasha: Gosh this is even worse because Martin’s suicidal ideation has shot up 67% after we put the safety goggles on him! If Martin finds out, he might--

(Eye shrieking intensifies)

Elias, already dealing with a migraine: Sasha. Sasha please. Be Quiet.

Martin tries to go home after a work day only for Sasha to appear in the doorway, smiling, to Strongly Suggest he stay in and they have a Super Safe I MEAN FUN Work Sleepover Party. And then Tim jumps up from behind him and forcefully links arms with him and drags him back for Fun Time. Martin turns back and sees Sasha bolt the door shut and locks it.

Martin: ....What’s going on?

Tim: Nothing! Nothing’s going on at all. You know we love you more than anything that’s existed since the dawn of time, right?

Martin:....

Sasha: He’s doubting anyone could love him without mind control again :’( quick, hold his arms while I initiate Reassuring Eye Contact.

Martin: No WAIT, I mean--ahahaha yes, of course you guys! You’re... very upfront about it.

So of course, Martin realizes something is up, especially after being literally strong armed into Multiple Fun Work Sleepover Parties and noticing them starting to hide all traces of his existence from public record. So he does some digging, finds out about Tova, and...

Well, it’s this or have this whole situation continue and get increasingly restrictive for all of eternity, isn’t it? So he has to jump on it.

It’s a tricky move. He has to discreetly contact Melanie and Georgie on the downlow and ask them for help (he doesn’t tell them them Tova will kill him, just that she will be able to help him get away). Melanie and Georgie have to be able to piece together Tova’s location themselves--maybe by insinuating themselves in the Martin Fandom and getting some insider info. And then. Martin has to make a break for it, and travel with them to some isolated cottage in the mountains where Tova is staying.

I think he makes a break for it by manipulating Jon. Says he wants to just have some one on one time. Jon is over the moon excited, so he agrees and is so, so distracted the whole time. He doesn’t seem to suspect at all--and then he wakes up to a “sorry, we put sedatives in your food” note from Melanie and realizes that Martin is heading off to his death. Naturally, he loses his mind.

(Martin feels like the Worst Person In The Whole World for this.)

And then, against all odds, Martin makes it. He rides along with Georgie for blindspot purposes and gets to the little mountain cabin or whatever. Jon might be on their tail, but he can’t use his Eye powers so he’s at a disadvantage. He knocks, and then when there’s no answer just kicks his way in.

“Tova McHugh?” he asks. “I have a--”

And then he sees a corpse lying in the bed in the back room.

Tova, he finds out from reading some assorted journals and letters around the cabin, got increasingly disillusioned with her ability to do good in the world while extending her life span through evil, and decided it wasn’t worth it anymore. Hence, she came back to this little isolated cabin to die where she wouldn’t be tempted by seeing all the lives around her.

Martin buries his face in his hands, and he screams. This is it, it seems. Another cosmic joke, another dead end--except....

Except, it’s still a blind spot. Whatever Tova was, or whatever she did via cutting herself off from a Power, lingers in that cabin. It’s what made it so Jon couldn’t see there, after all. So if Jon, and the others, make it there, they charge in and suddenly the Eye’s pressure lifts and becomes distance.

And as Martin is sitting there, pressing his hands against his face and screaming, he notices his goggles slip--and then, when he grabs them, slip off entirely.

[tavenhaven]

It’s The Magnus Archives Theory Time!

Hi! So, uh, I want to maybe share my old theory, that I came up when the break was in place, about the ending that could potentially still maybe be even a little relevant. I originally shared this on one of the Discord server’s I’m on, so this is lowkey copy & pasted, but reviewed and cleaned up grammar-wise.

Okay, so! Before I begin, I just want to point out that some aspects of my theory has changed since I first typed this out as this was typed out pre-MAG 190-194 (and eventually pre-MAG 190-200), but I will elaborate on that in another post if someone wants...  I would also like to say that I have seen similar theories before, so if there are parallels to another theory you may have seen, then it’s either by coincidence (great minds think alike), or is something I may have seen and agreed with.

And with that out of the way, let us begin! 

Season 1-5 spoilers up ahead.  

So, something that basically everyone at this point has caught on to is that basically everything in The Magnus Archives is foreshadowed and that we just don’t realize it of course until whatever event that was foreshadowed actually, you know, happens. And let’s just say that there is certainly something that I noticed that has been popping up time and time again...

Throughout the podcast, mentions of the Archives burning are everywhere. A few quick examples that i can think of from the top of my head is obviously Gertrude’s attempt to burn them before she was killed, I think there was a mention of people joking about wanting to burn the place down after the worm attack (I could be imagining that one though, it’s been a hot minute since I’ve listened to Season 1), obviously there’s Martin burning the statements to distract Elias, in one of the tapes Jon was listening early season 5 before leaving the safe house Tim was joking around with Sasha that if something ever happened to her in the Archives that he and Martin would burn the Archives to the ground as revenge, the way Martin mentioned that the others had to convince the police not to burn down the Archives after Jonah’s body and the panopticon was found, and it just keeps going... Heck, I’m certain there’s a lot more examples I’m missing or didn’t catch on to. Either way, my point is that the Archives have been threatened to be burnt down time and time again, and I personally interpret that as foreshadowing or a hint to something...

But as always, there’s more.

In MAG 160, during Jonah’s “deception”, instead of describing Jon as an Archivist, he chooses to explain how Jon is truly a more accurate representation of the Archives as a whole, rather than an Archivist. 

See where this is going? 

Haha. yup. Though I’m not entirely sure on all the miniscule details of how things are going to play out go and how fire is going to play into it all, I am 99 percent convinced that fire will be a huge piece to the puzzle and that Jon certainly will NOT be okay. Also, everyone remembers the zippo lighters, right? You know, the one little spider web design on it? (And the lighter with an eye design that was mentioned that Gerard had in his possession in MAG 12?) They haven’t really played a significant role yet, have they...

So, the web is very clearly up to something. That is very obvious. Jon was originally marked by the web, it had very likely manipulated Elias to appoint Jon as the new Archivist, a spider is what caused Prentiss to be discovered in Season 1, Jon has a web lighter as previously mentioned, the new Magnus Archives season 5 logo literally has a web-like design incorporated into it and this whole damn podcast has had everything slowly connect to each other like a literal web!

Also, something I failed to mention is that the House on Hilltop Road is heavily associated with both the Web and the Desolation, the Desolation being related with the tree and the death of Agnes Montague. Where are Martin and Annabelle, and as an extension, Jon going? Yup...  (This paragraph was written post MAG 194.)

Anyways, that’s where I’m going to conclude this. Certainly some things here are a bit outdated, but most of it still holds up and can still prove relevant, but let me know what you think!

[msfcatlover]

Me: *rereads my old Portal fics*

Me: “Y’know, some of these are still pretty good! Maybe I should replay the games, and give writing these another shot...”

My brain, always ready with AUs and my latest hyperfixation: TMA crossover with Jon as Caroline, but he doesn’t lose himself in the upload process.

Me: “I... I don’t know if that would work...”

My brain, refusing to be derailed: His robot name could be “Self-aware Intelligent Machine Simulation.” SIMS for short.

Me: “That’s not a great robot name.”

My brain: No worse than “Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System.”

Me: “.......Fair.”

My brain: Testing is like statements; he doesn’t want to like it, but it’s addictive and eventually he kinda needs it to stay sane. He regularly gets in trouble for trying to make the tests less dangerous for the test subjects, because like... draining the acid out of the acid pit ruins the integrity or something.

My brain: It actually makes no difference, but obviously Jonah is Cave in this crossover. He’s researching immortality, and this is just one of the ways he keeps Jon under control.

Me: “Elias was his first attempt?”

My brain: Yeah, but it was just a brain transplant. Now he’s worried about the integrity of his brain itself, I mean, physically it’s getting pretty old. And it’s not like aging is fun anyway.

Me: “So, I assume Martin’s Chell then.”

My brain: Obviously.

Me: “Obviously. Where does everyone else fit?”

My brain: Daisy and Basira are trying to get the whole company shut down for horrible human rights violations, but are struggling to find evidence. They go undercover as test subjects, only to realize they’re in too deep and have to fight for survival.

My brain: Melanie’s a reporter, supposedly doing a profile on Jonah, but secretly investigating all the disappearances that keep happening amongst the staff. Georgie brought her in on the case when Jon stopped answering all calls.

Me: “Tim and Sasha?”

My brain: Scientists, were on the same team as Jon. Might get kicked down to test subjects for asking too many questions about his “transfer to the AI department.”

Me: “Wait. All of this is pre-fall-of-Aperture. Doesn’t that take a lot of the punch out of making Jon our GLaDOS equivalent?”

My brain: ..............................

My brain: Mid-fall-of-Aperture. Terribly understaffed, running out of money, the “AI department” is literally just Jon on the paperwork, Jonah’s desperately pushing the testing/experiments to figure out the limits of brain-uploading before he loses access to the equipment.

Me: “I don’t think that scans.”

My brain: Sure it does! What’s the testing in the games even for anyways? It’s all cognitive, the portal gun itself only gets used in a handful of different ways.

My brain: Now the testing is specifically there to stress Jon out and test the stability of his personality matrix; no point in uploading yourself if the first major issue you run into corrupts your code or causes a major error. It puts Jon through the wringer, even zapping him with viruses and stuff, to ensure the process works, because Jonah doesn’t have the time or supplies for more than one test subject.

Me: “......huh.”

My brain, getting more excited: Merge the Eye-pocalypse and Prentiss attacks! Some sort of biological agent gets loose in the facility, and Jon hacks the security system to try and stop it. Any hermetically sealed area of the facility gets locked down, and he gasses the rest of the facility to keep the contaminants from spreading.

My brain: But they’re underground and the ventilation system isn’t the best maintained, so he can’t risk letting anyone out for fear they’ll get poisoned too. Just has to wait for the gas to rise up out of the facility on its own.

Me: “OH! So from the perspective of everyone in the testing tracks, this AI has just gone completely rogue and taken over the facility, killing a whole bunch of people and trapping them inside!”

Me: “I bet Jonah’s office is basically a fortress, and he still has security access to cameras and intercom, so he just eggs them on. Because this is an insurance nightmare, he wants to upload himself ASAP, so Jonah tells them there’s a manual override procedure for SIMS, but he can’t do it alone. They need to get through the testing, reach the central control chamber, and help him deactivate SIMS before they’ll be able to leave the facility. But actually, he’s planning to delete Jon entirely and replace him in the mainframe!”

My brain: Like the bastard he is.

Me: “So now, everyone’s in this weird limbo of trying to figure out what to do and who to trust. I mean, obviously in the AI apocalypse you want to trust your fellow humans, and SIMS did just gas the whole facility and trapped them in the testing tracks, but on the other hand ‘Elias’ is a shady bastard and SIMS isn’t always that bad?”

Me: “Like, sure, it can be pushy about testing and you can’t expect a robot to be good at emotions, but sometimes it’ll do something like ask for a verbal check-in because they’ve been down there a while and that can be psychologically hard on most humans? Someone complains about food, and SIMS sounds almost genuine when apologizing for not having anything else that can be safely transported to the testing tracks at this time. Once, Martin found a corner away from the cameras to take a nap in, and he’d swear SIMS was actually panicking over not being able to find Martin when he woke up.”

My brain: Tim and Sasha make snide, tired jokes about Jon giving the damn thing all his social awkwardness, as well as his name and voice (for some god-awful, unknowable reason.) They don’t want to let SIMS endear itself to them, knowing it probably killed Jon.

Me: “No, no, knowing that it killed Jon. They absolutely ask at some point if Jon’s okay and are told that amongst the however-many living staff members that are left, Jonathan Sims is not amongst them. What else are they to assume, other than that Jon’s been gassed by his own creation?”

My brain: Oooh...

Me: “Martin’s the only one who actually feels endeared to SIMS by the time they meet up, partially because he’s the only one who was trapped alone. Tim and Sasha were together, and already have reason to hold a grudge. Daisy, Basira, and Melanie met up early and spend a lot of free time fantasizing about smashing the damn computer when they find it.”

Me: “Martin was alone and he hates it, so he tries talking to SIMS, and is a little surprised when SIMS talks back. They’re not always pleasant conversations, SIMS can be curt and doesn’t have much personal info to share (being a computer and all,) but Martin does start to get a grasp on the situation as it must have at least appeared to SIMS when he pulled the lockdown-tigger. And for a supposedly evil computer, SIMS can be surprisingly helpful and seems almost as upset by the situation as the humans are.”

My brain: And there was that odd moment after Martin convinced SIMS to stop calling him “Mr. Blackwood,” and SIMS seemed almost flustered before very softly responding, “...Martin, then.”

Me: “Awww... please tell me Jon’s not actually dead, I need them to take him with them at the end...”

My brain: Suspended animation. The brain is still a vital part of the machine, but it never ages or degrades thanks to whatever combo of chemicals and cryosleep Jonah used to preserve him. Part of Jonah’s “manual override” involves adding a high-powered hard drive or four to replace the need for an organic brain, making full digitization possible.

Me: “But where’s he stored? He can’t just be strung up in the middle of the machine, that’d be unsustainable and Jonah would never let anyone within a hundred yards of it lest they realize the truth! A cryotank in a fake computer bank? A stasis tube hidden amongst the wiring, which they could discover while clambering about installing the hard drives?”

My brain: A cold room disguised as a locked closet or something, with the upload chair still inside of it? Only Jonah has the passcode, technically, and he was planning to go in while everyone else had their own tasks to do, just shove Jon’s body out and plug himself in, leaving Jon to finally die on the floor just a short distance from his friends while Jonah replaced him in the machine, removed the safeties, and escaped into the internet?

Me: “Oh, and Jon gave them a universal override or something to get them out of a dangerous situation towards the end! It actually leaves half the group feeling pretty low, having the thing they’re trying to destroy just hand them the key to its destruction out of pure, innocent trust.”

Me: “Then while Jonah’s distracted giving out instructions, Martin (useless with computers,) wanders over and opens the door, letting out a gust of cold air with a hiss. Martin coughs on the escaping gasses, and Jonah rushes to say that the cold room is very delicate, and ought not to be tampered with by people who don’t know what they’re doing—“

My brain: —but Martin blinks back the stinging, shock-induced tears, eyes adjusting to the dark of the closet and gasps.

Me: “And Martin’s only ever seen Jon in passing, really, they never properly worked together. But he was a little sweet on him even back then, and he’s heard the stories from Tim and Sasha, and he’s spent the last several weeks getting to know SIMS...”

My brain: ...He quickly calls Tim and Sasha over to confirm, just in case he’s got it wrong somehow. They’re just as shocked that Jon’s in there, with all his notes tucked away behind him revealing what really happened. Jonah tries to talk his way out of it, but is quickly arrested by Basira and Daisy.

Me: “Sasha finishes the notes first and makes her way back out. She’s shaking, overwhelmed with rage and grief and horror, and punches ‘Elias’ so hard he falls to the floor.”

My brain: Jonah starts to say something about assault, but Melanie congratulates Sasha for stopping him and Basira, completely deadpan, adds, “We all saw him make a break for it.”

Me: “Jonah shuts the fuck up.”

My brain: Part of SIMS’ programming was not being allowed to answer to “Jon” anymore. He never outright denies being Jon, just corrects people that he is the Self-aware Intelligent Machine Simulation. Tim finishes the notes, makes it to the cold room door, looks into the nearest camera and shakily asks, “Jon?”

Me: “For the first time, there’s a solid three beat pause before the intercom answers, softly and less robotically than before, ‘...Yes, Tim?’”

My brain: Tim starts crying.

Me: “Of course he does! He’s been grieving Jon for weeks at this point, trying not to let it show just how sad and angry he was that it all ended like this, and now it turns out that not only is Jon alive, he never actually left them at all! All those months thinking Jon ghosted them, left them behind in R&D for greener pastures, and Jon was all-but-dead in a cold room the whole time, and none of them ever knew! The relief, the joy, the guilt, the lingering bitter grief and rage, it’s overwhelming. Who wouldn’t cry?”

My brain: It takes them a few days to figure out the download procedure to return Jon to his body, especially since Jonah can’t be trusted on this front. Tim and Sasha are the techies, and they recruit Melanie and Basira for extra hands. (Martin’s still terrible with machines, and Daisy needs to watch Jonah to make sure he doesn’t escape.)

My brain: Martin, feeling useless, stays by Jon’s side in the cold room.

Me: “When Jon wakes up, Martin’s the first thing he sees.”

My brain: Martin sees him moving, meets his eyes, and gasps, “Jon?” Jon nods and tries to say something, but his throat is dry and his voice won’t work. Martin scrambles to get him a glass of water and steadies Jon’s hands as he drinks it. When he lowers the glass, Martin cautiously asks if Jon’s feeling better.

Me: “Jon just smiles and answers, ‘You said my name.’”

My brain: Martin’s confused. “What else would I call you?”

Me: “Jon shakes his head. ‘I just... don’t think I’ve heard you say it before. Certainly not to me. It’s... nice.’”

My brain: Martin laughs helplessly and says it again. “Jon.” Jon’s smile brightens, and Martin can’t help stepping closer, repeating Jon’s name again. Jon laughs along.

Me: “It’s on instinct that Martin takes the empty glass and sets it to the side, leans over the chair, touches Jon’s shoulder, cups his cheek. He hesitates when they’re nose to nose, breathing the same air, shockingly warm even when Jon’s skin is still cold to the touch. He meets Jon’s eyes and swallows. ‘Is this okay?’”

My brain: Close enough to feel the small, inaudible gasp before Jon whispers, “Please.”

Me: “They only get one short kiss in before the door opens and Tim makes a scandalized noise before loudly declaring this unfair and blatant favoritism. Martin all but jumps away, but Jon just rolls his eyes and thanks Tim for saving him. As the others pile in —Sasha claiming she did all the work, Basira needing to know if Jon’s up for making an official statement, Melanie both needing to pass on a message from Georgie and wanting an exclusive interview for her expose— Martin can already feel himself fading into the background, even as he and Tim help Jon to his feet.”

My brain: At least until Jon lingers, fingers lightly resting against Martin’s arm, and looks up at him with hope in his eyes. “Later?”

Me: “Martin’s not entirely sure what Jon’s asking (Jon isn’t really either,) but he agrees anyway. He doesn’t even hesitate.”

My brain:

Me:

My brain:

Me:

My brain:

Me: “.....WELL FUCK.”

My brain, smug despite it being 4:30am: Told you it was a good idea.

Me: “I hate you so much.”

[ollieofthebeholder]

leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall): a TMA fic

Read from the beginning on Tumblr | Also on AO3

Chapter 58: Jon Prime

Eleven months. Eleven months since Jon had come back in time, since he’d knocked on Tim’s door, since he’d had Martin in his arms again. Eleven months of regrouping, of planning, of worrying and fearing and hoping in equal measures. Eleven months, almost to the day, to the minute. All of it leading to this.

It was worth it for the look on Elias’s face when he spun around to face him.

In the entire time Jon had worked for the Institute, and especially since taking the Archivist position, he had never once seen Elias anything but calmly, coolly, smugly in control. Occasionally angry, although he’d more heard that than seen it when he listened to the tapes much later, but still, whatever emotions he might have been feeling, his bearing had always suggested that he held the upper hand and knew it. Now, though, there was none of that in his expression. For the first time Jon had ever seen, Elias Bouchard looked as though the situation had got away from him somewhat. His eyes—Jonah’s eyes—were wide with alarm, his jaw was slack, and even if he didn’t look afraid—yet—he was definitely at the very least taken aback. It was a start.

“Jon? What are you doing here?” he demanded. “You should be—” He stopped and inhaled sharply as he scanned Jon’s face, probably noticing the worm scars if not how much more grey was in his hair than his counterpart’s. “You’re not Jon.”

“Oh, but I am,” Jon replied. He was keeping his powers in check, but barely; he could feel the static building in his veins, thrumming and crackling like electricity through a power grid, and while he wanted to unleash it on the man before him, he couldn’t just yet. It was too much of a risk with Martin so close. “Just not the Jon you think I am.”

“What—no.” Jonah—there was no doubt it was Jonah Magnus regarding him now—turned pale. “You’re not—no. How can this be? Tell me!”

Jon tsked. “That was never your gift, Jonah. Compelling people. The Eye gave you the ability to pry, to pluck secrets out of heads and put secrets in…but you don’t get to ask for them, do you? You are no Archivist.”

There was definitely a part of him that was enjoying this more than he should. It wasn’t the power over Jonah he thrilled to—he’d never been the megalomaniac sort—but he definitely relished not being the one at a disadvantage for once. He’d spent years as little more than a pawn in Jonah’s game, and it was refreshing to be, if not a queen, at the very least a knight. It was satisfying more than anything.

But satisfaction wasn’t the goal. Victory was.

Jonah pulled himself together and drew himself up. Jon had to give him some credit—it obviously cost him a good deal of effort, both mental and physical. Martin had thrown him for a loop, probably several times, and then Jon had appeared from behind and totally disorientated him. Beyond that, Jon had seen, when he crept up behind him, the large dark stain surrounding the tear on the back of his usually immaculate charcoal suit. Melanie may have only pretended to actually try and kill him, but she’d certainly done a number on him anyway.

“Jon, I do not have time for these games,” he began.

“On the contrary. We have all the time in the world.” Jon took a half-step back and to the side, away from both the soft part in the wall that led, more or less, to the Institute and the tunnel where Sasha and Melanie had secreted themselves.

As he’d hoped, Jonah took the bait, taking a full step towards him and away from Martin. He had two inches on Jon and obviously intended to use them to the utmost effect in an attempt to intimidate and cow Jon. It was the same thing he’d done after the Apocalypse, when he’d stood over Jon and belittled him,  making him shrink in on himself and bow under the weight of his own folly and shortcomings, highlighted all the places where it had been Jon’s decisions that led to that point.

Things were different now. Jon knew himself, he knew what his capabilities were as well as his limitations. And just as importantly, he had the evidence of his own eyes when he looked at Past Jon. Yes, Jon had made choices that led to the Apocalypse, but they’d been made with the limited information he had—information that had been limited because of Jonah. When he had all the data, he made much better decisions. Knowing, as they said, was half the battle.

In this case, perhaps, Knowing was all the battle.

Jon spared a quick glance for Martin. His smirk was almost a match for Jon’s own, and his eyes sparkled in a way Jon hadn’t seen in a long time. He stood tall and confident, shoulders squared and chin raised, and he still had a tight grip on the knife Melanie had pressed into his hand. He was also still far too close to Jon and Jonah, and not near enough to where he needed to be.

“Martin, get back. I don’t want you getting hurt,” he told him.

“Really, Jon, I don’t know what you think is going to happen,” Jonah said stiffly. “Whatever the issue is, we can settle it like gentlemen.”

“Ha!” Melanie’s disgusted laugh floated from the side. Jon looked over quickly to see her and Sasha crouched right in the entrance of the tunnel they’d found him in, arms linked tightly. Melanie’s other hand had a death grip on the rough stone of the tunnel’s arch. Jon knew exactly why. He’d heard the near-ethereal music, too, followed it down the tunnel, and realized the stone was ringing faintly with the tune from Denikin’s Calliophone, as though it were one of the pipes of the organ. If Sasha and Melanie hadn’t tumbled into him and told him they were ready for him, there was no telling how far he might have gone. Or how lost he might have been.

Something flickered over Martin’s face, but he did as Jon requested, taking three careful steps backwards until his heels hit the edge of the tower at the center of the Panopticon. He reached out with his free hand and steadied himself against it, then nodded once.

Jon stole another half-pace backwards, luring Jonah a little farther away from the others. “Settle this like gentlemen? You must be joking. What exactly do you think is going to happen? That you’re going to convince me to—to walk away from this? To just let it go?”

“You walked away from the Unknowing,” Jonah said tartly. “You left Tim alone to it with two people who, I am sure, could not possibly care less whether he lives or dies. And despite this—” He ran his eye over Jon’s face disdainfully. “—this getup, we both know that you walked away from Jane Prentiss and left Martin alone to her.”

Oh. That was a low blow. Jon stiffened, his rage nearly choking him. Despite knowing that it wasn’t true—that it hadn’t been true in either timeline—just the fact that Jonah would look him in the eye and even imply that he was the sort to abandon his people was enough to leave him momentarily speechless. And the fact that Jonah believed, or pretended to believe, that Jon would abandon Martin of all people…

He was about to explode, to start yelling, to reach out and strangle Jonah Magnus with his bare hands, when Martin started laughing. It was somewhere between the way he’d laughed when Jon had floated the idea of gouging their eyes out and running away together and the way he’d laughed when they’d been playing I Spy in the tombs. He sounded both incredulous and amused.

“You still have no idea, do you?” he said. “You still think you know what’s going on. This must really be embarrassing for you. Having to wait for an explanation.”

It was the last word that did it for Jon, grounding him and enabling him to recenter himself. Even if Martin’s voice hadn’t been enough, the reminder was. Once upon a time that no longer was, Jonah Magnus had forced Jon to monologue for him, forced him to recite his deeds and his plan before using him as a tool to trigger the end of the world. He had manipulated Jon at every turn, and then manipulated him once more at the end. And that was exactly what he was trying to do here. He was trying to goad Jon into doing something rash, into lashing out at him and tipping his hand too far.

He still thought he could win.

Jon didn’t take a deep breath; he wouldn’t give Jonah the satisfaction of knowing he’d rattled him. But he did square his shoulders and let his lips curl into a sneer. “I know you can’t look into my head, Jonah. But can’t you guess? Even if your master won’t give you the answers, can’t you even attempt to figure them out on your own?”

Anger flashed in Jonah’s cold grey eyes, and Jon knew he’d scored another point. There would be no grading of this exam—it was strictly pass/fail—but the more he could build things up on his side, the easier it would be. He hoped. “Don’t prevaricate, Jon. This is hardly the time. Either tell me what you think you are doing, or allow me to get back to watching the people you should be watching.”

“The Jonathan Sims you employ is at the Unknowing,” Jon told him coldly. “Along with the Martin Blackwood you employ. I was that Jonathan Sims, once, but not now. I am from the future, Jonah Magnus. A future that is not and will never be.”

“If you are trying to make a joke—”

Jon ran the backs of two fingers over his cheek, indicating the worm scars. “Jane Prentiss, twenty-sixth July, 2016.” He touched his side. “The Distortion, otherwise known as Michael, second October, 2016.” He held out his right hand, palm outward, and notched another point in his credit when Jonah flinched, almost imperceptibly. “Jude Perry, twenty-fourth April, 2017.”

Jonah’s eyes widened—and then, not entirely to Jon’s surprise, a slow smile crossed his face. “The Corruption, the Spiral, the Desolation. And that scar at your throat—yes, I saw that. The Slaughter?”

“The Hunt. Daisy Tonner, twenty-eighth April, 2017.” Jon pulled aside the collar of Martin’s sweater—not the green one he’d worn since Martin wrapped him in it for comfort after he ended the world or the soft blue one that Martin wore more often than any other because Jon had complimented him on it without thinking long before either of them knew they would end up together, but the slightly lopsided red one that was Jon’s new favorite, because it was the one Martin had patiently worked on while Jon read statements to feed himself, the one that was proof he didn’t really need to be able to see to knit. “This is the Slaughter. Melanie King, twenty-fifth February, 2018.” He let the collar fall back into place and smoothed it out carefully. “The others don’t show.”

“But you have them all.” Jonah’s smile broadened. “It worked. The ritual was a success, and you came back…thinking you could stop me.”

“Well done, Jonah,” Jon said, in the same voice one might otherwise use with a child who had successfully tied his own shoes for the first time. “That’s all absolutely correct.”

“Oh, Jon.” Jonah’s voice took on an almost pitying tone. “And you thought telling me that would mean…what, exactly? You think it won’t work now? That you’ve warned your—counterpart, and now he can escape it? He has three marks already, at least.”

Behind Jonah’s shoulder, Martin silently held up his free hand, displaying all five fingers. Jon swallowed down the bile that rose in his throat as he realized Martin was right. Apart from the two he’d had before they arrived—the Web and the Eye—and being stabbed by and later traveling through the halls of the Distortion, Past Jon had been kidnapped and essentially tortured by the Stranger, and his encounter with Julia and Trevor in America was probably enough to give him a mark from the Hunt.

“And even if he escapes,” Jonah continued, oblivious to what was going on behind him, “there are still the others. Even knowing, it’s unavoidable, Jon. Fear comes for us all, in whatever guise it wishes, and the Institute is a lure many of them cannot resist. They will be marked, and when they are—”

“No,” Jon interrupted, and this time he let the static crackle through his voice. “They may be marked, Jonah Magnus, but it will not be to your advantage. This ends here.”

Jonah sneered, but Jon had already seen the flash of fear in his eyes. “You think you’ve learned enough to stop me? I have two hundred years of experience and Knowledge. What do you bring to the table? A few tricks? This cheap attempt at intimidation? You cannot overpower me, Jon. Not now when I can see my triumph within my grasp. Thwart me, and I will simply find another.”

“Oh, no.” Jon took another diagonal step, turning his shoulders as he did so; as he expected, Jonah followed him. “There will be no one else. Not from you. Never again.”

“How, exactly, do you intend to stop me?” Jonah demanded, drawing himself up.

Jon snorted. “I had considered taking you out the way you took out one of the others. I considered shooting you. Like you did to Gertrude.” He swallowed hard. “And Martin.”

“I never—ah.” Jonah’s unpleasant smile smeared across his face again. “Yes, I suppose that would be quite effective in slowing you down, wouldn’t it? If I were to—take him out, shall we say?” He slipped one hand under his jacket.

“You don’t have it with you,” Jon said with contempt. “I don’t even need the Eye to know that. If you had brought your gun, you wouldn’t have bothered trying to get into Martin’s head. Not once you were down here. After all…” He waved one hand around the room. “Who would be here to witness? Only the Eye.”

“Perhaps I think he’s too useful to kill,” Jonah said.

Jon curled one hand into a fist and fought back the anger and nausea the way Jonah’s voice curled around the word useful brought up. He had to keep it together. Had to keep this going. “I could have beaten you to death, too. Like you did Jurgen Leitner. And framed me for.”

Again he took a half-step back, rotating slightly this time, and again Jonah followed. Jon glanced at Sasha, her eyes glittering with excitement and interest even from that distance, and raised his eyebrows in silent question. She nodded once. Jon blinked his acknowledgment and swiftly returned his gaze to Jonah. He’d managed it right. He now had the tunnel to the Institute at his back and the Panopticon at his front. He was directly between the two access points for the Beholder. He had Jonah exactly where he wanted him.

“Jurgen Leitner?” Jonah repeated. “That pompous ass?”

Martin and Melanie’s snorts were nearly identical. Jon didn’t bother to repress his smirk. “He’s living in those tunnels, you know. Has been for years. He used to help Gertrude out, too. He was going to tell me some of those details you thought my counterpart didn’t know, and I wasn’t knowledgeable enough to shield my thoughts enough that you didn’t know I was talking to someone. You slipped in while I was out of my office, tormented him the same way you did Gertrude, and beat him to death with a length of pipe. Left the body there. Of course Daisy thought I’d done it.”

“It would have been quite difficult for me to use you if you were in prison.”

“Oh, you made it clear that you didn’t actually think I’d done it. But you certainly brought me to Daisy’s attention. Dangled me in front of her. You knew she would come after me eventually, knew it would mark me. You used her as much as you used the rest of us, long before she joined the Institute.” Jon met Jonah’s eyes. It was far easier than it had ever been before. “Never again, Jonah. I will never allow you to use anyone for your evil purpose again. You don’t deserve the power you want to wield.”

“You could join me, you know,” Jonah offered.

Jon almost choked. “What?”

“Join me,” Jonah said again, and if Jon thought for a minute that Elias Bouchard was the type, he’d have expected the next sentence to be something along the lines of Together we can rule the galaxy as father and son. “You’ve seen the world, Jon. The world we created, in your time. You know how very beautiful it can be. Rulers together of a forsaken world. Overseers of all. Imagine it. You could choose who lived and died. Control how much suffering was inflicted on those who suffered. You know what that fear feels like when it flows through you…imagine controlling it, drinking the whole world. I know you wouldn’t be here if you had had that power. You would never have wanted to leave it.” He spread his hands out invitingly towards Jon. “We would live forever. Imagine it, Jon. It would be so easy, and so rewarding. All you need to do…is say the words.”

Martin’s face went white as a sheet. Those freckles that hadn’t been bleached to pale shadows by the Lonely stood out clearer than Jon had seen them in ages, and his lips parted slightly. The naked fear in his sightless eyes was almost physically painful. He was scared, worse than he’d been in a long time.

And something seemed to tighten around Jon’s wrist.

Martin knew Jon better than anybody in the universe, maybe better than Jon even knew himself. He knew how close to the edge Jon had been at times, how close he’d come to succumbing to the Eye and becoming its conduit. How hard Jon had fought to keep from becoming like Jude Perry, like Mike Crew, like Jared Hopworth. And he knew just how hard Jon was tempted at times to give in, how much Jon wanted to know what would happen if he did. How tired he got sometimes of the constant daily struggle. He alone, out of anybody, knew that there was a part of Jon that wanted to say yes.

But not enough of one. Not nearly enough of one. There was no temptation in the world strong enough to lure him away from Martin, nothing in the universe he wanted more than to spend whatever time he was granted with the man he loved. Martin had promised to kill him if he ever came close to agreeing to what Jonah was proposing, and Jon had sworn to himself then and there that he would never force Martin to make that call. He knew that Martin would never be able to live with himself if he did. And Jon loved him too much to hurt him that way if there was any other option.

But Martin couldn’t see his face. For all he knew, Jon was seriously considering the offer. Jon would have to reassure him.

“If you think,” he said, “for one moment that I would agree to that knowing what it would mean, you’re an even bigger idiot than I thought you were. And that, Jonah Magnus, is saying something.”

Martin drew in a sharp breath and closed his eyes for a brief moment, then seemed to relax. Jonah’s smile melted away. He opened his mouth to say something. Jon didn’t give him the chance. “I have seen your ‘forsaken world’, and I have seen what it cost everyone who lived in it. I have felt the pain and suffering of those within it, and I know that there is no one, Watched or Watcher, who escaped that pain and suffering. Even those who thought they wanted it, in the end, found they did not. Even you would have learned that, sooner or later.” He narrowed his eyes at Jonah. “And I would sooner gouge my own eyes out, here and now, than share any kind of power with you.”

Jon again saw the cold, pale fury in Jonah’s eyes that he had last seen when Martin defied him after the Apocalypse, but this time it didn’t go away. “That can be arranged.”

“I don’t think so.” Jon felt the static building up again, and this time, he didn’t try to hold it back. “Your time has come.”

Power thrummed through his veins. It was the way he’d felt when facing down the Not-Them both times, when he’d struck down Jared Hopworth, when he’d caught hold of Helen’s lie, but somehow it was stronger. Again he felt that tightening around his wrist, and he could feel a power flowing through that as well, fueling him, giving him strength and courage.

“For two hundred years, you have sat atop your ivory tower and pretended to rule,” he said. The words came easily, leading Jon to wonder if he was saying them or the Ceaseless Watcher was. “You have set yourself up as a god among men, and you have believed yourself to be untouchable. You have manipulated and pulled and lured, and through it all, you have believed yourself to be endearing yourself to your master. But It Knows You, and it Knows that it is not fear you have feasted on all these years, merely power over others. You have desired only your own ends and served no one but yourself.”

He was aware of an echo to his voice, as though someone else was speaking the words with him. At first he thought it was just that, an echo, or maybe the Beholder resonating through him, but he recognized the second voice for what it was at about the same moment Jonah’s eyes widened, and the fear in them wasn’t fleeting. It was Gertrude Robinson’s voice joining Jon’s, maybe prompting him, maybe lending her power to his. Maybe it was just a manifestation of his power after all, enhancing Jonah’s fear.

Jon could taste that fear. It was exhilarating and intoxicating. Whatever was around his wrist seemed to tighten further, reminding him that it was there, reminding him of what he was trying to do. Keeping him grounded. In that instant, Jon recognized it as a manifestation of his bond to Martin, the one Annabelle Cane had enhanced, and it gave him a renewed sense of conviction.

“Two hundred years of pain and death and misery,” he continued, “and all of it spent running from your own fears. Know now that Fear has come for you, Jonah Magnus. You cannot escape it and you cannot run from it.”

“No—no—no,” Jonah gasped, backing away from Jon, or trying to. “J-Jon, please—”

“For our Tim,” Jon snarled, and Gertrude Robinson’s voice and all their combined power joined in with him. “For our Sasha, and for Gertrude Robinson, and for all the others you have killed and trapped and harmed. For my Martin. For every life you took, every dream you destroyed, every ounce of pain and fear you inflicted on others—let it all be turned back on you tenfold. Feel it all, and for the first time in your life, Jonah Magnus, you will truly Know.”

“Jon—please—I don’t want to die,” Jonah begged.

“Neither did they.” Jon raised his voice and felt his hair stand on end. “Ceaseless Watcher, turn your gaze upon this miserable, pathetic, wretched thing!”

The light in the room flashed as though struck by lightning, but a brilliant, blazing green, coming from both directions and centered directly on Jonah Magnus, who began to scream. Jon felt the fear slam into him, filling him near to bursting, thrumming through his veins and body like he’d simultaneously grabbed hold of a live electrical wire and tried to drink from a fire hose like a straw. Either Elias Bouchard’s body was shrinking or Jon had grown, or perhaps he was merely floating above the floor, but whatever the case, he was now looking down on the man from above.

In the exact same instant, Martin lunged forward and, with a roar of satisfaction and an accuracy that Jon Knew would not have been possible without their bond, drove the knife with both hands into the heart of Jonah Magnus’s body.

Elias’s scream rose to a fever pitch, joined by more voices—six, if Jon was any judge: the screams of the other five men Jonah Magnus murdered to extend his life, and the scream of the original Jonah Magnus himself, a dry, dusty sort of scream, desperate and frightened and pained. The green light flared up and filled the room in a blinding, soundless explosion—

—and then, suddenly, it was gone, leaving a vacuum of silence and the ruins of a prison guard tower.

Jon’s feet hit the ground—so he had been floating after all—and he stumbled slightly. Where Elias Bouchard had been, there was nothing but a scorch mark on the stone, and Martin was half-kneeling in the center of the guard tower, knife still in hand, but nothing remaining of Jonah Magnus’s original body but a scattering of dust.

Martin blinked twice, dropped the knife, and got to his feet, turning unerringly in Jon’s direction. “Jon?” he called.

“Martin,” Jon choked out. He reached out his hands desperately for Martin, wanting to hold him close, to tell him they’d done it, that they were safe, that it was over, that it had worked. That Jonah Magnus was dead and would never harm anyone else again. That they had won.

That he loved him, so very, very much.

He made it no more than a couple of steps before his strength failed him and he pitched forward, gasping. Two strong arms caught him and pulled him close. The last thing Jon heard was Martin desperately, frantically screaming his name.

And then everything went black.