#it was a tma fic. if anyone was curious

[bittermedicinespitter]

if i ever tell you "i cant possibly read a book in a day!" i am LYING. i am a FUCKING LIAR. because last night i read a 50k word fanfic in three fucking hours.

[pocket-goose]

reading a jon-can-but-can’t-die fic on ao3 and the magnus institute’s wifi password is listed as fucking ceaseless_router1818. idk what else to say but that it’s hilarious imo

[ifyourereadingthisblinktwice]

after reading chapter 23 of nhthcth i can confirm it’s the first fanfic i’ve ever wanted to have a physical copy off. the minute it is completed i’m making a fanbind. i feel it in my bones i already have cover design ideas

[azacat-alias-lost]

I'm a silly little guy and have nothing better to do, so have a crossover au that I may turn into a fic, or another thing. POLL AT THE BOTTOM

~~~~~~~~~~

Picture this.

Jonathan Sims, just after the end of S2 of the Magnus Archives. He's been freshly framed for murder by his evil boss, and now the London police force is after him. Daisy Tonner is hunting him down, and she's got the whole force on her side. But get this. Another officer catches him and throws him in jail. Daisy, wanting him dead, is trying to convince people he doesn't deserve a trial. He gets one anyway, because, well, he kind of has to.

Jon, in the detention center. He's adamant that he did not kill that old man. No one can figure out who that old man is, and the fact that Jon seems to know something makes him way more suspicious. Martin visits him every day, and Jon's starting to realize that maybe, if he cares so much, he's not so bad. That's not going to do him much good, though, he's still in jail.

Jon, panicking. His trial is getting closer; only a few days left before he's assigned a lawyer, and if Daisy has anything to say about it, he'll get the shittiest one the city has. He knows he's as good as dead. He knows he'll lose. But he waits anyway. No one has given him any resources, but he waits anyway, one last spark of hope left in him, hope that maybe, because he knows he didn't do it, that will count for something.

Now, I want you to picture something else.

A young lawyer in a nice blue suit has just heard about a case that, for some reason or another (Eye influence), has made international news. He watches the segment, which features a sad, pathetic looking man who looks much older than he is. That guy couldn't have killed somebody, he thinks to himself, there's no way. And he gets a feeling in his gut that the only one who can prove the guy innocent is him.

Pan back to the jail cell. Jon is called out for a visit from Martin, and they get to discussing what he's going to do. Martin is apologizing, saying that he couldn't find a lawyer to take the case, saying that he wishes he could have done more. Jon is resigned to defeat at this point, and is thinking about pleading guilty, just to see if he can get a lesser sentence.

That is, until no-loss-recorded, young and hopeful, Mr. Missed Connections extraordinaire walks through the door.

Phoenix Wright, before anyone has the chance to ask him why he's there, says one thing.

"I'll take your case."

~~~~~~~~~~

Anyway, what do y'all think? I could either write a fic (less engaging but still fun and would take a lot less time) or make an objection.lol video case with custom sprites (much more time consuming but would be a really cool finished product). If I do the fic, I may do the video afterwards.

Which should I do first?

I'm very curious as to what gets chosen

[magpod-confessions]

i fear i may get gobbled up in the notes for this, but i can hold onto this secret no longer:

i genuinely really enjoyed that one jonelias eroguro fic that went slightly viral. red right hand. maybe its bc i grew up reading grimdark mlp fics, but i was enthralled, beginning to end. because lets be honest, the brony fandom couldnt write those things very well, but this fic author delivered some of the most nauseatingly evocative images. my childhood brand of terror has returned to me fully matured and ready to keep me awake at night once again >:)

never before has a tma fic, you know, for The Horror Podcast, actually horrified me so well before! it's a delight for any connoisseur of whump. if you're after a stomach churner, by GOD will it deliver. Looking at you, avatars of The Flesh.

now, can i reccommend it to a general audience? UHM FUCK NO HAHAHA, noo no no. god no. dont read this. and i dont mean in the "funny haha dont read this but you totally know you wanna" way, this is not a shill, i seriously mean DON'T READ THIS. it's fucked up on several levels. unless you already engage w fics like it, i can safely say that 99% of you are going to hate this if the fact that its jonelias didnt already ward you off.

even if you get curious, seriously, just read the tags and the warnings and you'll know right away if you can stomach it. i REALLY can't state enough how little i recommend this to the layman. and if anyone tries to tell you it's "not that bad" they're highly desensitized to gore and lying to you.

save yourself. it's that bad. and that just happens to be exactly why i loved it.

🗣️

no idea what fic you mean anon but uh . go you ? or not ? aj sweat - deceit

[sickfictropes]

Okay so. I know you said you couldn't do gender dysphoria whump and that's very understandable. Which is why the prompt I'm gonna send here isn't about gender dysphoria and the trans character in question is the caretaker, not the whumpee. If you still don't wanna answer it, I get that and I won't hold it against you!!! but I did want to put this idea somewhere and sickfictropes is my favorite blog. if you did want to answer this ask and maybe even add onto it a little, I'd be super happy about that though :)

This idea has to do with a whumpee who's had their identity stolen from them, one way or another. Maybe they're supernatural and they've been caged before by curious or hostile humans. Maybe it's a living weapon whumpee situation, Winter-Soldier-style. Maybe they're a literal robot who only recently realized they can make their own decisions. Maybe they're just really, really gaslit and traumatized.

And then there's Caretaker. Caretaker, who doesn't totally understand—because no one can understand what Whumpee's going through except Whumpee, not really—but they do get some of it. Because they know what it's like to be lost, to be scared, to have to forge your own identity. And, yeah, it's one of the most terrifying things a person can do. But it's also a one-of-a-kind experience, to get to discover who you want to be. The taste of freedom and creativity and love and bravery. It can be not just healing, but fun. And they want to help Whumpee realize that.

Cue Caretaker trying to help Whumpee find themself in the safest, happiest way possible. Bringing them on adventure after adventure and letting them lead the way. Taking them to the store and asking them what they want to get. Taking them to the movie theater and having them pick the movie. Or for other genres, letting them pick out spells out of a wizard's handbook and teaching them to them or straight up letting them steer the ship (with guidance) on a space adventure. Laying on the grass and looking at the stars and brainstorming new name ideas with them, just like they did for themself.

Not that these two things are comparable, but I like the idea of finding kinship in the action of figuring yourself out as a person

omgggg yes loss of identity is so angsty, and it's even better when caretaker is just as insecure. this prompt is perfect but i had to add my own little twist, i hope you don't mind! this reminds me of a line i wrote in my best fanfiction ever, a TMA fic, that goes like this.

"There will be a new normal. Whether they’ll like it or not is anyone’s guess, but eventually, whatever feelings they have for one another will solidify under their feet and he won’t feel the fear of breaking thin ice. If he can tell Tim it’s going to be okay, and he keeps Tim close, then perhaps he has to believe they’ll both get through this."

i love the idea of two characters suffering similar losses and being self-conscious about not healing as quickly or as well as the other. both of them think the other is coping so much better than they are, but turns out that they're both turned upside-down.

the idea of having to believe that their friend is going to be fine being the sole hope they have that they're both going to get through if they stick together and support one another!! GOD!!

[symbiotic-slime]

idk how much you’re willing to spoiler about your fic BUT I am so curious if there will be any other avatars besides Eddie/Venom & which entities you associate with which characters!! :o I always thought a tma/marvel crossover would be so cool, I’m so interested in this :]

I’m always happy to share more about these fics!! I admittedly haven’t thought of many characters since I’ve basically only made lore for Eddie/Venom and Flash 😅 I’m hoping the fics will be written like a statement/series of statements!

for what entities they’d serve, I think Eddie would be an avatar of the Corruption! it just fits symbrock so well— like a parasite (affectionate) who is obsessively in love with you is basically combining all of the aspects of the Corruption into one. in my fic, Venom starts out as mold growing in Eddie’s apartment which he starts off trying to kill but eventually the Corruption gets a hold of him mentally and he bonds with Venom! there’s a lot of body horror with Eddie since the Corruption is just perfect for body horror. lots of rot/decay (he’s basically Jane Prentiss-esque but instead of worms it’s goop) and also to highlight the obsessive/toxic love part Eddie’s rib cage is ripped open and Venom is wrapped around his heart >:3

I think Flash would be an avatar of the Slaughter! I know I’m so original by making the solider character a Slaughter avatar but it fits him too well 😭 his fic is a lot sadder than Eddie’s, since I’m kinda making the unpredictable abuse he suffered from his dad the catalyst for the entity noticing him and starting to influence him. I’m warping around the comics timeline a bit so he joins the army right after high school and also making it so his legs being amputated is the result of his need for violence instead of him being a war hero to fit the Slaughter better! in the hospital, since he can’t really feed the Slaughter anymore, its influence on him starts to wain and he resolves to become a better person (think like what happened with the coffin in s4)! it’s not entirely a happy ending, since he is getting weaker and weaker by trying to be a better person, but he makes amends with Peter and their friendship starts there in the fic! that’s as happy of an ending as anyone in a TMA au can get unfortunately :,(

I was also thinking of making the Venom symbiote an avatar! I kinda scrapped that idea because I figured they would be an avatar of the Hunt and I wasn’t sure how to show that in a way that significantly deviates from canon? like they already kind of have to kill to survive, and are an apex predator with a drive to hunt. I’ll make a fic about that if I can think of a fun supernatural way to do it but as of now it’s still a headcanon but I’m not a planning a fic about it

I’ve also thought about what entity they would be a victim of! I’m a big fan of putting my favourite characters in situations, so it’s very fun to assign them their own personal hell, but I haven’t thought of any fic ideas for it. they’ve just been given a vibe lol.

Eddie would be a victim of the Lonely (he starts having a breakdown every time he thinks the symbiote has died and starts weeping about how “we’re dead” and cannot get over Anne for the life of him… he just seems like his biggest fear is being alone)

Flash would be a victim of the Web (specifically with the addiction imagery from s5, but also with him being repeatedly blackmailed in the comics)

Venom would be a victim of the Desolation (especially with Eddie and Dylan both “dying” in the current run, I’d also ignore Flash’s resurrection so it’s just like “all my friends are dead”)

[navree]

Hey, hope you’ve been good!

I just finished reading your HOTD fics and I wanted to say that I really enjoy your writing. Spring’s End is my favorite, but Gods In Godless Times was a fun read (I’m weak for modern aus, like, if you have any modern au Green thoughts/headcanons-whether they’re related to your au or not-pls share, cause I’ll eat them up).

Would That They Were Not was also a good read. I really liked that Alicent was the one who ordered the dragons to burn Jahaerys’s body per the Targ tradition. And Aegon’s grief was 🤌

Thanks :)

Anon this was so nice to wake up to thank you so much!!!! You're so sweet, I'm glad you liked it all so much, these were all actually quite fun to write and I'm really happy that people are taking the time to let me know that they enjoy the, I really really really appreciate it.

Making Alicent be the one to burn Jaehaerys's body was very intentional of me, mostly because I always wanna refute the idea that her kids aren't "true Targs" just because of her, and to also show how close knit the entire family is and how that extends even to the dragon bonds, that they'll listen to her in that moment because of what she means to their riders. Aegon's grief was particularly gut wrenching to write, but I really wanted to sell just what an unexpected evil it was that happened to him give Aemond an extra gut punch to see his older brother so affected by the consequences of his (unintentional) actions.

I won't say too much because I do have a lot of chapters planned for Gods in Godless Times where I'm dumping most of these headcanons, and I do fully intend to get back to this fic, it's just that right now I'm taking two science classes (and I'm not scientifically inclined) as well as working on submitting applications to transfer into a four year college, which is taking up a lot of my free time. And I've also got a few one shot drafts for some other fandoms (mostly TMA and W359) that have been languishing for a while that I'm trying to finish and send off into the world.

But with all that being said, some headcanons include: -Daeron is a chaos gremlin of a kid. He's the youngest of four (five, technically if you count Rhaenyra) and this is a high pressure lifestyle, but also just personality wise he's bouncing off the walls and causing problems on purpose and being a lil whippersnapper, but still precious. -Aegon isn't entirely sure if he finds Alys really cool or still creepy (and yes I've aged her way the hell down but in the real world you cannot have a teenager in a relationship with a woman in her late thirties/early forties, you just can't, so that's why she's instead Helaena's friend and therefore her age instead) -Helaena was actually pretty chill when Aemond and Alys started dating, she likes that her lil brother is coming out of his shell and she thinks Alys is neat too anyway -Helaena is still Otto's favorite grandkid, and he Will go to town on any teachers who try and say she should focus more during school -Alicent isn't necessarily a typical PTA mom because a) idk if they've got that in the UK and b) the family position doesn't necessarily give her an opportunity for it, but she's still incredibly involved not just in the kids' personal lives but also in their schooling -Daemon is a family friend who is incredibly close to Viserys and practically grew up with him and who's one of those "honorary uncle" types, rather than Viserys's out and out brother -Viserys isn't infirm, just constantly sick due to age and bad health but still capable of having a job (not sure if I've mentioned this yet but Viserys is both a lord/peer as well as the current President of the Supreme Court in the UK) -Spoilers for the next chapter but the Starks are a prominent American political family and the Northerners are mostly American politicos/East Coast wealth, to parallel how the North in Westeros is far away and culturally removed from most of the country -The general conceit of this world is that certain elements of Westeros are in our world, things like the Free Cities being cities in Western Europe (Myr and Lys for me are specifically in France) and Dorne being some kind of wine country à la Napa or Bordeaux -Helaena wants to study biology and engineering, bugs aren't just a special interest for her but she's genuinely interested in how they and most stuff works -Aemond did, in fact, lose an eye in an accident involving his Strong nephews (it will be discussed) and he does have a lot of issues about it, though he's being slowly convinced by his family and Alys to maybe see someone about it -Rhaenyra is incredibly more distant in this, she's got her own family and the relationship was irreparably fractured almost worse than it was in the show after Aemond's accident -Aemond cannot cook. Helaena is passable. Aegon is actually very good cook -Helaena tries out all possible new hairstyles on Aemond, it's almost rare to see him with his hair loose rather than in some elaborate do Helaena was trying out -Aemond still has his long silky hair in this. People who give Aemond short hair in their modern aus are cowards I said what I said -All the Greens dragons are cats. Sunfyre and Dreamfyre and Tessarion are just normal cats, Vhagar is an old alley cat Aemond picked up at a shelter (it will be elaborated on) and who is incredibly protective of and fiercely cuddly for him and him only -Obviously, but the Greens have a much better and extremely more tight knit relationship in this than they do in show canon. They're incredibly ride or die for each other

Also this counts for the modern AU but is also true of basically all my Greens fics, the Green kids refer to Alicent almost exclusively as "momma", no matter what age or level of maturity.

And for anyone curious:

Spring's End: an Alicent centric fic written after episode 2 exploring Alicent's state of mind in the lead up to her wedding with Viserys and how she struggles to adapt to her new role as queen to be and Viserys's future wife/mother of his children. Warnings for Alicent's spiraling mental health, implied child abuse/CSA/grooming (Alicent is FIFTEEN and Paddy filmed this while in his fifties with Viserys's age unconfirmed she's a child I hate Viserys so much)

Mea Maxima Culpa: ficlet from Aemond's perspective set immediately after episode 10 as he tells the Small Council what happened at Storm's End.

Would That They Were Not: speculative fic on how the show might adapt Blood and Cheese and its immediate aftermath, Aemond and Alicent centric and told from their perspective, and as always, Greens sympathetic. Warnings for child death and spoilers for what's going to be a pretty big plot in season 2 if you haven't read the book and don't know what Blood and Cheese is.

Gods In Godless Times: multi chapter fic of unconnected stories about the Dance-era Targaryens in a modern AU, specifically modern day UK where the Targaryens are a longstanding noble family and Viserys is both a peer of the realm and the current President of the Supreme Court and most of the noble houses of Westeros are media moguls, Fortune 500 companies, politicians, and other upper echelons of society. Primarily focused on the Greens kids, but is planned to have chapter stories focusing on adults, "allies" of the Greens, and some members of Team Blacks and their "allies" as well.

[randompajamaalt]

I raise this again! I’m now taking requests/asks for pixel art, drawings, headcannons, and fics! Depending on the ask I might end up doing something more or less complicated, it really depends. I’ll (attempt to) draw basically any TMA characters, and I’ll also be accepting requests for ship art and other fandoms! This post is mainly focused on the TMA part, but if you’re curious about my other fandoms it’s right on my pinned post!

TMA ships I will definitely make content for:

Jon x Martin

Gerry x Michael Shelley

Gerry x Michael Distortion

TMA ships I will definitely NOT make content for:

Jon x Elias

Martin x Peter

Jon x Peter

Martin x Elias

Really anyone x Peter, Elias, Simon Fairchild, Gertrude, or Jurgen Leitner

Michael Distortion/Shelley x Helen Distortion/Richardson

Most other ships will probably be fine, but it kind of depends, I’ll probably decide once I get the ask. And then a few new rules can be found below!

Things I just generally won’t make content for:

Anything N$FW

Pedophilic things

Zoophilic things

Anything lgbtqphobic, racist, or otherwise bigot-y

If you want to use my pixel art or other art in things like cross-stitching or pearler-beads, I’m completely fine with that as long as you don’t try and claim the original art, credit me, and tag me in the post if you can!

I’m also fine with reposts of my art since I’m not very active on a lot of social media but again! Please don’t try and claim my art! Credit me and everything’s good! 

If you want to use any of my art as profile pictures, banners, or other such things I’m fine with that as well AS LONG AS YOU CREDIT ME SOMEWHERE! I really cannot stress this enough!

Reblogs are much appreciated, since it both spreads my work and the tags you people put are always so fun to read!

I’ll also be taking asks for some of my other fandoms, so again- check my pinned post for those! Though it’ll mainly be The Magnus Archives.

I’m not doing commissions right now, but I might start them up soon, so keep an eye out for that!

Thank you all so much for being here! Sorry this was such a long post, but I hope you have a nice day!

To, like, the three fans I have

I see you. I have eyes on you. Anyways I’m accepting requests now, so hop in my ask box if you have anything TMA or rainworld related that you want to see in my artstyle! I’m also working on a pretty big piece with our boy Jon, so that’ll probably be out soon! have fun and I’m glad at least some people are seeing and enjoying my content

[transgenderboobs]

may i have some jonmartin w/ 14. ( Singing and dancing to their favorite song ) in these trying times,,,

14. Singing and dancing to their favorite song.

oaugh my uwus.....

- - -

The first 24 hours are clumsy and awkward. 

Fleeing the country is definitely not as cool as it looks in the movies, Jon thinks. Mostly it involves a lot of stumbling and fear and confusion and buying train tickets in cash, at full price, because even though Martin has a railcard, using it would be too close to leaving a paper trail.

The keys stick in the front door, and the hinges squeak from disuse, but finally, after a day of nonstop travel, they’re standing on the threshold of Daisy’s safehouse an hour outside of Inverness.

At his side, Martin sneezes.

Jon looks up at him, raises his eyebrows. 

Martin smiles sheepishly, twists his hands around the strap of his duffel bag. “Dusty.”

Jon hums, trails a hand over the wall as they go, trying not to marvel too obviously at every word Martin says to him. “It does smell a bit like the Archives my first day on the job.”

Martin huffs, dry and quiet, but still the closest thing Jon's heard to an actual laugh from him in so long. "You mean the day I let that dog in?"

Jon's heart does something complicated. He remembers feeling so nervous that day he thought he might throw up, but now looking back on it he feels a pang of something almost like nostalgia. Things were easier, back then, when the worst thing he had to worry about was a dog making a mess on the carpet, even if the memory is marred by how abhorrently he'd treated Martin.

"Yes." He nods fondly. "The day you let the dog in."

Martin does another of those little huffs, this one with a bit more life in it. He shrugs his duffel off his shoulder, lets it fall to the hall floor at his feet. "Well. Better than... blood and rotting meat, or something, so. I'll take it."

"Fair point," Jon gives him. He slips his own bag off his back, clutches it momentarily in front of his chest, before setting it cautiously on the floor beside Martin's. "I suppose we should... take inventory?" He suggests. "Give it a, a look-over?"

Martin hums, nodding. "Yeah, we could do that."

"Right. Yes. Um..." Jon scuffs his toe on the floor, eyes flitting away from Martin before invariably being drawn right back to him. "Where would you like to start?"

"Uh, I-I can take the back half? You check out the front?"

"Ah." Jon bites his bottom lip, tells himself there's no reason for his heart to skip uncomfortably. "S-should we split up?"

"We're hardly splitting up." Martin shrugs. "I think this place might be smaller than my flat back in London."

Jon swallows. He taps his fingers against his thigh. "Still..."

Martin peers curiously at him over the rims of his glasses. "Would you rather we stick together?"

"W-well, I— I, i-it just seems like t-the best, er, that is—" Jon stops himself, purses his lips, sighs. "Yes. I would rather not be apart from you yet."

"Oh," Martin breathes out softly. His cheeks go pink, a barely-there dusting of blush that still manages to knock Jon sideways. "Okay. Sure. Let's, er, have a look at the kitchen then?"

Jon exhales in relief. "Yes. Let's. That sounds good."

They start with the kitchen, Jon leading Martin in with a hand on his wrist, because— well. Because he likes being able to touch Martin, now. Will find any excuse for it.

Martin finds a meager supply of canned goods and nonperishables in the cabinets (no peaches, he's pleased to announce), and Jon finds cookware in the drawers by the oven. It's not an impressive collection, but it'll do. Maybe he'll even get to cook something nice for the two of them. To do something nice for Martin.

Kneeling down, Jon opens the cupboard under the sink. He finds a handful of cleaning products, an old hatchet, a rusty-looking toolbox, and—

"Hm." Pushing a bottle of window cleaner aside, Jon grabs the dusty gray box in the back, turning it over in his hands. He's a little wary of old-timey audio equipment these days, but they're going to have limited entertainment up here on the lam, so anything that's not a tape recorder can stay, he supposes.

He feels more than hears Martin coming up beside him on almost eerily silent footsteps. "What've you got there?"

Jon stands with the ancient bit of tech, setting it on the counter. He pulls his sleeve (Martin's sleeve; it's Martin's cardigan he's got on, after all) over his hands and makes a clumsy swipe to clear away the dust. "Old radio."

Jon sees the way Martin perks up. He sidles cautiously closer, hands stuffed in his pockets. So this he's afraid to touch, but boxes of C4 are fair game. Jon is hopelessly endeared. "Does it work?"

Jon gives him a look, raising his eyebrow, trying to hold back the rush of fondness threatening to make itself known as a dopey grin. "Only one way to find out."

He finds an outlet by the sink to plug the thing in, pulls out the creaky antenna, and fiddles with the buttons until static crackles to life, making them both jump. Twitchy, the both of them, but fleeing the country does tend to set a man's nerves on edge.

Jon twists at the dials, crawling through different tones of static one after the other, until, finally, crackly notes of actual music break through.

"Oh!" Martin's hand lands on Jon's arm, stilling his hand before he can switch to the next station. "Stop, stop there!"

Jon is helpless to do anything but oblige, fingers falling away, head tilting so he can watch Martin, sidelong, as his eyes go wide and his face lights up. Jon wants to frame that expression and hang it on the wall; would do anything to be able to make Martin look that delighted any time he wants.

Jon's a little proud that his voice only wavers a little when he finds it again. "Like this song?"

The corners of Martin's lips tick hesitantly upward, the beginnings of a smile that catches Jon's breath in his throat. "I do, actually."

"I suppose that makes sense. Suits your... retro sensibilities."

Martin snorts. "Okay, it's not that old."

Jon can't fight his grin any longer. He's sure Martin can hear all the syrupy-happiness of it dripping into his voice. "It came out in nineteen-seventy-six, Martin."

Martin politely ignores that Jon Knew that particular bit of trivia about a song he's heard maybe once or twice in his life, crosses his arms over his chest. "That's— Okay, well, it was on when I was a kid!"

"Whatever you say, old man."

Martin stabs a finger at him. "Oh, shut it. You are six months younger than me, grandpa."

Jon loves the splotchy indignation, the put-out blush, the stubborn set to his brows, because this is so much more than he ever thought he'd get again. After months of avoidance and vague disdain, after how painfully empty Martin had looked in the Lonely, Jon feels like he's finally come up for air after a long time spent underwater.

He feels, if he's honest, a little bit giddy.

Chasing that feeling, he carefully holds his hand out. "Alright. Come on, then."

Martin looks down at his proffered hand, head tilting. "Are you... Jon, are you asking me to dance?"

"I'm trying to, but there's only a minute-and-forty-eight seconds left of this song, so we'll need to hurry."

Martin raises his eyebrows. Jon frowns, but wiggles his fingers. Martin's face softens, and he slowly slips his hands into Jon's. "I don't know how to dance."

"That's fine," Jon tells him, smiling. "Neither do I."

And then Martin laughs for real, a small, soft thing that still sends every cell in Jon's body chiming like a bell as he pulls Martin into motion.

They really are horribly awkward: the song doesn't allow for slow dancing, too fast, too energetic, but it's still delightful to hold onto Martin's hands and move together.

"I warned you," Martin huffs immediately after he narrowly avoids stepping on Jon's toes.

"You're doing fine," Jon tells him, knocking his bony knee into Martin's thigh for good measure.

Martin giggles (actually giggles!), a flush rising high on his lovely cheeks. Shedding his self-consciousness as the seconds tick by, Jon watches his movements become freer and more confident as they unfreeze from fog-chilled shores and hours of travel.

He even, delightfully, picks up the song and quietly starts humming along. After a few seconds of holding his breath to be sure he heard right, Jon even picks up the odd word or two here and there.

Then, he starts hearing entire lyrics, soft and shaky and a little awkward in a voice that's unused to having presence enough to speak, let alone sing along to seventies rock songs.

Jon doesn't realize he's gone reverently motionless until Martin stops moving, too, looks at him with something that borders too close to nerves. "What?"

Jon wants to say something to preserve the mood, get Martin back out of his head. Maybe quip out decided to serenade me now, have you? or something.

Instead, he says, "You're lovely," in that awed, earnest voice Martin always seems to drag out of him.

Martin goes completely still, now, sucking in a sharp breath, eyes round and mouth half-open. "Oh."

"Er." Jon swallows. "What I mean, is, um." What he means is Martin is absolutely fucking lovely, all of the time, but seeing him like this is a revelation, should be categorized as the eighth world wonder, probably. But he hadn't meant to say it yet; had meant to give Martin more time to feel like a person again. He can't take it back now, though. "Well, actually, no. T-that's what I meant."

"Oh," Martin says again, small and soft and a little dazed.

Jon looks down. Martin is still holding his hand, even though the dancing's stopped and the last notes of music are fading out to make way for the next song, faint pinpricks of static filtering through the airwaves in the growing quiet. "Th-that okay?"

"Yeah, Jon. That..." Martin smiles, small but bright as dawn light, his fingers squeezing where they're still wrapped in Jon's. "That's definitely okay."

Jon's heart, fragile as it feels, bursts with a sun-hot affection. "Good. Because you are."

Martin looks about as fragile as Jon feels, and just as lovestruck. It's good, Jon thinks, that he's able to hear things like this and not shrink away.

"Okay." Martin gives Jon's hand another squeeze before he slides it free. He turns the volume down on the radio, but not all the way off, so the next song filters quietly into the room. "We should, um. G-get back to it, right?"

"Probably," Jon agrees regretfully. He already misses Martin's hand in his.

And together, they set to it, the hopeful start to a long undertaking.

[grahamfolgersdeliciousnotebooks]

Martin’s alarm went off just after 7:00. It had been a long time since he’d needed to set an alarm, and he was nervous that it would wake Jon, but Jon, he’d learned, could sleep through anything. He flinched a bit at the noise, but didn’t open his eyes. Martin took the opportunity to admire his sleeping face, taking in the long, grey-streaked curls, the sleepy smile, the slight furrow in his brow that never truly went away, even in sleep. He was hardly recognizable as the man Martin had met four years ago. There were the scars, of course, and an extra foot or so of hair, but it was more than that. He looked happy. He looked, despite his scars, like a person who’d gotten used to happiness, and comfort, and peace. Martin was grateful, today more than ever, that he got to share that peace with him.

Still, Martin couldn’t stare at his boyfriend all day, so he slipped out of bed as quietly as he could. Jon stirred in his sleep, arms reaching out to the empty space he left, and for a moment Martin wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed with him and hold him until he woke up. But there would be other mornings. Today he had a job to do.

Ollie looked up from where he lay curled up on the dresser, and mewed plaintively. Martin walked over to give him a quick scratch behind the ears.

“Shh,” he whispered, “Don’t wake your father.” He pressed one last kiss to Ollie’s fuzzy forehead before he left.

He crept into the safehouse’s tiny kitchen, taking care to avoid the floorboard in the hall that always creaked, and gathered his ingredients. Eggs, milk, flour, baking soda, sugar. Simple enough. The safehouse still didn’t have wifi or a cell phone signal, but Martin had looked up the recipe while he was in town and took a screenshot. 

Jon, he knew, would have been able to make a more elegant breakfast. He’d used his sudden abundance of free time to get into cooking - preparing most of the meals they shared, branching out into increasingly complex recipes, and sending Martin out with increasingly complex grocery lists. (Every time Martin went to the shops, Jon would ask, if it wasn’t too much trouble, if he could grab some spice or cheese or vegetable that Martin had never heard of, but he always asked so sweetly that Martin wouldn’t be able to say ‘no’ even if he wanted to. Martin, for his part, was always rewarded for his efforts with a spectacularly delicious meal.) Jon would know how to poach an egg, or make a hollandaise, or cook a crepe that didn’t have the approximate texture of rubber, but Martin was going to have to stick to the basics. Still, there was nothing wrong with pancakes. And it wasn’t going to be an entirely un-fancy dish - Martin had bought some fresh raspberries at the farmers market, and he set those on the stove with sugar and lemon to simmer down into a compote.

Martin heard the sound of a floorboard creaking in the hallway, and turned to see Jon wandering into the kitchen, rubbing groggily at his eye with the sleeve of his sweatshirt (which was, in actuality, Martin’s sweatshirt). He had forgotten to braid his hair last night, so it stood out from his head in unruly tangles, and he wasn’t wearing any trousers. Instead, he just had on the sweatshirt, his pants, and a pair of knobbly socks that Martin had made him when he’d first taken up knitting. (Martin had since made him some much nicer socks, now that he’d gotten the hang of things, but Jon wouldn’t even think of taking the first pair out of rotation.) Martin had seen Jon like this before of course, half-dressed and sleepy and beautiful as anything, but something about today made him take in the sight with fresh eyes, made him realize all over again just how lucky he was.

He didn’t say any of that, of course. Instead, he said, “You’re not supposed to be up! I was going to bring you breakfast in bed!”

Jon yawned and walked over to where Martin was cooking. He inspected the half-finished batter with bleary, sleep-crusted eyes, making Martin suddenly self-conscious.

“I’ll just be a minute,” he murmured, “Go back to bed.”

“Why would I stay in bed when you’re out here?”

He came up behind Martin and wrapped his arms around his waist, resting his head against Martin’s back. He stayed there so long - swaying slightly as Martin moved about, reaching for eggs and whisks and measuring cups - that Martin thought he might have fallen asleep where he stood.

“Comfortable back there?” he asked, a teasing note in his voice.

“Mm-hm,” Jon said, “Very.”

Martin didn’t think Jon was paying much attention to the cooking process, but as he whisked the batter, he heard a muffled voice from his back mumble, “Don’t overmix. It’s okay if it’s lumpy.”

“Backseat driver,” Martin muttered.

“Backseat chef,” Jon corrected him.

When Martin knelt to get the frying pan out of the cupboard, Jon was finally dislodged from his spot. He perched instead on the kitchen counter, watching Martin heat up the butter and start spooning batter into the pan.

“How’s my technique?” Martin asked as he flipped his first pancake.

Jon gave a shrug, which turned into a yawn. “It’s fine.”

“Fine?”

“Well, I don’t know. How much technique is really involved in flipping pancakes?”

“Not much, I guess. But I didn’t think there was much technique to chopping an onion, either, and after that ten minute lecture…”

“That’s different! There’s a correct way of doing that, that’s so much more efficient…” As Jon prepared to launch into another lengthy treatise on proper onion-chopping procedure, the sound of soft, padded footsteps came from the hallway and a sleepy, disgruntled cat trotted into the room.

“Now look what you’ve done,” Martin teased, “You woke up Ollie!”

Jon hopped off the counter and extended a contrite hand for the cat to sniff. “Sorry, Commodore.” Ollie pressed his forehead into Jon’s palm, and purred loudly enough to leave no question as to whether or not he was forgiven.

While the last of the pancakes cooked, Martin set some water on for tea, and grabbed a pair of plates from the cabinet. Soon enough, the raspberry sauce was done, the tea was steeped, and Martin had assembled two short stacks of pancakes. He put a generous dollop of compote on each plate before carrying them to the kitchen table.

He sighed. “It would have been better in bed.”

Jon pressed a kiss to Martin’s cheek before settling into the seat across from him. “Sorry, dear.”

It was hard to complain about anything when Jon was looking at him like that. He found himself grinning as he went to get their tea.

“Happy anniversary, love,” he said, setting their mugs down with a smile.

“Happy anniversary.”

Just saying the words made Martin feel giddy, and Jon seemed to feel much the same. When they’d first come to the safehouse, they’d hardly expected to live through the month, but here they were, one year later, still alive, still in love. They could ignore the rest, just for today, forget all things that still haunted them and instead feel the full weight of their love and everything they’d built with it.

Martin was shaken from his thoughts by a quiet mew, and he turned to see Ollie sitting next to the kitchen table, watching him eat with wide, pleading eyes.

“You wouldn’t like it,” he told him.

“He’ll never know until he tries,” Jon countered, cutting a small piece from his pancake and offering it to the cat. Ollie sniffed it, gave it a wary lick, then walked away, uninterested.

“You spoil him.”

“Oh, I spoil him?” Jon said, “How many of those ‘feather wands’ have you bought him in the past two months?”

“It’s important he gets some exercise!”

“I don’t know why you bother buying them, though. His favorite toys are my hair ties.” As if just remembering that he had one, Jon pulled the hair tie from his wrist and tossed it to Ollie, who batted it out of midair before taking it between his teeth and sprinting out of the room.

“Oh, um. Speaking of unnecessary purchases…” 

“Yes?” Jon arched an eyebrow.

“I got you something,” Martin admitted.

“I thought we said no gifts!”

“This doesn’t count as a gift, really. It’s just something I saw in the shops and thought...” He got up and found the tote bag he’d taken shopping the other day, and pulled out a small plastic tub of bath salts. “It’s supposed to help with joint pain,” he explained. Jon looked silently down at the gift for just long enough that Martin grew nervous, so he went on, “The scent is ‘ginger and citrus,’ I hope that’s okay!” Ever since his time held hostage by the Circus, Jon had been sensitive to any fragrance that reminded him of Nikola and her lotions. Martin thought he’d gotten a handle on which scents set him off - eucalyptus, mint, and jasmine, mostly - but he couldn’t be sure. “I probably looked like a lunatic sniffing everything in the aisle, but, y’know, better safe than sorry.”

Jon opened the tub and gave it an experimental sniff. “It’s perfect. Thank you.” Martin’s instinct, in general, was to assume that people were thanking him out of a sense of obligation, but there was a sincerity in Jon’s voice, which, combined with the expression of awed, besotted fondness on his face, told Martin that the gift was genuinely appreciated.

After a few more moments of staring at Martin like he was the single most beautiful sight on the planet, Jon seemed to remember himself, and stood up from the table to grab his bag from where it was resting against the back of the couch.

“I actually got you something as well.”

“Hypocrite!”

“It’s nothing really, it’s just- the library was selling off some of their old books, and-and it’s not so different, owning a book or borrowing it from the library, but I know you like to write in the margins sometimes, and anyway, this way you won’t have to worry about late fees…” He dug through his bag until he found a book, and slid it across the table to Martin. It was an old, slightly battered copy of The Oxford Book of English Verse. Martin ran a hand along the cover, admiring the softness of the worn, faux-leather binding.

“I actually, uh, I already made some notes of my own,” Jon went on, “Someone had written in it already so I- I thought it couldn’t hurt. I still don’t really- don’t really get poetry, but I found a few that… Well, that reminded me of you.”

Martin didn’t know what to say to that. He looked at Jon, the sweet, nervous expression on his face, then at the book, then back at Jon. Then he stood up, crossed the short distance between them, and pulled him out of his chair and into a kiss. Jon responded eagerly, throwing his arms around Martin’s neck and moaning softly as Martin ran his fingers through the tangled mess of his hair.

“So, do you like it, then?” he asked breathlessly when they broke apart.

“Yeah,” Martin smiled, “I like it.”

That night, they’d sit by the fire and flip through Martin’s new (used) book, and Martin would discover that Jon had terrible taste in poetry, and they’d argue, and laugh, and drink too much wine. The next day, Martin would wake up with a splitting headache, and Jon would bring him water and painkillers, and pull the curtains closed against the glare of the sun before climbing back into bed, to hold him and speak softly of all the things they’d do in the year to come. But for now, there was breakfast.

View this story on AO3

[kneesntoess]

I'm interested in like all of the TMA fics lol, but I'll ask about just this one: Martin-and-food. I'm also really curious about the hobbit au of doom???

I'll start by talking about Martin-and-Food!

Also see further down for Hobbit AU of Doom shenanigans!

content warning before we go any further for disordered eating!

Martin & Food is less a wip and more a collection of thoughts I have about Martin, his relationship to food, and how that is informed by poverty, food insecurity and being responsible for resource management when you have no control over those resources. Many of these thoughts are informed by my own experience with food, poverty and being white working class

I'm still hashing out a structure, but I have a few emotional beats or core ideas I know I want to explore:

anxiety over affording food, and whether he will have enough of it with a corresponding fear about "wasting" food

anxiety about social engagements that involve food, especially in situations where the social rules are less well definied - splitting a bill vs. paying for your own, sharing communal food e.g. in the break room, outings that may or may not involve food of varying expense levels - and compensating by avoiding those situations or by controlling them (because then he knows exactly how much he as spent and that he doesn't "owe" anyone anything in the future

shame around not having tried certain foods or flavour profiles, and a lack of experience with preparing or cooking food because it's hard to experiment when you know burning or not liking someone means going hungry

I have begun gathering evidence from canon that might go into these, though! At the moment I am thinking specifically about how he had enough food in his apartment for two weeks captivity, and his reaction to Jon's birthday party. But I still have notes to make on the Vibes from a few other episodes, especially Recollections!

As for the Hobbit AU of Doom!

I have, uh, approximately 5000 words of outline for this fic alone, and I really do mean outline. This whole thing is timetabled to span several decades if I ever manage to actually write it!

Essentially a fix it fic in which Thorin, Fili & Kili survive the Hobbit and go on to live in and rebuild Erebor and I play fast and loose with canon because I can do what I want. Endgame Thorin/Bilbo & Kili/Tauriel, with Legolas/Gimli if I ever get that far.

Bilbo initially intends to return to the Shire, pack up Bag End, and then join the first caravan leaving Eren Luid back to Erebor to be with Thorin his new family. Upon arriving home, however, he find a tiny orphaned Frodo desperately in need of a little kindness in the sprawling chaos of his very many cousins and decides to take him in, delaying his return to Erebor for several years. Many shenanigans ensue before Bilbo and his nephew finally make the journey to the mountains again.

This post is already incredibly long, so here, have a snippet! In which Bilbo meets a young Frodo for the first time

There was a child in Bilbo's usual spot.

Dark haired and very pale, and somewhat smaller than Bilbo had come to expect of Brandybuck faunts, curly head bent forward over the enormous book in his lap, wearing well made but obviously secondhand clothes. It was unusual to find so young a child unattended and alone - Bilbo was no judge of faunt ages, but this one couldn't have been even a tween - nor one so quiet.

"Hullo, lad," Bilbo said, in his best approximation of jovial non-threat.

The small head of curly hair shot up suddenly, revealing wide blue eyes and soft, round cheeks, lightly dusted with freckles.

"'ullo," the lad said, and began a sort of nervous, full body fidget, chewing on one thumb. "Who are you?"

Bilbo laughed, and found himself sitting down on the floor beside the lad, legs folded under him and hands in his lap. "I'm Bilbo Baggins, my lad."

"Bilbo!" The small boy’s face transformed for a moment into delighted disbelief, and the wiggling increased. "My Auntie __ has been telling stories about you."

"Has she now?" Bilbo said, deeply amused. He must have caused quite a scandal - and, bilbo privately thought, quite a lot of disappointment. He wondered what the old bag had had her eye on at Bag End.

"Uh huh. She says you're - " the lad frowned, tongue sticking out, as he worked his way through the word. "Disreputable!"

"Well!" Bilbo replied, feeling very pleased with himself.

[mimosaeyes]

This is a dream, then. A fantasy conjured by the last firing of his synapses in the moment before death. Martin silently thanks his subconscious for it. He’s never had faith the way his mother did, but if there is a heaven for him, he’s quite sure it would have Jon in it.

Post-200. Jon and Martin wake up somewhere else. 2.2k, fix-it but not really.

In case this turns out to be the last fic I finish in this fandom, I want to especially thank my beta @emberidzae for introducing me to TMA. Or, at least, for talking about it enough in my general proximity that eventually I got curious.

Someone is cradling Martin’s head on their lap, and running their fingers through his hair. Jon, he thinks absently. He’d know him anywhere, even by such tiny details as the shape of his calluses where he grips a pen, and the texture of his burn-scarred skin.

But that can’t be right. Jon is dead. He’d killed him in the Panopticon, hands shaking until the instant before the knife had plunged in. The only way he could force himself to do it was to make it as quick and painless as possible. He couldn’t falter and draw out Jon’s suffering, not when it was already such a torment to hear him groan and scream as the building began to crumble around them. Or to see the look in his eyes, the utter trust and love warring against the Beholding’s hold on him.

This is a dream, then. A fantasy conjured by the last firing of his synapses in the moment before death. Martin silently thanks his subconscious for it. He’s never had faith the way his mother did, but if there is a heaven for him, he’s quite sure it would have Jon in it.

He breathes, even and steady like he’s trying to fall more deeply asleep. If these are his last seconds of awareness, he wants to spend them just like this.

Then he hears Jon quietly ask, “Are you awake?”

Martin opens his eyes. Jon is peering down at him, his expression tender and tentative. In the weak sunlight, he looks washed out, his features rendered nearly in greyscale. There’s no trace of the bright red from when Martin had lifted a bloody hand to cup his face. The only indication of everything that’s happened is a faint mistiness about Jon’s eyes.

Furrowing his brow, Martin reaches up and touches his cheek. It’s wet; he leaves behind a fine dusting of black sand that has stuck to his fingers. “Are you crying?” he murmurs, almost confused. Surely, if this is all in his imagination, he’d have made Jon happy.

Jon surprises him with a soft laugh. “Tears of relief, Martin. Look around.”

Reluctantly, still half-convinced none of this is really happening, Martin rolls to one side and sits up. Jon scoots over a little for him, even though there’s plenty of space. The shore is completely deserted apart from them, and silent but for the gently lapping water.

“Is this...?”

At Martin’s questioning look, a smile slowly spreads across Jon’s face. It’s a complicated one, balanced between joy and disbelief, sadness and resignation. “Somewhere else,” he affirms.

“But I—” Martin stares at Jon. There’s no blood on him, no wound; only a tell-tale rip in his shirt where the knife had gone in. “I killed you.”

“I told you to,” Jon objects. His hands come up as if to touch Martin, who rocks back on his haunches.

“I killed you,” he repeats, this time in a whisper.

Jon watches him for a moment. His shoulders lift in a helpless sort of shrug. “Or maybe,” he says, “you killed everything that wasn’t me. Everything tethering them there.”

Martin can feel tears welling up in his eyes. He’s shaking his head slowly, but he doesn’t know why. It’s not like he can deny the physical fact of Jon, here with him, miraculously unharmed and apparently, entirely human. It’s not like he wants to, either. He just hadn’t been expecting to wake up again — in a world he may have helped to doom, next to a boyfriend he was supposed to have died with.

It’s a lot to process.

A single sob escapes Martin, and at once Jon is hushing him, almost vaulting forward in his rush to pull him into a hug. They meet awkwardly halfway, in a tangle of clumsy limbs and warmth. 

With Jon’s arms around him, Martin lets himself just cry for a while.

It feels long overdue. The back of Martin’s throat has felt tight and strained since the moment he woke up to find Jon gone. He’d rushed to find Georgie, Melanie, and Basira, and then he’d rushed up the countless flights of stairs in the Panopticon, not daring to stop and catch his breath for fear he’d be too late. He was, anyway, and the moment Jon had turned around to face him, voice crackling with static and eyes illuminated as if from within, it had all come crashing over Martin: Jon had left him behind after all. He’d broken his promise, been so willing to die in some perverse kind of atonement that he hadn’t even waited to say goodbye.

Martin hardly dares to believe he’s here now, rubbing soothing circles over his back and murmuring, “It’s okay. Shh. I’ve got you.”

It takes some time, but eventually Martin subsides. The trembling stops and his breathing slows. Mildly embarrassed, he pulls back from the embrace. “Don’t ever,” he says wetly, poking Jon in the chest, “do that to me again.”

“I won’t,” Jon says softly. He waits until Martin has settled back on the sand, then takes his hand and interlaces their fingers. 

For a while, they both stare out at the water, the way the seafoam stands out against the dark beach.

“Any idea where this is?” Martin asks.

Jon shakes his head. “I think Iceland has black sand beaches, but... you know. That’s back in our reality.”

Martin lets out a long breath. “It worked, then.” His voice is muted with weariness. “We saved the world.”

“And doomed every other one.” Without letting go of Martin’s hand, Jon pulls his knees up to his chest and rests his chin on them.

“Not everything is your fault, Jon. We all agreed on the plan.” 

He waits, but Jon gives no sign of having even heard the words. He watches him for a long moment, biting his lip. Then he clambers to his feet and pulls on their linked hands. “Come on.”

Jon blinks up at him. “Where are we going?”

“On a walk,” Martin tells him.

The beach looks the same in either direction, and a steep wall of volcanic rock prevents them from going farther inland. Undaunted, Martin starts off towards the left. Jon follows, possibly from force of habit. They’d gone on many such walks together, in the halcyon days at the safehouse before the world ended. 

Normally, Martin would point things out as they passed them by — good cows being a bonus, of course — but this place seems eerily devoid of life. There aren’t even any seashells or bits of driftwood. The air is still. The fog sits in heavy reams.

He’s just wondering if he should bring it up when Jon abruptly starts talking. He’d given one last statement, he admits, up in the Panopticon before Martin arrived. Becoming the pupil of the Eye had given him answers, at long last, about how the entities came to be. 

Jon’s train of thought is uncertain, and he frowns a lot as he rambles. Sometimes he stops and gazes out across the water, the look in his eyes vacant. It’s probably just a side effect of his being ripped away from the Ceaseless Watcher, Martin tells himself. Probably.

“We created monsters,” Jon says at last, “and then I set them loose on the whole universe.” He stops walking and hunches his shoulders. “What does that make me?”

Martin closes his eyes for a moment. “Jonathan Sims, you are not a monster.”

Beside him, Jon’s breathing goes shaky. “But I told you—”

“That I wouldn’t want to see what was left of you?” Martin interrupts. He hasn’t forgotten the desperate look on Jon’s face in that moment, when he’d first refused to leave him. “I’m looking at you right now, Jon, and you know what I see?”

Illogically, he’s almost angry at him; that’s how frustrated he is that the man he loves cannot seem to stop blaming himself for everything. “I see someone who has given everything to make things right. Who chose kindness, even though he’d been marked and manipulated. Even though he kept getting kidnapped and hunted and hurt and — and used.”

Jon is staring at him now, wide-eyed. Martin thinks about the way he’d looked in what he thought were their last moments together. Beautiful and beatific. He touches two fingers to Jon’s chin, tilting it up. “It’s not monstrous to protect the people you love,” he says. “It’s human.”

With his free hand, Jon swipes at a tear that’s running down his cheek.

“Okay?” Martin presses, but gently.

Jon sniffs. “Has anyone ever told you,” he says, “that your pep talks can be rather aggressive?”

He’s deflecting, but Martin decides to let him get away with it. He’s pushed hard enough for now. In any case, he thinks his words have hit home, at least to some extent. There’s still guilt in Jon’s eyes, but although it runs deep, Martin thinks it looks a little less sharp.

Pulling back and turning to resume their walk, he says, “They have to be, to get through your thick head.”

A corner of Jon’s lips quirks up. “That sounds like something Basira would say.”

“Is she alright, do you think? And Georgie and Melanie?”

Jon waves a hand. “I’m sure they’re fine. They’re probably putting the world back together already.”

“Probably make it better,” Martin muses. He sighs. “They’ll have their work cut out for them.”

A beat. “And what about us?” Jon asks quietly. “What do we do now?”

They fall silent, each contemplating the question. 

If they’ve ended up in the same world as the entities, Martin figures, at some point they’ll probably have to start seeking out organisations like the Magnus Institute, working out who the next Archivist is. And if they somehow stop the apocalypse from happening, it’ll only be for a while. There will always be another attempt to foil. 

By some miracle, they’ve made it here. Maybe they’ll be able to build a life together, and enjoy it for a while. But mostly, the future Martin sees stretching ahead of them is just full of more danger and guilt and sacrifice. 

Jon must be thinking along the same lines, because he sighs and says, “Do you know what this reminds me of? It’s like I thought the play was over, but it turns out it’s only the intermission.”

“What did you want it to be?”

For the space of several breaths, Jon is silent. “A good epilogue,” he says at last. “I’d like to think we deserve that much.”

Martin swallows past a sudden lump in his throat. There isn’t really anything he can say to that, so instead he gives Jon a little nudge, and keeps walking.

When he next looks up, his eye snags on a shape on the shoreline ahead of them. It’s the first thing they’ve come across since they woke up here and started walking. In tacit agreement, they both wander over to get a closer look. 

It’s a small boat, complete with a set of oars. The wood has only the faintest suggestion of brown. It’s been bleached to a light grey, though how long that would have taken, Martin can’t guess. 

He clears his throat. “Is anything about all this just a little bit on the nose to you?”

“What?” Jon asks, still peering at the boat. Then: “Oh.”

This looks more like an ocean than a river, Styx or otherwise, but Martin can’t deny that there’s something ethereal about this place. Interstitial. Plus, there’s the otherwise inexplicable fact that Jon’s wound is gone. Honestly, he should have put it together sooner.

He notices Jon watching him then, his head canted and his expression fond. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Jon says. “You’re just... taking the possibility that you’re dead very well.”

“So are you,” Martin points out.

Jon shrugs. “I’ve had time to get used to the idea. Besides, you’re here.”

His smile, at that moment, is a brittle thing. Martin finds he has to look away from it.

They never seem to get enough time, do they? The cottage in Scotland. That week at Upton House. And now this. Part of Martin is tempted to try and stay here, in this final pocket of respite. He knows that’s irrational, though. 

Maybe this is just a very dramatic-looking beach, and they’ll feel very silly when they wash ashore. Or maybe they’re right. Maybe they’ll get in that boat and... pass on, head towards the light — any one of the phrases people have invented to give shape to the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns.

Either way, Martin realises, they have to find out. And at least they’ll find out together. Subconsciously, he tightens his grip on Jon’s hand.

“What are you thinking?” Jon asks softly.

Martin looks at him for a long moment. “I did want to take you rowing.” Such light words for the weight of what they imply.

“Where you go,” Jon says, “I go.”

Martin smiles. “That’s the deal.”

It takes them a while to get a rhythm going after they push off from the shore. Martin rows, and after a while, to his mild delight, Jon starts singing a sea shanty under his breath, keeping time to the beat of the oars. 

And as the shore disappears behind the fog, Martin is surprised to find that colours start to filter back into the world. Pinks and yellows, the likes of which the sky above his head hasn’t contained in so long.

He looks at Jon, who looks back at him and nods. 

They meet the sunrise. They leave the world behind.

[also available on AO3 here]

[my TMA fic on AO3]

[cybertranny]

YOO SO LIKE

about your fics!!! ideas etc

the 2nd one?? i never even thought about Gerry/Sasha but now I'm Curious it sounds like it'd be really cool

also the 1st and 5th one

AAAAAAA YEAH GERRYSASHA (AKA KEAYCODE) MY BELOVED

id never heard of it before i joined this tma server (artefact storage) (https://discord.gg/DR2mEzPSJq haha this was an ad for artefact storage all along /j) (but also come join us it's great) where one person (@/northofdelphi) was like, REALLY invested in gerry/sasha and kind of got the whole server into it fjdndksnd

(also omg her fic "every word i say is kindling" is one of my favourite fics of all time it's SO good it has gerrysasha it has archivist Sasha it has jonmartin it has a buried statement it has Jon and Tim camping trip it has genderqueer Gerry what more could you ask for!!!!)

after reading every word i say is kindling my brain went Actually Yeah Gerry And Sasha 💜 they're both DEEPLY weird people and I love them so much. like what do we know about Sasha? she hacks into her co-workers computers to obtain personal information apparently without a second thought. she's a skeptic despite being terrified of artefact storage. she people-watches. she met up with a literal monster without telling anyone and without taking any precautions. she commits murder in S1. (Timothy Hodge but stilllll) she's canonically tall, has long hair and glasses. Really one of the characters of all time you know!!!!!!! And Gerry is the same. Just A Weird Guy. Says cryptic shit to strangers without a second thought. A goth in his 30s with weird tattoos because apparently his life wasn't interesting enough. bad at dying his hair. ICONIC, you know? They're perfect for each other actually 💜 the fic concept for that one is essentially "hey Gerry and Sasha were hanging around the archives at the same time what if they were in love and then he was planning to fake his death to escape the fears but then he died for real but Sasha still thinks he faked his death and just didn't come back" which. haha why do I do these things to myself

@/starrypawz asked abt the first one, here's the general rundown! it's living in my brain CONSTANTLY like the aesthetic and feeling of Tangled mixed with the cosmic horror and cassette tape emotions of TMA??? i really think it doesn't get much better than that yknow?? ofc I still have to write the thing but like. ✨Them ✨

[ids in alt text]

JON IN DRESS. :D the admiral takes the place of pascal 💜💜💜 ignore how shitty the drawings are I made them in a rush

For the jontim fic, I'm not generally a huge jontim shipper? Like I see the appeal but it never. Completely clicked for me. and THEN I heard "Allies or Enemies" by the crane wives and ohhhhh my god. ohhhhhhhhhhh my goddddd. it's THEM

so i want to take that feeling and just. write about them yknow?? It'd be set in s3 but with the addition that Jon and Tim dated / talked about dating pre canon. I feel like tim doesnt get treated with the depth he deserves in fanon and I want to give him that!! (Also inspired by @/titanfalling2's excellent Tim analysis posts.)

anyways thanks for asking about my ideas ive been desperate to talk about them djdnsksn in case it wasn't obvious

[goodluckdetective]

Where the fuck have I been?

Hello all! Thought I would post an update to what I’ve been up to for folks curious:

-I am a grad student which means free time is limited and I tend to channel it into video games. Alas, the struggle. I have a job and classes so that keeps me pretty busy.

-I don’t have any fic planned given the above, so if I publish anything, it will probably be spur of the moment and on a whim. 

-That being said, I guess I will take prompts as I wrap stuff soon and will have time for whim writing, and there is a SLIM chance I might bite. I make 0 promises.

-My cat remains a tiny menace to society and I love her so much. 

-Things I am currently into: Persona Games (I’m playing 4 (no spoilers) and I’ve finished 5), Mob Psycho, Ace Attorney, Batman (in a “I can fix him” kind of way), TMA, SPN (the good version that lives in my head).

-I do plan to update names in my Overwatch fics but the semester ate me alive thus the delay. I apologize, it is on the to do list. 

Anyway, hello to anyone new here, nice to see you and for those commenting and liking my fic I always read every single one so thank you so much.

[the-ipre]

oh????? tma elsewhere university au?????????????? :3<

yes yes yes! it doesn’t really have a plot but some general Thoughts™ and Vibes™. wasn’t sure how to work around names because its not like you can just fully change their names for a fic, but atm i’m thinking they go by their last names because those are horror author last names (and in this au they would probably have different real last names or something like that? not 100% sure tho)

- Jon is skeptical of the Gentry, despite having had an encounter as a child. He still follows all the rules, though, because it would be a death wish to go around giving away your name or speaking carelessly. Besides, having Rules™ to follow are a generally appealing thing to his brain (autism rights), and an iron ring is good for stimming. He gets drawn further and further into the library, losing days to the stacks and returning after barely an hour has passed. He watches, and researches, and puts enough salt around his room and in the seams of his clothes to be excessive to most everyone on campus. He almost loses himself to the theater, wears the role of Hamlet too close to his skin and keeps too close an eye on the Theater Gentry for anyone’s comfort. Afterwards, he gives the building a wide berth, focus shifted elsewhere as he trades with Cat-Eyes for a pair of seeing glasses. He must understand the world that comes into view.

- Martin does not know about the faeries, and when he is told about them, he doesn’t much believe it. Still, there is a packet of salt in his bag that he keeps forgetting to take out, and after a few attempts at introducing himself as Martin, he learns to go by Blackwood. He is used to pulling all-nighters, to working himself harder than is wise, and he gets a night job at the Denny’s on campus. It is a strange job, and the people who frequent and staff it are even stranger, but being in any fast food place at midnight would be strange. He needs the job, though, and the few days he tried working at the local Walmart did not go well. He reads poetry under a large oak tree and the crows listen, and take him under their wings. There are gifts left on his windowsill and he buys them birdseed, which they don’t seem to enjoy as much as his words. 

- Tim’s brother was taken by the fae, and there’s not a way to get him back and he’s not so stupid as to go in waging war, but he would prefer to know this enemy as something beyond shadows in the trees. He is there for the college experience, of course, but who is he to complain if journalistic techniques help him choose his words well. He hears about the knights, those who take up the sword and retrieve those who were taken, and he buys a crowbar on his next trip to the local Walmart. It doesn’t get much use, but when the Wild Hunt howls outside he makes sure it is close at hand. Late in his first year, one of his hallmates get taken, and so he takes up his crowbar, weighs down his pockets with salt and iron. He brings them back with a scar or two to show for it, a new certainty in his stride. Tim isn’t exactly a fulltime knight, but he won’t let any of his people be Taken. Not without a fight.

- Sasha’s mother went to Elsewhere University, and the rituals of iron necklaces and witch hazel are familiar ones. She knows better than to disrespect the Gentry, and they tend to look at her with a wary eye because of her skills with technology. She wears a mood ring on a necklace, and although she does not use it much the knowledge that she has the ability to See is an appreciated one. More willing to make deals than some, she keeps an eye out for lost pennies and tokens easy to give. She gains the attention of a long-limbed faerie who enjoys lurking in the cafe that should not be there, and she knows better than to wear out its welcome. She is clever, and quick, and able to take care of herself quite well. She knows the pathways that she can cross at night if only she keeps her eyes to the gravel, and she knows the ones to never step foot on. She does everything right, just curious enough for her own good, until one day she is Taken.

- Georgie is an RA, and nothing happens to those on her hall. Her first year, she was lost. Not replaced, not Taken, but she stumbled into the south stairwell of a building she was not welcome in and saw things that she never should have seen. She escaped with a streak of her hair gone white to help her remember by, and the next day she bought as much salt as she could carry. Others on campus could play their games and keep their deals, could live in blissful ignorance or go on the attack, but she knew about the Fair Folk and she would not let them near her. They exist, of course, there is nothing that she can do about that, but she will not allow them entrance to her hall, and those who live there know that. She has a spot on the campus radio, speaks on ghosts that definitively do not exist because wouldn’t it be fun if they did? Once, someone asks her about the ghosts of the south stairwell. She does not give them an answer.

- Melanie is too curious for her own good, doesn’t know much about faeries beyond a few Holly Black books she read as a teen, and has an interest in those things beyond our world. She is more interested in learning about the first real something than in her classes, but who could truly blame her. A deal is struck, and a day passes on college grounds while seventy seven days pass for her in elsewhere. She comes out changed, sharper, not much aligned with the humans or the faeries. She was a champion for some days in another world, and back in the real world she sheds that mantle, and the idea of just going back to classes is almost impossible to imagine. The teachers are understanding, though, and she does what is needed to pass her classes, but who she has become is not something that she can truly turn her back on. 

- Daisy does not think that faeries should be allowed to linger on campus. Among the most extreme of the knights, she is hard and does her best to beat back any fae she sees. For the most part, everything has learned to give her a wide berth, the baseball bat studded with iron nails lurking in her closet as good a reason as her reputation. In her eyes, those who make deals with the faeries aren’t to be trusted either, willing as they are to give up bits of themselves to creatures beyond mortal understanding. She saved Basira when she was taken back in their freshman year, has a scar in the shape of a daisy carved into her back to show for it. A nod to the name she wears as a shield, a name that becomes more and more her own with every day that passes.

- Basira does not have the same hatred for the Gentry that Daisy does, doesn’t believe it’s possible to drive them all back, but that doesn’t stop her from watching her back, carrying salt to match Daisy’s iron. She owes her a debt, after all, and they’ve been partners ever since a bleeding Daisy pulled her free from a forest that seemed set on taking Basira for its own. A number of charms have passed through her hands, found or given or slipped under her door, and she has done her best to pass them on. It is not as though she will leave no mark on this school, but she will do her best to accrue no further debts. She is almost done with her education, but she isn’t sure if Daisy will leave when she will. If Basira will be able to leave her behind, or if she will stay behind to guard her partner the same as she has been for the past three years.