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hecticcheer · 4 years ago

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Abyss of Possibilities (T/M/A fic)

Finished the platonic Jon&Daisy sickfic thing!! This was based on an emeto prompt,* but I’m posting it here instead of on shiftytracts because. Frankly it comes out a lot better when considered as h/c or whump than as emeto/kink fic. As usual w/ me, I set out to write the latter and instead got? 4.6k of Daisy character study whose external plot happens to be that Jon throws up? Ft. also a little Melanie&Helen friendship. It’s not bad as a story though so I’m posting it anyway.

Basira was out on another mysterious errand, which Daisy figured put her and Jon in about the same wretched position. Scratching and baying at the doors of their owners’ empty houses. Commiserating with him seemed a better use of her time. What was more, Jon had spent all day wobbly and coughing—fingertips leaving trails of slime on everything he touched like a snail—and she still couldn’t stand to see that in a person she’d made one of her own. (Monster she’d made one of her own. Whichever.) So after one of his more pathetic fits of coughing she’d decided to make them both tea. It started out as an excuse to leave the room; in fact she’d told him she’d had to pee. But when she’d come to the fork in the hallway her legs had taken her several steps past the turning for the bathroom before she’d noticed her mistake, and, yeah, well. Steps were a limited resource these days. So she’d talked herself into going to the break room for tea instead, and figured if she made Jon some too then.

Well—it was just?—she felt like a hypocrite, alright. She’d told Jon in the coffin that she didn’t want to hobble around like wounded prey any more than she wanted to become a hunter again, but, since he’d pulled her out she’d pretty clearly picked the prey side? Complete with literal hobbling, especially those first few weeks. And he was good to her about it. She wasn’t sure she wanted to despise weak people anymore. It troubled her to know that was her—that she’d still felt it in the coffin where her thoughts were all her own.

Daisy managed to stay upright unsupported while the kettle boiled—hadn’t even had to take a break to sit before turning it on. But while waiting for their teas to steep she leant her palms on the low, cool countertop, even though shifting her weight to them at once made her upper arms ache a little. The muscles of her calves dully throbbed, and her ankles itched. She swore she could feel them swelling. Could picture the mottled pattern of orange and purple her legs must be turning, like the wallpaper at one of those cafés that haven’t been redone since before she was born. They’d told her at PT that the muscle atrophy would take a long time to repair, but that these other issues should go away on their own after a few weeks. It had seemed to improve, at first. Getting worse again now though.

When she got back to his office she found Jon frozen halfway through peeling himself back off his desk, elbows wobbling, like an old dog on a slippery floor. Must’ve Seen her coming back, she figured. He did a little smile, but that didn’t last long. “Here,” she informed him, setting the worse of two novelty mugs in front of him. “Tea.”

“Oh!” Jon’s eyes went wide; he didn’t smile again, but looked almost frightened. Like she’d opened an abyss of possibilities. The mug said #1 Pervert, with the 1 wearing an evil smile and a trench coat held wide open. This seemed to faze Jon not at all.

“It’s just tea. No need to look like that.”

“R-right. Thanks?”

She shrugged. “Yeah, sure. Now drink up, it’ll help with your.”

“Oh,” Jon said again. “Yes.”

He picked up the mug, looked inside, then set it back down without drinking any. Daisy got halfway through a sigh before worrying this counted as despising him, then made herself laugh instead and pat the back of his hand: “That’s the spirit.” Jon flinched, but seemed to want to own that no more than she wanted to own her sigh. He closed his eyes, and his hand relaxed under hers. Breath seemed to whistle and crunch on its way out his nose.

“You ill?”

“Wha—?”

“I said are you ill.”

Another half second of smile. “Maybe.”

“Hm. Good sign, right?” Jon blinked at her. “A point in the still-human column.”

“R…ight,” he said. The way his eyes changed made her suspect he had more to say on that, but for once in his life Jon seemed not to feel like talking.

“Take a break. Archers’ll be on soon.”

Usually when she mentioned The Archers Jon would do a whole big dramatic show of disgust, a long sigh or a snarl or a choking noise or at least an eye-roll. He exhaled, now, but shortly; it flared his nostrils a little, but that seemed all the drama he could muster. “Thought you heard it last night.”

“You didn’t, though,” Daisy grinned. “Get confused if you don’t keep up.”

They’d had this conversation before; he knew his next line. But his voice caught on something about three words in: “You seemed to”—swallow; another deep, crunchy exhale—“you seemed to do alright after eight months under a rock.”

“You’ll have unanswered questions. Can’t compel the radio.”

Another swallow, then a throat clearing. “Fine.”

Daisy stood and waded toward the couch in the opposite corner of his office, where he’d slept since he woke up after the Unknowing. By the time she took her seat and looked back, Jon had stood from his desk chair but not yet moved. Just stood there with his hands on the chair’s back, staring off into nothing. Typical. But she knew he did no better than her with standing still for long periods, lately. She thumped on the arm of the couch to snap him out of his trance. “Come here, Jon.” It worked; he blinked to life, gave her a disorganized smile, and slunk over to join her. When he sat his legs shook the whole couch. He sat down at the far end, as often, but, no more unusually, when she scooted closer so their legs and shoulders touched he leant his head toward hers til his hair crunched against the outside of her ear. Daisy patted his leg with one hand, and reached for his clock radio with the other. (This was one of few non-clothing items he’d bothered to replace when he lost his flat. Apparently its alarm made the only noise he trusted himself to take seriously as a wake-up call; every other one he had tried he would sleep through, either accidentally or out of spite.) She set it on her knee so she could monitor the time, but kept the radio muted for now. Only 1:43.

By 1:49 she noticed Jon starting to nod off; by 1:54 his chin seemed stuck to his chest for good. At 2:02 she turned up the volume dial on his radio, and, sure enough, heard the Archers theme song. Considered just turning it up loud enough to wake Jon, but figured he’d be certain to sleep through that out of spite. So she shook him by the shoulder instead. “Oi! Ceaseless watcher!”

“Mmmnnnwha? Oh,” Jon said, straightening. Then he bent forward to cough again. Daisy channeled her urge to snarl into a laugh, telling herself she felt sorry rather than annoyed.

His cough seemed stuck, just like it had all day but more so. It was almost all voice—none of that other, less personal noise a satisfying cough makes. She wondered if he was trying to keep quiet for her benefit. “Come on, let it out,” she told him, thumping the back of his shoulder—and he did.

Almost as soon as she touched him, he made another noise more like—well, more like the sounds they’d both made underground. Or like when she’d cut him, back before.

Anyway, and then a splash. And then a stench. Daisy yelped and flung her legs out of the way; the radio went silent as the clock’s plug flew out of the wall.

“Oh shit!”

Between dry heaves and gasps for breath Jon croaked, “Not technically.”

She barked a laugh—through her mouth, not her nose—but held back the impulse to elbow him. Learnt that lesson, thanks. Just kept her hand on his shoulder instead, fanning her fingers back and forth in a semi-circle like windshield wipers. Meanwhile she surveyed the damage he’d made. The clock itself seemed miraculously unharmed, dangling by its cord between her knees. Only a little of the cord had fallen into the puddle—unfortunately including the plug. That’d be a bitch to clean up. Should she try to get the smell out or just buy him a new one, she wondered.

Her shoes had fared pretty well, too. Only one fat droplet on the right one’s toe, where it’d come off easy. His might be ruined though—and the socks. Poor bastard picked a hell of a day for white socks. The trousers might survive; vomit washed out easier than blood.

Beside her, Jon seemed to have quit dry heaving. Now he just panted, and said, “Ugh.”

“Done?”

“Think so,” he said in his hoarsest voice; “sorry.”

He set his palm down on the arm of the couch, apparently plotting how to stand without slipping in puke. Daisy moved her hand from his shoulder inward, to the place where his neckbones turned into backbones, and pressed him gently downward. “Never mind; I’ll clean it up. You stay here.”

Jon said nothing, but didn’t move either. Not even a flinch. Daisy slid to the end of the couch farthest from him and his puddle, stood, and crept past it on the balls of her feet, careful to avoid all the puddle’s little splattery fingers.

This was the first Archives mess Daisy’d ever volunteered to clean; only after she’d closed the door of Jon’s office behind her did she realize she should’ve asked him where they kept the mops and buckets. Probably outside the Archives proper, near the boiler and all that crap. Her stomach dropped—settling halfway down her legs, like all her innards did these days when she stood up. Melanie’s desk was empty, but Daisy shouted for her just in case.

The first door Daisy encountered whose destination she didn’t already know led to… a long corridor full of more doors. “Hi, Helen. Melanie in here with you?”

Melanie emerged, not from any of the doors Daisy could see, but from what looked to Daisy like the blank wall in between them. Just the perspective, part of Daisy’s mind rushed in to inform her. She closed her eyes so she could roll them at this part unseen.

“Daisy, hi,” said Melanie. “What’re you doing here, I didn’t think….”

“I invited her in.” Daisy heard the words a full second before she saw Helen emerge from a picture frame in the corridor’s opposite wall. “She was looking for an unfamiliar door. It seemed only polite to offer one of mine.” Helen said this with her head cocked to one side, coiled hands facing the other. Her left elbow disappeared into the wall.

Daisy made herself look into a framed mirror on the opposite wall instead of at Helen herself. Except the mirror didn’t show Daisy or Melanie or Helen—just the floor and other wall of this same corridor. Except also that in what passed here for real life the wall was a dark, 70s yellow, while, in the mirror or picture or whatever, it was more like highlighter yellow. What she saw in the frame still moved like a reflection though, not like a painting.

It was hard for Daisy, still, to be around… beings like the Distortion. Monsters used to be so simple. See someone glitching through the wall? Great; that means they need to die. Not like she’d never cooperated with an enemy before, just. Helen maybe wasn’t an enemy? And Jon was the only non-enemy monster she knew how to interact with. Jon was one of hers, now; he was a friend, the opposite of an enemy. But Helen, God, who knew. Stranded in the middle somewhere. Around Helen Daisy felt like the last person standing in musical chairs.

She shifted on her feet; her ankles still itched, but her toes had gone numb and cold. “I was looking for a mop,” she corrected.

When she looked back over at Melanie and Helen she found them sat on an invisible bench. She glanced back at the mirror. A wooden bench with green velour cushions. Made sense enough. Melanie still had her cane, after Jon and Basira’s whole surgery debacle; she wouldn’t come in here so often if it had nowhere to sit. If Daisy squatted down would another bench appear beneath her?

“Oh,” said Melanie; “yeah, there should be one in the broom cupboard. You remember how to get to Artefact Storage, right?” Daisy nodded. “Well it’s the last door on the left before you get there.”

“Right. Thanks.”

“No problem. What do you need the mop for?—is it—do you need some help?”

Daisy said, too quickly, “No I’ve got it.” Then worried Melanie might think she was hiding something of hers or Jon’s more sinister than dignity. She let out a long breath through her nose, lifted her foot and pointed at the circle of puke on her shoe. “Nothing big. Jon just threw up all over his office.”

“Statements gone moldy?” asked Helen, in that voice of hers like a doorbell.

“Oh, god, yeah—did he finally find that Corruption statement covered in actual mold?”

“Thought Martin burned that one?”

Melanie sighed. “No. Said he didn’t want to stink up Jon’s office.”

“Yeah, well,” Daisy scoffed.

“Probably just didn’t want to burn any that weren’t already on tape,” muttered Melanie. “Got him to burn the first one I ever recorded, though. That one about the stupid blanket.” She scuffed the carpet with her foot, crossed her arms, and leant the back of her head against the wall. “So. What’s wrong with Jon this time.”

“Don’t know,” said Daisy, shrugging; “think he’s just ill.”

“Huh. Wait—human ill or monster ill?”

“Don’t know. Didn’t ask.”

“It can be hard to tell,” allowed Helen. “They look remarkably similar. The first time Michael lost his lunch after he became me he thought his sick would have comic-book stink lines curling up off it. Terrible disappointment.”

Don’t ask what “lunch” means, Daisy told herself, scratching lightly at the pad of her thumb with her middle fingernail. Not your business, not anymore.

Meanwhile Melanie cackled and stamped her foot. “What about Helen?”

“She hoped she could click our fingers and make it disappear.”

Now Daisy smiled too. “Have to try that with Jon’s.”

(“Or turn to gold,” mused Helen, chin resting in the palm of a hand so long she could still click its fingers without their nails poking her face.)

“So you’re cleaning it up for him?”

“Apparently.”

“Typical,” growled Melanie; Daisy could see another I-hate-the-Archives rant on the horizon.

“I chose to do it; it’s not like he made me.”

“That’s what people always say about him!” Melanie squawked, her fingers curled like claws. Her voice had begun to climb not only in volume, but pitch too, the way it did when she hoped to pass off real anger as jokey anger. “He’s a grown man—why can’t he keep his messes to himself?”

“Yeah, well, he’s cleaned up enough of mine,” shrugged Daisy. “You all have,” she added, remembering her first week out of the coffin, when Melanie and Basira had had to follow her and Jon around the Archives with brooms. Every morning Basira had shaken her cot and pillow cases and sleeping bags over a bin to tease out clods of dirt. And Daisy herself had never even learnt where the broom cupboard was. “I don’t mind returning the favor.”

“You don’t owe him anything,” Melanie pleaded. “You’re talking about the coffin, right? But it’s his fault you got trapped in there in the first place!”

Daisy had no reply to this; she remembered asking herself whose fault it was she had died (as she’d thought of it then), while trapped in the Buried, but couldn’t remember what conclusion she had come to. Since she’d got out she’d rather enjoyed not having to think about it. Maybe she could put questions of blame off to one side, in the Hunt pile, and focus her energy on the Daisy pile.

“Last door on the left before you hit Artefact Storage, right?”

“Yup!” she heard Helen chime on her way out.

Of course, the second she stepped out of the corridors she thought of a good comeback: Guess he did clean that one up then.

To revenge herself for that detour she let herself sit on Melanie’s desk a minute before continuing. Good thing, too: carrying even a dry mop and bucket back to Jon’s office took more out of her than she’d remembered to anticipate. When already dizzy and aching she found the smell of his puke overwhelming. If he notices, blame it on the Hunt, she told herself. It took constant effort to remember to breathe through her mouth rather than just holding it.

Jon looked up when she came in, and smiled a glum thank you, but then returned to the position he must have taken up while she was out: head on his knees, arms crossed between torso and legs. So when she’d mopped up everywhere else, she had to tell him, “Shoes.”

He lifted his head and looked up at her through the gap between curtains of hair. “Wh…what do you want me to do with them.”

She pointed upward; his brows crumpled.

“Lift them up so I can clean around them, Jon.”

“Oh.”

Jon looked slowly down at his feet, bared his teeth in disgust. Then he sat up enough to free one arm, whose hand he planted beside him on the couch. Gingerly lifted the opposite foot. Daisy nodded; he was doing his best, she told herself. “Thanks,” she said aloud. He nodded back, but did not smile or speak. His mouth remained a washed-out line of effort.

Daisy’s mop slurped up the part of the mess Jon’s foot had blocked off; then she used it to dab at the sole of his shoe itself. “Put it back down now and I’ll get the top.” He yelped when the mop wet his sock. Daisy tried not to smile. “That feel weird? Sorry. Just figured those socks were done for anyway.”

“No, you’re right. It’s just. Unpleasant,” he concluded, beginning his final sentence at the same time Daisy started her own.

She said, “I’ll help you off with them when I’m done here.”

“I can get it,” Jon said, but did not move.

This time Daisy did smile, before she could think better of it. “Other foot?”

“Right.”

After finishing with that shoe, Daisy told Jon to hang his feet off the arm of the couch while she corralled as much as she could of this vaguely puke-flavored water off the floor and back into the bucket. She expected him to stretch the rest of himself out on the couch, but instead he bent double—as before, but with one side leant against the couch’s back cushion. Chin on bent forearms on bent knees on arm of couch.

“Do you think it’s safe to clean the plug off with the mop?”

His head snapped around to face her. “What?”

Daisy sighed, trying to rearrange her shapeless panting mouth into a smile. “The plug at the end of the cord—not the one in the wall.”

“Oh. Maybe? It’s not plugged in, right.”

“‘Course not.”

“Then I don’t think you’ll be electrocuted.”

“But do you think it’ll ruin the clock?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“Can’t you ask the Eye or something?”

Jon shook his head, which he then set in his hand as though to keep it out of danger. “Maybe it’s like a phone.”

“Come again?”

“Like when you drop your phone in the toilet.”

“Yeah? What happens then.”

“You leave it in rice for 48 hours.”

“In rice?”

“Dry rice. Uncooked rice.”

Again she sighed. “Right.”

“Wait, no”—his eyes went wide—“the rice thing is a myth.”

“What?”

“Silica packets might work though.”

“What are those.”

“Like you get with a new pair of shoes.”

“Huh.”

“They say ‘Do Not Eat’ on them. Usually in inverted commas, for some reason.”

“Oh. Yeah. What happens if you do eat those?”

“No idea. They’re a drying agent, so, they dehydrate you I guess?”

“To death?”

“Possibly.”

“Weird.”

“Nope—scratch that. Turns out they’re just a choking hazard.”

“Oh.”

“A-and we can’t digest them, so if you eat a lot of them they could cause intestinal blockage.”

“Bleugh,” pronounced Daisy.

“Oh, and. Sorry we missed The Archers, by the way.”

“It’s fine, Jon. I heard it last night. I’ll catch you up on it later.”

There was his usual snarl. When Daisy looked smilingly up at him, though, meaning to add, Feeling better, are we? she saw him flinch like he’d been nodding off to sleep again. “So should I mop off the plug or not?”

“Oh. Yeah, seems worth a try.”

By the time Daisy got the floor as un-wet and -soapy as she knew how, she figured neither one of them had the energy to deal with Jon’s shoes. Nor had she the strength to drag the bucket away just yet. Instead she nudged it toward Jon, in case he had to puke again. Then she sat down next to him, so the side of her bum touched the back of his—though from this angle that was a lot less cushy. Mostly tailbone, in fact.

To free her feet from the suffocating heat that made them itch and buzz Daisy yanked off her own shoes (the right one now sick-free but soggy), without untying them, and plopped them down on the couch’s unused other arm. Rested the back of her head on the back of the couch, and closed her eyes. Her whole body throbbed and itched instead of sweating. It was new; maybe a coffin thing, maybe a Hunt-withdrawal thing. Probably the latter. (Oh—I have that too, Jon had said once, when she’d had to explain why her face and hands were red.) Never thought she’d miss feeling slimy.

When she found the strength to speak again she asked, “You comfortable like that?”

“Er,” said Jon. Then, after a pause, in a hoarser voice, “My legs are asleep.”

Daisy smiled, and then, when she remembered he wouldn’t see that, huffed a single syllable of laughter. “No wonder, smooshed up like that. Stretch out, if you like; you won’t be in my way.”

He complied at once, but said, “But then your legs will fall asleep.”

“Probably. I’ll let you know.”

He laid down across her now, or at least his torso did. His head spilled off one side of her lap, legs off the other. Daisy helped him shove the couch’s one throw pillow (now the one he slept with, when he slept) under his head.

“You don’t find this—claustrophobic?” Jon asked, after going to all the trouble to get himself comfortable.

“No.” Daisy blinked, trying not to show how much questions like this irritated her. She wouldn’t break like a china doll if you touched her, Basira. Human weight wasn’t like the Buried. Humans were warm and squishy, and they smelled like life; even vomit smelled better than grave dirt. But at least Basira had a good excuse not to understand that? Coming from Jon it didn’t make any sense. When he’d reached her down there, the first thing he did was take her hand and squeeze. She didn’t know if he’d done that to reassure her or himself or both, but—it shouldn’t matter, right? If he’d known to do that then, why didn’t he know now?

At last she went on, “You said it’s called Too Close I Cannot Breathe. Don’t breathe through my legs, do I?”

“N—?—no. No, I guess not.”

He closed his eyes. Daisy could feel his flesh deflate and ooze outward as the muscles relaxed. This felt like a lot, coming from someone she’d first known as a paranoid little freak. How could he trust her so much, when—? It made her smile, even though she knew only Elias would see. Could muscle atrophy make it hurt to smile?

“Hey Jon?” she waited for his answering Hm. “What’s with the #1 Pervert mug?”

“Oh. Er—Tim.”

“Uh huh…?”

“There was, uh—a statement? Wh-when we first came to the Archives, we looked into a statement given by a man who found a Leitner in a charity shop.”

“Aaand you sent Tim to check out the shop’s records.”

Jon nodded, to the extent that was possible in his position, but his Yeah came out inaudible. “Martin had recently broke one of the mugs that came with—that Gertrude and her assistants left. So, Tim, in a, uh, perhaps a slight overreaction, bought every novelty mug in the establishment.”

“Every mug? I only saw six in there.”

“Or so he told me.”

“Doubt it. That collection looks curated. I didn’t see a single teddy bear, or. Souvenir from a breast-cancer walk.”

“I didn’t press him on it.”

“Right,” Daisy scoffed.

“Sasha used”—a trumpetty nose-laugh interrupted Jon’s sentence—“Sasha used to joke they should be in Artefact Storage.”

“Well she’d know best. Didn’t you say she used to work there?”

“Yes!” Jon squeaked, in a delighted whisper-shout. One hand covered his face; the other fist shook in the air. “She had literal horror stories about that place. The way she talked about those mugs was like—hearing a nun say there should be a circle in hell for people who order the wrong kind of donuts.”

When they’d both quit laughing Daisy said, “You sound like you’re starting to feel better.” She poked him in the stomach, though so lightly for fear he’d throw up on her that she doubted he could even feel it through his cardigan and shirt. “Gonna puke again, you think?”

Jon breathed out through his nose and looked at the ceiling. Apparently she had poked him hard enough to tickle: he batted her hand away like a fly, then left his own where hers had been. “Probably not. Don’t think so. Not sure how much I have left to.”

“Yeah.” After a pause to put the words in a convincing order, Daisy said, “Surprised you had that much—I’ve barely seen you eat today. How long were you feeling sick?”

Guilty smile. “Sorry, Daisy, I uh. Thought I had it under control.”

“Not what I asked.”

“Oh. Uh… few hours, maybe?”

“Why’ve you been coughing and sniffing all day then. Thought you had a cold at first.”

“Yeah—so did I, til.”

“Huh.”

Jon propped the back of his head on his folded elbows. “Maybe it’s a monster thing,” he said, with the cynical sigh of someone pretending to be okay with this.

“Could be,” Daisy agreed. She could feel his eyes on her, but looked at the opposite wall instead of answering his gaze. Meanwhile she patted his knee. When he’d been quiet long enough she was sure he didn’t mean to say more about the monster thing, Daisy said, “Let’s get you out of those wet shoes.”

*Whose OP I can’t find, though I know I’ve seen it before, but. It’s the prompt referenced here:

person has been involuntarily letting out nauseously [sic] coughs intermittently all day, and their friend thinks they just have a cold or something, but surprise! they are about to puke everywhere

ETA 6/16 fixed a few Americanisms, whoops! If I’ve missed any more of those please point them out to me

#sickfic #emeto cw #the file name for this is 'opposite of convert.pages' but that joke makes so little sense that if you get it you deserve a prize tbh #permasickfic #(ish. much discussion of post-coffin daisy and late s4 jon's habitual weakness. 'permanent' is a strong word BUT THAT'S THE TAG OK)#alsoooo just realized all the references to pulsating blood clash pretty bad w/ how daisy conceptualizes losing the hunt in the coffin as #not being able to hear her blood but YOU KNOW WHAT. both unaccustomed exertion and hunger make your heart thumprace so.#Shut Up. i can only write these things how i know them. *blows raspberry*#OH RIGHT also #unreality cw #(for the scene in helen's magic corridor lmao)

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smallestclowninthecircus · 4 years ago

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Season 3 notes popping off

due to my desire to not completely fail all my classes this year i made myself slow down significantly while listening to this season, and the fact that the other person i'm listening along with had to catch up. We've managed to convert several other people to start listening and its pretty great.

ep 81: what does it even mean to be chosen by one of them? And if he was chosen by the eye. we know Gertrude wasnt? Because she cut the eyes out of the magazines?

ep 82: elias lmao. I understand why people like him so much bahshdhdk i thought he was gonna snitch on Jon but he didnt so he's fine. Ok but how do we think he knew all that stuff. Idk probably just institute connections. I love the fact that the recorder just wants to record stuff randomly bjahsjdhd. Elias feels a lot like Michael in the sense that he knows more than he should and talks in a way that implies he just wants to wait and see how things play out for his own benefit. I understand him knowing the things that happened but his description of her emotions implies something paranormal. Maybe he's connected to one of the entities. Which one I cannot guess.

ep 83: did a file get delivered randomly to the place he's staying at? Probably elias lmao. He thinks the mannequin is related to the stranger. Idk I would believe it.

ep 84: worms? I know he says earth worms but idk. Again? Is she making gordon golems out of trash? Martin popping off. You can tell the statements get to him more that they get to Jon. How come martin is so mad about it? I want to assume he just doesnt want her to get stuck there but idk. Jude Perry. The calliope organ. Jon heard a circus in one of the last episodes

ep 89: he's talking to perry? Like jude Perry? He says ... God? Is that what it is? Lmao. The Desolation. Jon is tired of ppl being vague and not telling him stuff lmao. Oh God Jon is so confused. Compel her? Is she assuming he has some kind of power? Does he have powers? Hmm. im agreeing with jon here please jesus christ why does everyone have to be so cryptic. Just say what you mean. "maybe you get an itchy eye" bahasjkdfklsjdf girl what. Agnes saved her? Oh this is the girl from the cafe story? So theres the Cult of the Lightless Flame? They worship whatever entity this is? The Desolation? Why do they all seem like they sorta worship her then? Is Gretchen gonna die oh god. fuckin michael. a different michael aaah. i see. dont do it shes gonna burn you. sir. please. sir dont you dare do- WHAT DID I SAY what did you think was gonna happen hhh.

ep 90: try to make it less obvious you're trying to get fired big T. Elias that doesnt sound like the most healthy thing to do. oh dear is this gonna be triggering for me. uuuuuh. uuuuuuuuuh. doesnt seem like it ok gonna keep listening. Jared. hmmmmm. Ok we've seen Keay and hotner or whatever his name was.

ep 91: Michael Crew. Oh is this the lightning scar guy. Mister jon sir did you just die. No? God everyone is so fuckin cryptic. Say normal things please. They all just like to go on about pain and agony and j e s u s c h r i s t we get it you got hurted by whatever thing. So theyre avatars? question mark? Jude Perry is an avatar of The Desolation? hhhh fractals. thats a spiral thing innit. Yup. messing with your perceptions. God they all talk about feeding their god and feeding that which feeds them and. hh what does that meann. Leave big J. please. uh oh. is it daisy? how come he has the web lighter still? the tape recorder just turns on sometimes you know how it is. So he can compel people? not that he knows it obviously but. a bit wack. powers go brr i guess? If the eye just wants knowledge i guess he feeds it by getting the statements? b/c i doubt it wants him to murder ppl or whatever.

ep 92: elias you all knowing fuck what do you know. (i guess all given what i just said) Lukas. Heard of them before. Mordecai Lukas. Loneliness. The lonely even. Jonah Magnus. Elias ur sounding like a bit of a dickhead rn. lmao jon's just like "i dont care" elias what is ur deal. Why does he want to tie her in. ohh i see. lmao theyre all just like "elias why" The Unknowing lol seems very much like something the eye wouldnt like. lol elias is gettin all philosophical. what does it really mean to be human. this still doesnt answer why gertrude wanted to destroy the archives tho.

ep 93: bahsjdfh he seems so dead inside rip. awww admiral. i love him already. ghh breacon and hope. purple mold. doesnt sound like anything we've seen so far. I think the funniest explanation for breacon and hope is that they dont actually serve the stranger they just kinda happen to be a random neutral party that cart around random spooky entity related stuff. ooooh. when we hear the slight static of the tape recorder it's cuz he's compelling ppl.

ep 94: the end! listen man they were all just grayed up for 4/13.

ep 95: the end also? death but also savagery/ animalistic shit. aww martin. lmao becerra. she's just been chillin in the corner.

ep 96: return to sender. haha minecraft go brr. prediction: breacon and hope? yup there we go. jon why is there an echo. are you in a stairwell? is he gonna eat it- yup. how did i call it. unsure abt what theyre talking about but ok. they kidnapped someone? Sarah Baldwin. ooooh that guy.

ok im just putting this here so i have notes for when nicholas gets to this part. It seems like (from jon's conversation with jude perry) that the desolation and the eye are kinda at odds with eachother? like i guess not directly but it seems like they dont really vibe? so how could be with both. Cuz if he has the heat powers and shit then we know he's an avatar of the desolation. but then why does he have so much eye imagery. also he got burned intentionally? like jude did when she went on her monologue about the feeling of burning? but then why did he wear the eye pendant. it stops him from being burned all the way which seems like he's not fully accepting the fire or whatever.

Nooooo I lost like a bunch of my notes rip. I keep forgetting to save.

Ep 104: tim gives a coherent statement without jon even being there. Ugh. Fucking robert smirk. Dont like him. Joey. Dont recognize the name. The show must go on. Clown. The spooky circus?

ep 105: total war... shogun 2? jon is just understanding languages again. "if i understood mandarin or cantonese" are you sure you dont big man?

ep 106: havent we heard this one already? mans in space? oh no this is just another episode in space. fairchild... uuuh. cant remember. oh! this is related to that! this is one of the ppl from the other side. sounds like a Vast thing. oh he's the one that the dude saw? but that guy didnt have a face... she's sorta like jon. wanting to dismiss the statements. lmao i love the workplace gossip. ace jon for the win! oh cmon elias dont be a dick. sunny meadows or whatever. thats the place we heard about.

ep 107: oh great is it jude perry again. Third Degree. bahahsdkfj she was arrested. sorry but imagining this old british lady getting arrested is funny. she was trying to resurrect him. using the skin book. he's not feeling well. jon take a nap. i wonder if this is what happens when he uses his powers too much. He gets into The Zone when he reads statements lol. didn't we have a burning train car in anothre statement? is it julia fairchild? bahahahs "kidnapped. Again." poor jon honestly. julia... about her dad. daughter of the murder shed guy? hunting like your dad liked to hunt or normal people hunting. oh hunting vampires!

ep 108: melanie has been suffering. poor martin peter lukas why do you have to be like this. can he not just use the front door? does he have to bother the ppl doing statements?

ep 109: how come he cut her off? kinda rude tbh. its either jon's influence or there was smth he didnt want her saying. is it gerard on the table? this sounds kinda like smth from one of the university episodes. is it the closed eye on the hand? yup. he's like one of the students! if the thing listening in is elias then... he can do that without the tape recorder yknow. plus who's to say it wont just turn itself on again

110: who wants to bet its a leitner?

111: Lukas related to The Lonely. I used to not like Gerard that much but i like him more now. but i thought there were 15? ohhh thats right isnt flesh newer? gerry for the win honestly. finally telling jon things.

112: lol "again" no one ever tells any of these ppl anything. tim and basira are just out of the loop constantly. music, like the war episodes. The hunt or the slaughter? probably the hunt. so Daisy is related to the hunt right? basira likes the reading, she's doing fine at the institute. daisy's getting worried...

113: it just turned on randomly. what is it lol. explossives! oh boy. why do they always assume he turned it on intentionally. melanie youre not making me like you that much. which entity is this about i cant tell. lol he was disappointed it was just the end. The title Breathing Room made me think it was gonna be about the buried but i guess not. So many of these entities deal with death but the end is one that deals in just death. it has no need for fancy deaths, just death is enough

114: more hilltop road statements? the tree. oh boy. ok the tree has 8 arms obviously theres the spider parallels. was she taken into an alternate universe? oh no. jon tries to phrase things so he's not asking questions. thats honestly good. "sometimes i was kidnapped" oh dear. they got gertrude. daisy ur so odd lmao. who wants to bet they dont know the tape recorder's running?

115: silaca? or whatever? antique man? meat grinder... related to the meat is meat episode? oh wow. they buy antiques from him. maybe dont antagonize this creature which can kill you?

116: lol theyre all just so done with elias. music? is it like the one band that if you hear them you die or wtvr. oh its chess? i am very much confused. mmm stranger go brr. gorilla skin? oh shit the dance. woah. this is so good. this is so gender. the words are wonderful. "you can just say tim" lmao trying to fool elias never feels like a good idea.

117: except elias lmaoo. oh shit. leitner getting some use for once idk. bruuh poor melanie she has been thru so much shit. martin you can just say youre worried about jon. lol he's so accurate in his jon impression. lol who was that. was that daisy? lmaoo. oop hi tim. oh god i hope tim doesnt die. i feel like i wouldve heard about that? but im not sure. destroying the source of knowledge is gonna be hard for jon. yay jon! you did a good thing. let him rest.

118: go off martin lmao. awww poor martin. oh god the tape gets that squealy quality and its awful.

119: woah. lots of things happening. uhh. POP OFF TIM!!

120: lmao elias giving a statement about jon's dreams lol. damn jon doesnt even get his own dreams? has to stay Watching even when he's asleep? f in the chat this man goes thru so much shit. oh boy its peter. lol martin my beloved. idk i dont trust peter.

#tma #neptune's tma notes #notes #tma season 3

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soveryanon · 4 years ago

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Reviewing time for MAG193!

- I think this was the first time that an episode immediately followed the previous one like this?

(MAG192) ARCHIVIST: He’s the pupil of The Eye…! JONAH (BACKGROUND): –from the now that is no longer– MARTIN: Meaning? JONAH (BACKGROUND): –even close to what the when– ARCHIVIST: He won. JONAH (BACKGROUND): –just might have been if there was time enough to run and hide from rancid deaths– [CLICK.]

(MAG193) [CLICK–] JONAH/ELIAS (BACKGROUND): –that stinks of hate– MARTIN: What do you mean he’s won? JONAH/ELIAS (BACKGROUND): –and wafts to him– ARCHIVIST: I mean, he’s done it!

We’ve had scenes separated by the tape recorder shutting off/on in the same episode (for example, Tim’s interview by Daisy in MAG082; Martin and Elias in MAG118 – with a scene taking place at the Unknowing in-between) and we’ve had episodes beginning shortly after the end of the previous one (MAG038 and MAG039, with Jon’s attempt to retrieve the tape recorder; MAG118 and MAG119 with Jon lost in the Unknowing…), but never a configuration like this, I think, with a click off and instantly back on? It makes me wonder about the separation between the two tapes, in universe: meta-wise, it’s obviously because the episode would have been too long and would have covered two statements, but why the separation through the tape recorders in the story…? Is it that someone is curating the collection of tapes? Is it because each tape is already overloaded with fear…?

- Anyway, I love how the episode immediately picked up after the end of the last one, with Martin asking the question we were all asking (what the heck do you mean, Jon, and what is Jonah’s current degree of consciousness, and does that mean he is happy/satisfied right now)!

(MAG193) MARTIN: What do you mean he’s won? ARCHIVIST: I mean, he’s done it! ARCHIVIST: He’s… a–ascended, become a part of The Eye, he… He’s beyond us. MARTIN: [TO JONAH] Just shut up, Christ! JONAH/ELIAS (BACKGROUND): –the promise of his own annihilation– ARCHIVIST: … He can’t hear you. MARTIN: So, so what? He’s not aware of us, of, of any of this? ARCHIVIST: No. Or if he is, it’s only as a miniscule speck amongst the flood of knowledge and fear that’s passing through him. He has become the conduit between this new world and the thing that watches it. It’s all running through him. MARTIN: Sounds awful…! ARCHIVIST: To someone so close to it, I imagine it would be a state of… agonised bliss.

* Straight to the point: Jonah probably “won” in a way since Jonah gets to be on top and is not suffering like the others (MAG160: “I am to be a king of a ruined world, and I shall never die.”), but the question of whether or not he’s ~happy~… is not easily answerable – same as with Daisy being “happy”, what value does it have when it comes with the loss of personhood?

* Lovelovelove Martin Kerosene Blackwood going “Oi, dickhead!” and now “Just SHUT UP” at his ex-boss’s ex-boss. It feels like Martin jumping back in time to scream at Elias every time he was opening his mouth in season 3.

* Things I thought a lot this episode: that description of Jonah’s state was so, so so horny. “as he floats and writhes in perpetual perception” in the descriptors last week, now “the floating fear conduit that is Jonah Magnus”, and Jon inferring that he’s in a state of “agonised bliss”. H o r n y.

- … Big Ooft for Martin’s reaction because it directly put to mind the season 5 trailer, when it had been about Jon:

(Season 5 trailer) ARCHIVIST: Yes, I, I’m trying not to, but… all of the fear, th–the anguish, i–it just… [INHALE] It keeps coming at me in waves, rolling over me, filling my head with such… awful sights. MARTIN: … I’m sorry. That sounds… [SMALL EXHALE] That sounds horrible. ARCHIVIST: … I wish it was, Martin. I really wish it was. … But it feels… right. [MIRTHLESS HUFF]

(MAG193) MARTIN: Sounds awful…! ARCHIVIST: To someone so close to it, I imagine it would be a state of… agonised bliss. I can… feel it, the… completeness of it all passing out from him. I can see everything from here, and that’s just a hint of what he must be feeling…

We knew Jon could feel the temptation since the beginning of the season. It wasn’t a surprise that Jon could already understand the state Jonah was in – and I love the contrast that was shown between the two:

(MAG193) ARCHIVIST: I can see everything from here, and that’s just a hint of what he must be feeling… JONAH/ELIAS (BACKGROUND): –that joined to his through choice or circumstance but now it stains his weeping edges– [RUMBLING SOUNDS START TO RISE] MARTIN: [WARNING] Jon… ARCHIVIST: … as he watches a man run screaming down endless dark alleys, that close, and crush, and press– MARTIN: [HARD WARNING] Jon… Stay with me. ARCHIVIST: Sorry. I–it’s a, it’s a lot…! MARTIN: I, I can see that, but you need to keep it together. ARCHIVIST: S–sorry, I–I think… I can handle it.

Jon slowly easing into the fascination and utter desire of leaning into the suffering was bone-chilling, from simple description while explaining to Martin, to utter ravishment. Jon-Jonah difference, though: Jon has an anchor, and it’s Martin!! And I love that we could see Martin as the two aspects of “anchor” that had been alluded to in the series:

(MAG099) GEORGIE: Look, you’re worried. I get it. But if you really think you’re turning into something… inhuman, you need people around you. You need anchors. ARCHIVIST: All my “anchors” are just as deep in this as me. GEORGIE: Well, you still need them.

(MAG129) I need an anchor. I… I could go in… myself, I, I could find her. And… then, I just need to get out. I need something out here. Something I can know the way back to. I, I don’t know what. But… [HUFF] It’s a start.

(MAG145) ARTHUR: [Agnes] never told us how she felt about being bound to you! Never even called you by name. Just called you “her anchor”. The thing weighing her down, and tying her to this world, stopping her destiny!

(MAG167) ARCHIVIST: Wi–without… trust, without a, a reason… Gertrude needed both the purpose her mission gave her, and the control her position allowed. To be here, like us, without a, [INHALE] a reason, without someone to ground her, she… She’d have power but… no control. No real… purpose. Perhaps she’d dedicate herself to a, a doomed quest like us, but– … [QUIET] No… I think this would have broken her. And she’d have resigned herself to… ruling her domain. […] MARTIN: [INHALE] [SNORT] Ssso. If you say Gertrude wouldn’t have been able to go on without a reason… ARCHIVIST: Yes, Martin, you are my reason.

Grounding in both cases but: both as the element allowing Jon to return to, protecting him from wandering, and as the element dragging him down. (Same thing, just depends on the perspective!)

I also like how Martin sounded firmer and more confident about his own ability to keep Jon grounded. He used to panic (sounding more aggressive and/or resorting to slaps to get him back), but now… he knows he can do it, that he’s enough to keep Jon from Beholding’s temptation.

- A lot of confirmation that Jonah is there but-not-really:

(MAG192) MARTIN: Can he hear us? ARCHIVIST: I… MARTIN: Does he even know we’re here? ARCHIVIST: I don’t… […] [SADLY] He can’t hear you, Martin. MARTIN: Yeah, I got that. What’s wrong with him? ARCHIVIST: Nothing. Nothing’s wrong with him. He’s the pupil of The Eye…!

(MAG193) MARTIN: [TO JONAH] Just shut up, Christ! ARCHIVIST: … He can’t hear you. MARTIN: So, so what? He’s not aware of us, of, of any of this? ARCHIVIST: No. Or if he is, it’s only as a miniscule speck amongst the flood of knowledge and fear that’s passing through him. […] He’s too far gone…! He’s barely even aware we exist. […] I–it’s far too late for either of them.

And damnit, I can’t help but be a bit sad about it! My speculations were even worse for him (No Mouth But I Must Scream, while hey, in the end, we got to hear him for two episodes!), but I was still hoping I could hear more of his gloating and/or pitiful regrets and/or fear… but he might not be in any state to feel and manifest such things. (And I’m guessing that Martin was really hoping for that too – minus the gloating.)

- Regarding Jonah’s “statement” / litany of horrors in the background:

* Last episode had given the impression that it was coming for his throat (“he” protagonist, lots of Fears but constantly cycling back to fear of death); this one was fluctuating more, from one victim to another. We began with “him”, “his”, “he”, we jumped to a “she”, then to a singular “they”, and ended on “herself”. So, Jonah seems to be taking glimpses of different victims going through their nightmares, sticking with them for a few scenes before jumping to follow another.

* Same as in MAG192, some bits felt like familiar descriptions of Fears! I spotted potential End (“him with promise of the fast approaching corpse that bears his face”), Extinction (“and holds within its chest the promise of his own annihilation”), Desolation (“splintered powder cast of empty blackened earth”), Spiral (“jumbled symbols twisting in the edges of his sight”), Lonely (“the emptiness around him but the mist that curls its bitter weeping ache around his legs”), Slaughter (“all the butchered ugly fates”), Hunt (“a smile upon the face of something grinning at her sharply”), Vast (“they look down to see the pitch black void of ocean getting darker still as something rises up that dwarfs the sky and yet they know it is the smallest tip of only one appendage reaching up”), and the episode finished on… Web (“glassy eyes and fangs that drip with poison”).

* Some bits reminded me in particular of Martin’s Lonely house (the “house she almost knows to be a home but empty hollow and devoid of all the trappings that could once have given comfort to the pale and weeping shadow of her life that has been left devoid and faded at the corners like a photograph whose sepia-tinted warmth has drained to just a crowd of faceless staring strangers”) and of Jan Kilbride’s experience in space and of Antonia Hayley’s creature underwater (something too big to be fathomable, making people feel meaningless in comparison).

* (Because I really wanted to be able to “hear” all the words from Jonah’s litany: I realised that the transcript skipped a small portion of the audio around 3’30-3’50, shortly after “tapestry of suffering that billows in the wind” and until it goes back to “to know she can’t resist the waves that lap and drag her over”… but I didn’t manage to make out anything specific from the audio either, I could just tell that Jonah kept talking in the background. No idea whether it’s genuinely a small piece of speech missing from the transcript, or if the recorded background litany was actually a biiit too short compared to Martin and Jon’s exchange and a little cover up was necessary to buy some time!)

* Same thing as last episode: overall, at first glance (/ear), Jonah’s horrors seem like they’re told without much inflections… but no: Jonah does occasionally give emphases and slow down or accelerate, it just feels less lively than Martin&Jon’s dialogue or Jon’s own dramatic interpretations.

* The “with a pull that makes her stomach drop to know she can’t resist the waves that lap and drag her over and across the surface still as cracked obsidian but deeper than the world could ever dream” felt especially awful because it really reminded me of Jon – with the Panopticon itself having been described as “obsidian”, Jon admitting that he had felt a pull towards it, and the overall threat of Jon losing himself, aka “drowning” (MAG127: “It’s like there’s a–a–a door, in my mind. And behind it, is… i–is the entire ocean. Before, I didn’t notice it, but now, I–I know it’s there, and I can’t forget it, and I can feel the pressure of the water on it. I–I–I, I can keep it closed… but sometimes, when I’m around p–people, or–or places, or… ideas… a drop or two will push through the cracks, at the edges of the door. And I’ll… know something.” “What happens, if you open the door?” “… I drown.”).

* The last picture evoking a spider and The Web’s knack for control ended the episode on such a terrifying note, ahaha!

(MAG193) JONAH/ELIAS (BACKGROUND): –is so cold it is so coldly sneering as sticky strands pull taut against the flailing struggles as they try to pull away from what approaches in the distant edge of this colossal latticework of bone and sickly paste that twists and curls with each vibration of those fools like them now caught and wrapped and flailing in their heaving desperation not to see it looming over them with glassy eyes and fangs that drip with poison and the promise of the slow and steady agony of feeling all that was herself dissolved and broken down into the bitter pleading–

Getting restrained, seeing it approach while being unable to do anything (like an insect caught in the web) and understanding that it will be a long torture (spider injecting venom in its prey to be able to slurp their inside)… which, ahah, wasn’t ominous at all when we still don’t know what The Web/Annabelle’s interest in Martin&Jon is supposed to lead to.

* Most wonderful/awful part of it was the distinctive repetition of the “what have you done” and how they synched with Jon&Martin’s dialogue:

(MAG193) ARCHIVIST: S–sorry, I–I think… JONAH/ELIAS (BACKGROUND): –moved by others, or that might just now be his– ARCHIVIST: I can handle it. JONAH/ELIAS (BACKGROUND): –what have you done– MARTIN: Right, so what’s the play? JONAH/ELIAS (BACKGROUND): –what have you done what have you done what have you done– ARCHIVIST: I, I’m not sure…!

That was… quite distracting. And I love how it worked as the current victim’s feelings (who had apparently slaughtered a loved one in the nightmare?) and their guilt, but also resonated as Jonah’s own words (as if he was panicking over his own ritual) and as a jab at Jon (as someone who… came here).

- I love that Martin was back to being the resourceful one, trying to find weak spots and formulating hypotheses with what he understood of the situation!

(MAG193) MARTIN: Well… we came here to confront Elias– urgh, Jonah, whatever! So: how do we do that? ARCHIVIST: He’s too far gone…! He’s barely even aware we exist. MARTIN: And, I’m guessing you can’t… just destroy him like the others? […] Okay. So not that then, but… wh–what about something, like… physical? ARCHIVIST: I… What? MARTIN: Look, I know it’s all about… dream logic and metaphor and all that… stuff, but, you know, what if we just… what if we just grabbed him and, you know, pulled him down? Or, or just threw something heavy at him? ARCHIVIST: Uh… I, I don’t… MARTIN: O–or–or, what about, hum… That’s Elias’s body, right? I mean, yeah, they’re obviously Magnus’s eyes, but that’s still a Bouchard body up there so… So maybe, Magnus’s original body is just… still lying around here somewhere? That, that was a weakness before the transformation, so… maybe we could still use that! ARCHIVIST: It’s gone. Ashes swept away by the winds of ecstatic terror. What you see up there is all that remains. MARTIN: Right. [SIGH] Right, right, right. … Is the original Elias still in there somewhere? ARCHIVIST: He’s, uh, I– MARTIN: Maybe we could get through to him somehow? […] Was that the real Elias, is he still in there then? ARCHIVIST: No… No, it, it was… an echo. The last spasm of a corpse. I–it’s far too late for either of them.

It’s not a novelty – we have regularly seen him being practical, suddenly revealing that he had been thinking about how to solve a particular problem for a while already, thinking about his plans, discarding ideas and trying new options:

(MAG022) MARTIN: I think I might have… lost my mind a bit, then. It all… feels very… strange, blurry. I–I remember stamping and stamping as–as more made their way under my doorway. I–I remember grabbing every towel, sock, bit of fabric scrap that I could find, stuffing them under the door, into the cracks around the window. Anything where a slender worm might crawl I made airtight. And then I sat there and waited.

(MAG039) MARTIN: I used to carry around a knife, but I started thinking that, well, cutting into someone laterally wasn’t really the most efficient way to get them out, and besides which, they seem to be quite slow burrowing in a straight line so, given their size, th–the corkscrew just seemed to be the better option. [HEAVY SILENCE] Look, you guys got to go home every day, okay. I didn’t! I’ve been thinking for a long time about what to do when… well, y’know, this happens.

(MAG118) MARTIN: We… [SHAKY INHALE] We need to leave. MELANIE: We “need” to kill him. Look at you! He needs to die. MARTIN: … No. [INHALE] No, I… I knew what this was gonna be.

(MAG162) MARTIN: –so, I’ve actually had a couple of bags packed for a while, now! [HEAVY ITEM DROPPED] ARCHIVIST: Oh! MARTIN: And, I found some rope in the attic, and I packed that with the maps. ARCHIVIST: [CHUCKLING] Uh, Martin, I… MARTIN: No, no; I, I know what you’re going to say. [RUMMAGING] “What good are maps when the very Earth has…” and blah blah blah…

(MAG186) MARTIN: So. This price. What do you think? Are we going to have to kill Jon? ALSO MARTIN: … I don’t know, because you don’t know. But… it seems like something we should at least consider. MARTIN: … I… have thought about it, and… I won’t. I, I don’t think I could…! ALSO MARTIN: Mmhmm. MARTIN: But anything else? Any other price? I’ll pay it. ALSO MARTIN: Even dying? MARTIN: Yeah!

(MAG189) MARTIN: It’s fine. Maybe there’s another way in. What’s this thing made of anyway, like, like, obsidian or something, right? ARCHIVIST: One-way mirrored glass. MARTIN: Of course it is. Well, if it’s just glass, then it won’t be hard to break, right? We can just grab something heavy, like one of these cameras, and then all I need– [GRABS SOMETHING AND THERE IS A WET, FLESHY AND YET PNEUMATIC-LIKE SOUND] ARCHIVIST: Oh, I wouldn’t. MARTIN: Oh! Oh! Eurgh… [GAGS]

In comparison, Jon has kept the role of explaining the dream-logic, of how they sometimes had to proceed in compliance to the domains to go through them (“the journey will be the journey”, explaining to Basira that she had to see the “monster” in the domains she had traversed in order to be able to catch up to Daisy)… but he’s been lacking out-of-the-box imagination to deal with them.

- I love the hilarity of Martin offering to drag Elias’s body down or to yeet things into his face – I mean, I had thought about it, too! But it’s so satisfying to hear Martin suggest it ♥

(And technically, he has all the items necessary. He had mentioned packing that rope when they had left the cabin, and they have an infinite supply of tape recorders.)

- Sobbing over Martin and how one of his first ideas was to attack Jonah’s original body… since we know he’s been feeling guilty about not killing him when he had the chance:

(MAG158) PETER: There is… of course… just one other complication? [FOOTSTEPS STOP] You’ll have to dispose of the current occupant. MARTIN: Curren–… [QUICK FOOTSTEPS] [SHARP BREATHING] … Who is that? PETER: Jonah Magnus! His… body, at least. Sitting here; watching; binding it all together; growing ever older. If you want to take his place, well… MARTIN: … I’ll need to kill him. PETER: Yes. Don’t worry, though. I brought a knife. […] Martin. What are you doing? MARTIN: I’m… saying no. I refuse! Game over. [KNIFE CLATTERING ON THE GROUND]

(MAG186) MARTIN: [HEAVY SIGH] If we’re glad, why do I feel so… ALSO MARTIN: Guilty? Because you feel guilty about everything. MARTIN: That’s… That’s not– […] If I’d done what Peter had asked… If, if I’d not chickened out, and just killed Elias when I had the chance…! ALSO MARTIN: Really? Really, that’s how you’re choosing to remember it? “Chickening out”? MARTIN: I remember it was the wrong choice…! ALSO MARTIN: You choose to remember it that way, and so the guilt– MARTIN: [SIGH] I–I get it, all right? But I need it, I, I choose the guilt, because… ALSO MARTIN: [LEADING] “Because”? MARTIN: Because it motivates me to do better!

(MAG193) MARTIN: O–or–or, what about, hum… That’s Elias’s body, right? I mean, yeah, they’re obviously Magnus’s eyes, but that’s still a Bouchard body up there so… So maybe, Magnus’s original body is just… still lying around here somewhere? That, that was a weakness before the transformation, so… maybe we could still use that! ARCHIVIST: It’s gone. Ashes swept away by the winds of ecstatic terror. What you see up there is all that remains. MARTIN: Right. [SIGH] Right, right, right.

* No way to compensate for back then, that body doesn’t exist anymore. But I’m glad he thought about it and asked! Since I did ask myself the same questions!

* No “remains” in the title, but Jon did drop the word in relation to Jonah in the episode! It’s almost a tradition titles-wise for episodes pertaining to Jonah (MAG040, “Human Remains”: involved Gertrude, but it was still ~a body found in the tunnels~ (and Elias gave a statement during that episode); MAG092, “Nothing Beside Remains”: letter addressed to Jonah, read by Elias; MAG127, “Remains to be Seen”: letter addressed to Jonah, and Elias speaking for the first time in season 4).

* It’s interesting how the concept that Jonah’s original body had already disappeared made it sound like he was already diminished. The only traces left of Jonah are his eyes (since he transplanted them from body to body), and his consciousness… but he’s not exactly there with Jon&Martin anyway. It’s like he’s partially gone already, and likely doomed to entirely disappear without gaining anything back.

- Aouch for Jon confirming that turning Beholding against himself might result in a disaster:

With Jon still pointing out that he “doesn’t know”. He has ideas, he has fears, but he isn’t sure either; and just like his hesitations in front of the Panopticon, I wonder if it’s not Beholding trying to hold him back by feeding him orientated bits that Jon would interpret as undesirable scenario…? (I’m curious about that mention of “the edges of the fearscape”: it means there might be something still, out of the Fears’ reach?)

- This was the second time Martin sort of “prompted” a statement by orienting Jon towards it:

(MAG167) MARTIN: I bet Gertrude would be able to do this, you know? She, she would eat a hellscape like this for breakfast…! [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: I… don’t think she would have done very well here… MARTIN: No? ARCHIVIST: No… MARTIN: Do you… know that…? [STATIC RISES] ARCHIVIST: [DEEP INHALE] “To say that Gertrude Robinson never had a friend would not be true.”

(MAG193) MARTIN: … Is the original Elias still in there somewhere? ARCHIVIST: He’s, uh, I– MARTIN: Maybe we could get through to him somehow? ARCHIVIST: Ah… Sorry, it isn’t that… Ah… [CEASLESS CHANTING CEASES] MARTIN: Again? But you just did one for Ro– … Ro… [REALISATION] Oh no…

And I get why it’s happening (Martin is asking Jon questions about something he didn’t know already, so he has to think about it and search for the answer… and the answer is not that simple, and unearthing information that Jon didn’t know or hadn’t processed, leading to a full statement), but I wonder if it happens specifically thanks to Martin. If Basira were to ask the same questions, would it lead to the same result? I’m thinking again to the hypotheses that had been formulated after MAG160 and Jonah calling Jon an “archive”, with Jon as the archives while Martin could work as an Archivist: given that Martin had sometimes been in the position to ask questions and orientate Jon’s powers, there is a bit of a feeling that Martin is curating Jon’s powers, sometimes…?

- It was almost poetic that Jon began to fall into the statement… precisely when Jonah was narrating about Something emerging under the surface:

(MAG193) MARTIN: … Is the original Elias still in there somewhere? JONAH/ELIAS (BACKGROUND): –and cry in panic at their howling crew– ARCHIVIST: He’s, uh, I– MARTIN: Maybe we could get through to him somehow? ARCHIVIST: Ah… JONAH/ELIAS (BACKGROUND): –to ready for a harrowed doomed escape– ARCHIVIST: Sorry, it isn’t that… Ah… JONAH/ELIAS (BACKGROUND): –from what begins to rise below them– [CEASLESS CHANTING CEASES] MARTIN: Again? But you just did one for Ro– … Ro… [REALISATION] Oh no…

And then, both Elias and Martin shut the heck up and listened to Jon.

- At this point, I wasn’t expecting a statement about the original Elias anymore! I was curious about it, but didn’t really count on it since Jonny hadn’t seemed that interested in the potential prospect of saying things about him, in the season 4 Q&A (unlike the Admiral question, which clearly gave the impression that he was hiding something specific). Shouldn’t have trusted him on that!

- I was so excited in the first few seconds of Jon’s statement bubble because the sound in the background was once again Elias’s clock, indicating his office!

(MAG193) [STATIC RISES] [PANOPTICON SOUNDS FADE] [CLOCK TICKING IN THE BACKGROUND] [OCCASIONAL RUSTLE OF PAPER] ARCHIVIST: “He recognises those eyes”

Since the beginning of season 5, I was crossing fingers that we would hear the sound of that damn clock again, and we heard in in the last two episodes, so that’s cool!

(… I still wonder if Barnabas’s bones are hidden inside of it.)

- Just Little Interview Things: Martin, Rosie and Elias all noticed Jonah’s eyes.

(MAG170) MARTIN: … At least I’ve got a job now. Did I tell you I’ve got a job? I mean, the interview was weird, I… I don’t really remember the man who talked to me. Just his eyes. They stared at me; th–through me, and… and, I–I knew that he knew what I’d done. God, I…! I was so scared, but… but then he smiled and shook my hand…! What was his name? [CREAKING] He said I “had the job”…! [CHUCKLE] That he “looked forward to working with me”! … I was still so scared I could barely move my arm…! I was so terrified I’d let him down…!

(MAG192) ARCHIVIST: “His eyes, though, were different. There was something in them that… unsettled her. They didn’t match the rest of his face. They were cold, and grey, and somehow so much older.”

(MAG193) ARCHIVIST: “He recognises those eyes. He’s seen them all his life, watching him, judging him, cutting through him so no part of him was secret or safe. They peel away the armour, his carefree smile and practiced shrugs. They are the eyes of his father, and they stare at Elias over an old mahogany desk, sat in the face of a man who said his name was James Wright. His interviewer smiles with his mouth, but the eyes are the same. […] Elias can’t look this man in the face, and tell him that he is what scares him. That his eyes, the curiosity and judgement that pulses out of them… they terrify him in a way he can’t put into words. He feels that prickly panic building in the back of his skull, that worry that spills through: he knows. […] Those eyes stare, impassive and stern as ever, but… is that a twinkle of satisfaction? As though he has been given him an answer he likes. […] He stops. Those eyes. They know. They can see right through all his bullshit, right to the core of him. They know what he really thinks. […] Elias’s stomach tightened at the memory, the fierce judgement in his father’s eyes. Even laid out in a casket, it was as if he had looked at Elias with disdain. […] Yet somehow he found himself sat across from this man, whose smile hadn’t moved the whole time – and whose eyes seemed to know why he was here far better than he did.”

* Elias’s own fears in relation to those eyes and to Jonah’s overall behaviour reminded me of Martin’s a bit, with them being terrorised at the idea of being known, because they knew they had things to hide (including who they were).

* Still howling at the daddy issues/projecting the father image onto Jonah, what a concept.

* It still cracks me up how terrifying and ominous Jonah felt during these interviews… because it’s absolutely not something we could feel about Elias in seasons 1 and 2, when the impressions he gave off were “bland” and “doesn’t exactly know how to exert authority (and gets annoyed at some points when Jon is pushing against that)”. Was he going all out in the interviews overall? Did he get less In Your Face in the 2010s? Did Tim, Sasha and Jon kind of repress how terrifying their own interviews had been, or assumed it was just the jitters colouring their memories? Jonah sounded especially snobbish and haughty in this episode, way more than is usually heard from him: I wonder what part was the tangible, objective truth, and what part was Elias Bouchard’s own perception of him colouring the statement (since Elias was feeling like this guy knew about him and his secrets and had power over him, then he remembered him with these intonations).

* “Sometimes, I’m eating.” he told Basira in season 4 when he was in prison – was he conducting mock interviews on other inmates or officers for dinner.

* That said, I love Jonah’s unsubtly going directly to the point with Elias – immediately aiming for fears, doing his best to be unsettling and make Elias lose his footing and make traumatic memories resurface. I wonder if in this case, it was because Elias “dared” to think he could use the Institute for his own gain and carreer, as if Elias could outsmart him? Or because there was the question of what had brought Elias here? (I! really! want! to! know! about Jon’s own interview!!)

- THE MAHOGANY DESK IS CANON!!

(MAG193) ARCHIVIST: “[…] they stare at Elias over an old mahogany desk, sat in the face of a man who said his name was James Wright. […] Beyond that stretch of polished mahogany, so well waxed that Elias’s pale, sweating face is clearly visible, James Wright’s smile remains unchanged.”

I just can’t believe it’s now canon… because, cough. When I wasn’t yet listening to TMA but trying to gauge whether or not I would like it through fancreations, I had noticed the trend of associating Elias with a letter opener and a mahogany desk in fanfiction (before understanding that oh, okay, no, it’s just that yeah, it fits his aesthetic, but it’s not referring to specific canon things). So this takes me back, and I can’t believe that the damn mahogany desk in Elias’s office was canon all along =D

- I was hoping for a dual statement with lines shared between Jon&Jonah, I was so close yet so far!

(MAG193) [JONAH/ELIAS IS A DARK, STATIC-VOICED ENTITY – EACH LINE A CRACKLING MIX OF DEEP INTONATIONS YET STILL CHARACTERISTICALLY ELIAS] JONAH/ELIAS: So tell me, Elias. What are you afraid of? ARCHIVIST: “Elias Bouchard freezes in place.”

* There could have been the question of whether Jonah’s voice in the statement was the Jonah-in-the-room or emanated in Jon’s statement (like the usual background sounds)… but: it was Jonah!Elias’s voice. It wasn’t Jonah!James’s vocal chords. Plus, unlike the usual sounds and distant voices or breaths in Jon’s statement, Jonah really sounded like something intruding: his voice was clearer and came with glitchy static, as if… two different spheres (domains?) were interacting unnaturally. Jonah’s voice didn’t feel like it was part of the statement: it felt like Jonah was forcing his way to interact in it.

* I loved the play around roles that happened in this statement! In summary: Jon was telling the (third-person, internal focalisation) story of Elias Bouchard, occasionally impersonating him through direct speech, in order to answer to his interviewer from back then, Jonah, who was back then possessing the body of James Wright, and is in the present possessing Elias’s body and speaking through his vocal chords. Jonah gave his lines as Jonah, but the fact that Jon gave Elias’s words, that we got to hear the real Elias through another voice? That was such a pretty installation.

- It’s interesting comparing Elias’s job trajectory because it reminded me of Sasha a bit?

(MAG193) ARCHIVIST: “Why would he ask him something like that? Elias is applying for a research job – what the hell does that matter?” […] JONAH/ELIAS: Good. The job is yours.

(MAG049) ARCHIVIST: It was a remarkably fast climb to the top, as from what I can find, it looks like he only joined the Institute five years before, in 1991, working in the Artefact Storage.

(MAG039) SASHA: I’ve had to retreat into Artefact Storage. That should tell you something about how bad it is out there. God, I hate this place. … Did I ever tell you I first joined the Institute as a practical researcher? I had to analyse and investigate all the stuff in here. Take notes after sleeping in the rusted chair, write in the memory book, all that sort of thing. I transferred after three months. Would’ve quit, but couldn’t afford to back then.

So Elias might have been hired as a practical researcher just like Sasha? I wonder if it’s a general researcher thing for new hires at the Institute… (If it is: did it happen to Jon, too? But I’m also having some thoughts about the idea of Jonah sending his potential next hosts there. Wouldn’t have liked for it to happen in canon, but dang, the concept of Jonah!Sasha does have a certain appeal.)

- Not surprising for Magnus but: I love how a few mentions tend to lead the fandom to assume things about characters, and those things turn out to be true, but not the whole truth. Until now, we only had a few allusions to who the real Elias Bouchard was:

(MAG049) ARCHIVIST: Supplemental. Elias Bouchard is a difficult man to pin down, certainly since he became head of the Institute in 1996, taking over from James Wright, who ran the place from ‘73 until he passed away. It was a remarkably fast climb to the top, as from what I can find, it looks like he only joined the Institute five years before, in 1991, working in the Artefact Storage. Perhaps he was simply that impressive. Certainly, the Elias I know now is almost unmatched in terms of paranormal knowledge. Well. Theoretical knowledge, at least. And yet, everything I found out about his life before the Institute seems… an ill fit with the austere man I know. He apparently graduated with a Third from Christ Church’s College in PPE, and I found an old gossip column in the student newspaper that – sure well – that mentioned him. If I’m not reading too much into it, the implication seems to be that he was… something of a… pothead. [CHUCKLE] Was he… like that when he first came to work here…?

(MAG154) ERIC: Mary probably thought it was funnier if you didn’t know, and… Wright would have preferred you not to know…! How is he, by the way? GERTRUDE: James? He died about… twelve years ago. Elias is Head of the Institute, now. ERIC: “Elias”? Elias Bouchard, seriously? GERTRUDE: Hm, he has changed a lot. ERIC: Must have!

So: given the degree and the Uni, we could guess he likely came from a posh family and had basically paid to get his degree. We knew the rumours about him doing pot. We knew that it had surprised Eric to learn that this Elias Bouchard would become Head of the Institute. And: all those things are true! Elias indeed, came from a privileged background, indeed smoked weed, indeed wasn’t brilliant, but all these elements got recontextualised with more depth.

* Even Jon immediately wondered if Elias had been a known pothead when he was hired at the Institute… and no, “of course” Elias wasn’t quite that carefree:

(MAG193) ARCHIVIST: “He feels that prickly panic building in the back of his skull, that worry that spills through: he knows. He knows I’m high…! The thought leaps to Elias’s mind for only a second before he remembers that… he’s not. He hasn’t lit up all day, of course not, he’s got an interview. But even so, he can’t shake the familiar paranoia. He looks again at his would-be employer, who seems like he’s about to repeat the question. “Spiders,” Elias says quickly. “I’m afraid of spiders.” […] JONAH/ELIAS: Now tell me: why do you want this job? ARCHIVIST: “Elias tries not to visibly sigh with relief. This, at least, is a question to which he has prepared an answer. He clears his throat slightly, shaking off the lingering image of Allan’s body. “W–well,” he begins, “I’ve always had the greatest respect for the work put out by this institute on mythological traditions, especially some of the recent papers on Indo-European traditions which was very useful for my dissertation on–”

He was still a regular smoker, but he came sober and had prepared for that interview! He wanted that job and had done his research to perform well! (Which, honestly, is… not a given in interviews.)

* The posh family thing was… kind of heart-breaking, actually:

(MAG193) ARCHIVIST: “They know what he really thinks. A position in a small, obscure little academic organisation, the first step on a path to the position he actually deserves. This place could be anything, as far as he is concerned. Medical research, a grant foundation… it doesn’t really matter. […] His father’s words came to him again, as they always had, through childhood, boarding school, university. “You’re a smart boy, Elias, but you’re lazy. You have every advantage that I and this world could possibly provide, and yet you insist on squandering them! Don’t think I don’t see you, looking at those other children with envy, as though their meaningless little lives could contain anything of substance, anything for a Bouchard to aspire to. You are better than them, and they know it. And it is your job to prove worthy of that distinction.” Elias’s stomach tightened at the memory, the fierce judgement in his father’s eyes. Even laid out in a casket, it was as if he had looked at Elias with disdain. What should he say? [PIANO STOPS] That he had no idea why he wanted this job? That he was all alone in the world, no friends, no family, nothing but the deep certainty that he deserved better. That he was destined to be important. That it was in his blood.”

There was something plain sad about Elias’s upbringing – how, sure, he came from a privileged family, but he was also looked down on by his own father, who still hammered a toxic mindset into him to the point that even when his father died… Elias still felt like his only possible role was the one his father had attributed him. It reminded me a bit of the statement in MAG180, about the abusive mother still haunting the victim even through death, and the feeling that they could never escape her influence.

And the feeling of superiority made Elias unpleasant! And he had already benefitted from his family by getting a degree he had barely earned! And got the advantage of knowing the social/expected cues to get what he wanted (hence using the right vocabulary and reasons to get hired during his interview)! And he might have grown up continuing to be a terrible person, unable to change this mindset and fucking lots of people over, like the privileged class tend to do! … But from what we know of him, he didn’t have the time to do that last part, or even to possibly change and free himself from a mindset that was also poisoning him. It’s like Jon had pointed out to the Distortion, about “classic” Helen:

(MAG187) HELEN: You haven’t looked into Helen-Classic’s past yet? You should try it! I don’t think you’ll like what you find. ARCHIVIST: What, lying to real estate clients? Bit of a prick at parties? Secret Tory? HELEN: Yes. To all of them, actually. [BAG JOSTLING] [FOOTSTEPS STOP] ARCHIVIST: And that’s the problem. I could have grown to dislike her, but… you made sure that sort of thing could never happen. Now you use her form, see her mind, but they’re just… tools. [BUILDING CREAKS] Michael had nothing you could use but a razor-straight desire for vengeance, but you saw something in Helen that would work on me much more subtly. So you took her. And I’ll never get to dislike her. I’m stuck disliking you instead.

Maybe the real Elias could have grown into an awful, powerful adult man. Maybe he could have changed and unlearned his father’s toxic lessons. We don’t know; he didn’t manage to achieve much and got eaten by a bigger shark when Jonah took possession of his body, and we’re stuck disliking Jonah instead. I like how it worked both as an exploration of how the privileged class tend to entertain myths about themselves, how they reproduce their awful mindset from generation to generation, leading them to perceive themselves as “superior” and deserving of more (we all have those political and economical classes, sadly), but also how that requires fucking these same people over until they conform to that mould and these expectations.

* I love how it turned out that even the “pothead” thing didn’t feel like it was unrelated to the fact that Elias had his own issues: he didn’t come from a loving family, was often high… and he also resorted to drugs to help Allan calm down. (Which was the worst thing he could do: don’t give drugs to a friend when you suspect they’re hallucinating.) It felt like the drug thing really was his way to cope, hence trying to get Allan out of his spiral through it…

- I’m screaming again at Jonah’s relationship with The Web – SPILL IT, WHAT DO YOU KNOW, WHAT WERE YOUR OWN WEB EXPERIENCES, ASSHOLE.

(MAG193) ARCHIVIST: ““Spiders,” Elias says quickly. “I’m afraid of spiders.” James Wright nods, the smile curling into one of satisfaction, though Elias is sure the man doesn’t believe him. Those eyes break contact for a moment, flicking up to the corner of the office where… at the edge of a bookshelf that sags with age and weight, a small cobweb has started to form.” JONAH/ELIAS: Very wise. A very… sensible fear. ARCHIVIST: “It is. Yeah, it is. But is it… true? For a moment, Elias really can’t remember. Right here and now, the thought of a spider genuinely repulses him. The image of a scuttling, filthy creature, eight eyes glinting out in the darkness, crawls into his mind, and he shudders, looking away for a second. [SHUFFLING] But the uninvited thought keeps going. [SCUTTLING SOUNDS] He imagines the spider moving up his leg, his body; he imagines feeling its bristling hairs against the skin of his shoulder, his throat, his cheek. Its spindly probing legs finding their way up his face. Elias can’t stop himself picturing that spider sat there, venom dripping from fangs that hang, poised over his eye. He can’t shut his eye.”

* Was it just a random cobweb. Was it a signal from The Web that it had been what sent Elias to Jonah.

* “a small cobweb has started to form” was such an amazing wording because: 1°) if you take the sentence literally, it means that the web is forming itself (no spider is weaving it) – it’s just appearing, like a trap or a story, as a mirror to Elias who is sealing his own fate by joining the Institute, 2°) if you assume it implies that a spider is creating that web… where is the spider? Is it hiding behind the bookshelf or somewhere in the office? Is it Jonah himself? (Web!Jonah Web!Jonah Web!Jonah…)

* Elias’s vision was SO CHILLING. The sounds effects (spiders scuttling) were terrible; the gradation was terrible; the last picture was horrible (Web as a predator for Beholding?). What was it, exactly? Jonah implanting the mental picture into Elias’s head? A forgotten memory from Elias? A premonition of what was to come…?

- I gushed about the office clock but: just like with Rosie, the memories following each other had all their distinctive sound effects. Jonah’s office had the clock. The memories of Allan’s corpse and of Allan’s last night had a sort of fast-paced metronome in the background. The memories of Elias finding Allan with his book at the library had another clock, also a bit faster than in Elias’s office. The alternations built up the anxiety and tension, gave the impression that everything was accelerating, and that time was just following its course – that it was impossible to go against it.

(It reminded me of the clock in Jon’s hospital room, when Oliver gave his statement in MAG121, reinforcing the story Oliver was giving about the impossibility of escape: “That was it. That was our fate. Where we would always be. Because I was going to take us there. Running was pointless. To try and to escape from my task would only serve to fulfil another.”)

- The book Allan came across didn’t seem to have the Leitner bookplate, but that doesn’t mean anything about the nature of the book itself since Leitner was just applying his mark on pre-existing books. Still: we know that Elias joined the Institute in 1991, so those memories took place before the fall of Leitner’s library (which happened in 1994):

(MAG193) ARCHIVIST: “Allan is in the library, irritated at the interruption, but happy to see a friendly face. The whites of his eyes are riddled with the scarlet veins of sleeplessness, but his hand trembles with a feverish energy as he tries to explain the significance of the book he’s found. Even sober, Elias couldn't have followed what his friend was saying, lost in layers of theological scholarship – but he smiles anyway to see the reserved young Allan so passionate about his subject. He looks at the book itself. It’s old, crumbling, with none of the usual college library markings. He asks Allan where he got it, and his friend doesn’t answer, instead glancing around with a sudden self-conscious suspicion. Elias shuffles round to get a closer look at the pages, then stops in confusion, as he realises they are all blank. Allan only laughs when he says so. Was the laughter really that cruel…? Or is it just the warping of memory, the past he tries to forget, mixed with the nightmares that came after, the faces he dreamed of seeing in those pages.”

* Once again, where did these books come from…? Did they directly emanate from the Fears? Were they part of older Archivists’ collections, were they statements from older times? Were they part of Johann von Württemberg’s tomb, did Jonah let the books free to ensure that they would terrorise more people and create more Fears? … Are Jon’s own tapes forming another collection through another medium…?

* I wonder whether the blank pages meant that Elias wasn’t under the book’s spell, or whether it meant that whatever horrors it contained had been freed already. Jon had noted that when MAG125’s book had been found blank, it had seemed like it didn’t have any power left:

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: Another Leitner, obviously. Not one I can readily identify, though it sounds like it would now be… “inert”, anyway. Given the blank pages, I do wonder whether its destruction was a… last-ditch effort to stop its effects, or the exact thing that released its power in such an… extreme way.

But we also had Albrecht’s case, where the pages were blank to Fanshawe’s eyes while Albrecht didn’t find anything strange with them, though those might not have been the original books in the first place…

(MAG127, Jonathan Fanshawe) “I do not know how he died. I saw nothing and no one with him, and his body seemed whole and undamaged. But I do have some idea as to why it happened. For as I filled those dead shelves with freshly bound volumes… I could not help but notice that every page was blank. I have since checked with Payne’s, who I believe to be your preferred bookbinders. And I know that the books poor Albrecht was returning to the grave… were not the books that were taken. I hope they bring you much wisdom, Jonah, for the cost was dear enough.”

Overall, there were a lot of elements reminding me of Albrecht’s discovery in the Black Forest, though it might just have been Beholding Things:

(MAG022, Albrecht von Closen) “It was the man from the cemetery. His wide brimmed hat was removed and he stared at me. His head was completely bald, and his eyes were missing. They were just empty sockets but they stared at me. They saw me. Believe or dismiss anything else in my letter as you wish Jonah, but I swear to you that I stood face to face with a man with no eyes and he saw me.” […] ARCHIVIST: Something else I stumbled across quite by accident during my research was in Grim Tales, H.T. Moncreef’s exploration of unexplained and macabre deaths in early 19th century Europe. It mentions a death that took place in Schramberg in 1816. The man, one Rudolph Ziegler, was found dead at his home on the outskirts of town. What is interesting is that it says he worked in service on an estate nearby. Shortly after his death, one Wilhelm von Closen was investigated for the crime, as it was discovered the dead man had been stealing jewellery from the estate. It was eventually dropped however, after four doctors attested that the ferocity of the wounds inflicted on Herr Ziegler were, and I quote, “beyond the capability of human violence”. It was ruled an animal attack.

(MAG193) ARCHIVIST: ““It saw me,” Allan keeps saying, over and over again, “It saw me through the pages. And it’s coming.” He sees it, he says, in every mirror, every distant doorway, a silhouette on every skyline. Coming closer, each and every time, finding its way towards him, step by step. “It has no eyes,” Allan sobs, “so it has to feel its way towards me. But it knows. It knows!”

[…] When the light comes on, Elias has no idea how much of the crimson that bathes the scene is from the blood on the walls, how much from the blood that tints the lightbulb, and how much is simply the shading of his memory.”

- ;; The snippets of Elias and Allan’s relationship were so sad… Elias was intoxicated, granted, but the fact he was just happy to see Allan’s enthusiasm all the while he couldn’t understand anything about it? The fact that he tried to get him high to make him feel better:

(MAG193) ARCHIVIST: “Elias has no way to comfort him. He can’t even understand what he’s talking about. And so on that, the last night of Allan Schreiber’s life… [LIGHTER BEING TURNED ON] he just gets him high, and leaves him to sleep it off.”

… and that was the last time he saw him alive…?

(MAG193) ARCHIVIST: “When the light comes on, Elias has no idea how much of the crimson that bathes the scene is from the blood on the walls, how much from the blood that tints the lightbulb, and how much is simply the shading of his memory. But he remembers so clearly what he was thinking as he looked at what was left of Allan Schrieber: where are his eyes…? What did they do with his eyes?”

- Delighted about the glimpse regarding the Institute offering Actual Documentation:

(MAG193) ARCHIVIST: ““W–well,” he begins, “I’ve always had the greatest respect for the work put out by this institute on mythological traditions, especially some of the recent papers on Indo-European traditions which was very useful for my dissertation on–””

There had been a few references to people getting or not the credentials to consult the library, and Melanie had required Jon to vouch for her and grant her access to it back in season 2, but I think this is the first time we hear about actual publications from Institute researchers! And it’s not a big surprise that they would be involved in mythology studies and the likes – outside of the Archives, it felt like the Institute was working like a “normal” academic institution, so it feels logical that they would research what was believed to be supernatural in older civilisations.

- I’m still laughing so much at the piano playing Chopin’s “Funeral March” in the background when the flashback with Elias’s father happened. And then, it jumped to him being dead and in the casket.

- Gotta love the tradition of Jonah only hiring people who were isolated and/or had an experience with the supernatural.

* Elias pointed out in his statement that his father had already died and that he had no connections anymore, when he joined the Institute (“he was all alone in the world, no friends, no family”), and he had lost his friend Allan to a Beholding creature in uni (so, a matter of a few years or months before).

* Michael Shelley had lost his friend Ryan to a Spiral creature, thus leading him to the Institute (MAG101: “After much searching and despair, it drove him into the waiting arms of the Institute, where he met Gertrude Robinson.”).

* Rosie had just divorced and was left bereft (MAG192: “Because I let my imagination and paranoia wreck my marriage, and now I’ve got nothing; and if I don’t get a job, I’m just sitting around an empty flat staring into space.”), and she might have had a Corruption encounter as a kid (or it was just mundane insects).

* Martin had to drop out of school to provide for his own mother at seventeen, so there was likely no more family he could rely on around him.

* Jon’s only family member was his grandmother, who died roughly around the time he joined the Institute. He’d already had a Web encounter as a child, knew that the supernatural existed, and Jonah pointed out that his Web mark may have been a reason to hire him (MAG081, MAG160).

* The Stranger took Danny, prompting Tim to join the Institute – and Elias had pointed out that he already knew the broad gist of Tim’s feelings (MAG104: “I knew there was some trauma that drew you to us, but I can’t say I ever thought to look much deeper. An oversight, perhaps, but I’m looking now.”).

* Melanie came back with a recent Slaughter mark and her entire network collapsed around her (MAG084: “God, I’m kind of at the end, you know?” “The end of what?” “Everything. Friends, clues, savings. Everything. Options. There’s nowhere left for me to go. I don’t know why, but… I just, I just felt that perhaps coming here might help.”), leading Jonah to NYOOM onto her spectacularly fast.

* Basira had more than her fair share of Section 31-worthy encounters and mentioned her father in the past tense (MAG117).

Gotta love how apparently, any orphan-or-almost with a supernatural encounter could waltz into the Institute and technically get hired. You don’t have many connections around you and you’re traumatised? Have fun working here, job is yours.

- I’m SUPER interested in the moment Elias began to get self-conscious about his presence there, asking himself why… and not being able to answer.

(MAG193) ARCHIVIST: “… Where had he heard about this job opening? Had it been in a newspaper? He knew no-one who worked here, but received a letter anyway inviting him to interview. [SHUFFLING] Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t even sent out a CV. Yet somehow he found himself sat across from this man, whose smile hadn’t moved the whole time – and whose eyes seemed to know why he was here far better than he did.”

We’ve had cases of people being drawn to the Institute after their trauma: Tim wanted to understand what had happened to his brother, Jon might have wanted to understand the forces at play behind the Mr Spider book, Michael Shelley was drawn to the Institute in the same way, etc. In their cases, we can’t really know how much was their own curiosity and how much the Institute itself influenced them to head its way (if there is any difference): was it Beholding attracting people with trauma behind their curiosity? Was it The Web pushing a few people to go to the Institute, such as Jon? But whatever drew Elias towards the Institute, there is the fact that he apparently received a letter although he hadn’t submitted his CV in the first place… so who had sent it? I didn’t feel like it was Jonah (though his questions could have been rhetorical); was it specifically The Web, sending someone already traumatised by a Beholding encounter and the fear of getting his eyes stolen? Did Jonah interpret it as a gift from The Web (kind of “here, this is your next host”), just like he had with Jon, hence him looking at the cobweb forming in his office?

(MAG160, Jonah Magnus) “I’ll admit my options were somewhat limited, but – my God! When you came to me already marked by The Web, I knew it had to be you. I even held out some small hope you had been sent by the Spider as a sort of… implicit blessing on my whole project, and… do you know what? I think it was…!”

- Favourite moment of the episode: when Jonah cuttingly asked Elias why he had come here.

(MAG193) ARCHIVIST: ““I, uh…” Elias’s voice wavered, paused. “I’ve always had the greatest respect for the work put out by this institute on mythological traditions, especially some of the recent papers [STATIC RISES] on Indo-European traditions which was very–” JONAH/ELIAS: Enough. Tell me: why are you here? ARCHIVIST: “I… I don’t know.” JONAH/ELIAS: Were you drawn here? ARCHIVIST: “… Yes. I was.” JONAH/ELIAS: Against your will? ARCHIVIST: “No.” JONAH/ELIAS: Then why did you heed the call? ARCHIVIST: “Because… this is the place I know I should be.” JONAH/ELIAS: Good. The job is yours.

* Jonah’s questions suddenly getting razor-sharp.

* Elias absolutely losing his façade and answering quickly, straight to the point. Did Jonah actually compel him back then…?

* The fact that the scene worked on three levels: as James interrogating Elias within the story; as Jonah interrogating Jon in the present… with the additional level of Jonah interrogating Jon from the past, maybe – asking why Jon had come to the Institute six years ago.

* The dread coming from Jon’s voice! It was impossible to guess whether he was still fully impersonating Elias’s own, or if it was Jon himself, breaking character and getting startled by the questions.

* It was terrifying as ~Jon answering to Jonah in the present as to why he had come back to the Panopticon~: when Jon answered “this is the place I know I should be”, it already introduced the idea that he was ~meant~ to take Jonah’s place as The Eye’s pupil…

- I wonder whether Elias had actually gotten that flash in the past:

(MAG193) ARCHIVIST: “Elias has the briefest of flashes – a sudden burst of terror, an image of himself, strapped down, helpless. [STATIC FADES] [DISTANT LOUD, ECHOING SOUNDS] The vanishing of well-known faces, and the harsh sneers that replace them as they stare at him. He cannot move. He cannot scream. What is happening? What is it, that he feels deep down in his skull? What are they doing to his eyes? This… presence, old and rotten, in his mind? He can do nothing but watch.”

* That last sentence was such a Beholding mood.

* Was it a memory of James Wright’s own demise, as Jonah had invaded his body, that Jonah had been tauntingly showing Elias? Was it a retroactive fast-forward: Elias, knowing of his fate, colouring the memories of his interviews with what would happen to him? Or was it a genuine premonition which had hit Elias back in 1991, with the idea that Elias’s fate was sealed when Jonah told him “The job is yours.”, and that his only future would be the one we knew of – that in five years, he would become Jonah’s next host…? (Beholding’s powers had never been about seeing the future, though, and Jon has pointed out this season that he couldn’t know about it entirely…)

- Ahahah for the end of the statement reminding me of Jon’s own words in the liveshow…

(MAG000) ROSIE: ARCHIVIST: Yes, thank you Rosie. … Oh, do tell Elias thank you. For the opportunity.

(MAG193) ARCHIVIST: “The moment passes, and Elias returns to himself. He tries to smile, and thanks his new employer for the opportunity.”

SOB.

- On the one hand, it’s been two statements at the top on the Panopticon already, and on the other hand, I can’t help but hope for a less-flattering Jonah statement extracted/told by Jon (bonus point if it does include the scene of Jon’s own hiring interview or promotion)…

Interestingly, the last two episodes have been digging progressively deeper into the past: Rosie’s statement began after “Elias” became Head of the Institute, with her interview, and followed the events surrounding the Archival staff until the Change (late 2015 – October 2018). Then Elias’s covered the pre-Jonah!Elias years, with his interview and a flashback into Elias’s recent past with Allan and a few other memories.

- At the start of the episode, Martin had the reflex to call Jonah “Elias” before correcting himself, which is something that happened almost systematically all through this season, both from Jon and from Martin:

(MAG161) MARTIN: [SIGH] Gloating, Jon. [CREAKING SOUND] Elias won, and there were some tapes he’d kept for himself, and he wanted to gloat. So, he sent them! ARCHIVIST: He’s not… MARTIN: I–I don’t see– ARCHIVIST: … “Elias”.

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: No, no, lo–look… I, I–I was listening, and I–I was filled with this… hatred. This anger; I–I wanted to leave, and hunt down Elias, a–and…! […] MARTIN: Do you think it’ll do anything? Confronting Elias?

(MAG164) MARTIN: What about Elias? [STATIC INCREASES] ARCHIVIST: He’s inside the Panopticon; the Tower, far above the world.

(MAG167) ARCHIVIST: Annabelle, help us with “what”? Our–our, our journey, killing Elias, vanishing the Entities – what?

(MAG174) MARTIN: Thanks for that. … Hang on, you’re still down to kill Elias, right? Uh, oh, Jonah, whatever.

(MAG177) ARCHIVIST: I didn’t mean to, Elias was… We were all playing out this big ritual for him. With me as the lynchpin, the gate. […] BASIRA: … So what’s your plan? MARTIN: Long-term? Elias. He’s up in that that… “Panopticon” tower thing.

(MAG178) MARTIN: It’s, it’s fine. [INHALE] We’ll just have to tie them all up in one go! ARCHIVIST: Hm? MARTIN: [SIGH] Around Elias’s neck.

(MAG186) MARTIN: If I’d done what Peter had asked… If, if I’d not chickened out, and just killed Elias when I had the chance…! […] What, like with Peter and Elias? […] Whatever happens with Elias, wi–, with the rest of the world… I can’t live on the misery of others.

(MAG187) ARCHIVIST: I see. How long have you been working with Elias?

(MAG188) ARCHIVIST: I suppose they don’t get many new faces around here. MARTIN: Especially not the Archivist…! Don’t forget you’re a celebrity! ARCHIVIST: Maybe. Or maybe it’s Elias’s personal welcome wagon.

(MAG189) ARCHIVIST: Uh, m–me versus Elias – Jonah, we… We both draw power from The Eye.

(MAG190) ARCHIVIST: I was… the catalyst, I–I didn’t… Elias– Jonah Magnus used me.

(MAG192) MARTIN: [CALLING] Elias! Jonah, Jonah Magnus!

(MAG193) MARTIN: Well… we came here to confront Elias– urgh, Jonah, whatever!

(Most notable exceptions being when Jon was approaching the Panopticon in MAG189, and tended to allude to him as “Jonah (Magnus)”, and when he told Rosie that they had an appointment with him).

At the end of this episode, though, Jon thought to make the distinction:

(MAG193) MARTIN: Was that the real Elias, is he still in there then? […] ARCHIVIST: I could kill his body, sever the link, break The Eye’s power, and… Jonah Magnus would die. […] If we kill Jonah Magnus… I take his place.

I wonder if from now on (well, for the 7 episodes left…), Jon&Martin will have less trouble calling him “Jonah” instead of “Elias” like before. It was understandable that they would call him “Elias”, since they had always known him as such… but now, we have had a glimpse at who the real Elias was. It might help them to accept to conceptually distinguish the two?

- It sounded to me that Jonah stopped his chant when Jon gave his statement:

(MAG193) JONAH/ELIAS (BACKGROUND): –she can’t resist the waves that lap and drag her over and across the surface still as cracked obsidian but deeper that the world could ever dream as something wakes and shifts below they grab the wheel and cry in panic at their howling crew to ready for a harrowed doomed escape– ARCHIVIST: Sorry, it isn’t that… Ah… JONAH/ELIAS (BACKGROUND): –from what begins to rise below them… [CEASLESS CHANTING CEASES] […] ARCHIVIST: [TREMBLING GASP] JONAH/ELIAS (BACKGROUND): … as they look down to see the pitch-black void of ocean getting darker still as something rises up that dwarfs the sky–

Jonah’s chant wasn’t incoherent in itself: it followed a succession of scenes and pictures, but there was still a logic through that flow. When Jon began to give his statement, the scene was taking place at sea, with a “they” subject (I think there was a gender-neutral victim and a plural “they” in the same scene?); when his chant resumed afterwards, the scene and subjects were the same as before. So it’s likely that it’s not just that we couldn’t hear Jonah anymore, but he flat-out interrupted himself. If this is indeed the case: does it mean that every time Jon gave a statement this season, Jonah stopped his own litanies of horror? And since Jon pointed out that Jonah is now part of The Eye: does it mean that Beholding can’t focus on two “statements” at a time and/or that it will prioritise Jon’s own litanies of horrors when he has to tell them?

It reminds me of Elias’s own known weak spot, as it had been used against him in season 3:

(MAG110) BASIRA: Or maybe when he’s not paying attention. MARTIN: Mm? BASIRA: Distracted, like, during your, hum, your performance review. MELANIE: Wait, what do you mean? MARTIN: Yeah, what…? BASIRA: Well, I was heading out, and… Martin, you remember you knocked over that huge stack of papers? MARTIN: Hey, hey, they shouldn't have been there in the first place. Besides, I cleaned them up. BASIRA: But not in the right order. MARTIN: [HUFF INDIGNANTLY] BASIRA: And… when I brought them up to Elias yesterday, he asked why they were messed up. MARTIN: Y– … you didn’t tell him it was me? BASIRA: … It’s not the point, Martin. The point is– MELANIE: He wasn’t watching you! He was busy.

(MAG118) ELIAS: Now, if you’re quite done, I am very busy. MARTIN: Oh sorry! Sorry, I’m not keeping you from the show, am I? W–well, well you head back, I’ll keep myself busy here. Albrecht von Closen is next, [PAPER RUSTLE] I think.

(MAG120) ELIAS: I knew you were all planning something, of course, but I didn’t believe you specifically would have the, uh… capacity for boldness that you displayed. Hm! It took me quite by surprise. MARTIN: You didn’t just see it in me? ELIAS: Honestly, I didn’t look. For all my power, I will admit I am not immune to making the occasional lazy assumption. I presumed that I knew you thoroughly but, by the time you demonstrated otherwise… well. There was simply too much to keep watching over. I only have two eyes, after all.

So, mm… if this is the case, Beholding turning its focus on Jon might be used against it, in the same way? I don’t know what for but… there was that this episode.

- Even Martin noticed the difference ;;

(MAG193) [STATIC RISES AND FADES] [THE PANOPTICON SOUNDS RESUME] ARCHIVIST: [TREMBLING GASP] JONAH/ELIAS (BACKGROUND): … as they look down to see the pitch-black void of ocean getting darker still as something rises up that dwarfs the sky– MARTIN: Are you all right? That was… intense. ARCHIVIST: Yeah… Uh… I just… uhh… JONAH/ELIAS (BACKGROUND): –and yet they know it is the smallest tip–

I really wonder how that statement looked, from the outside (or at least from Martin’s point of view). Did Jonah lower himself closer to Jon to say his lines as “James Wright”? Did the whole room change and show the “set” of Jonah’s office, and then of Elias’s university days?

- I’m super-impressed that Martin managed to keep track of his initial question!

(MAG193) MARTIN: Right. [SIGH] Right, right, right. … Is the original Elias still in there somewhere? ARCHIVIST: He’s, uh, I– MARTIN: Maybe we could get through to him somehow? […] Was that the real Elias, is he still in there then? ARCHIVIST: No… No, it, it was… an echo. The last spasm of a corpse. I–it’s far too late for either of them. MARTIN: Oh, damn. ARCHIVIST: There was never anything we could have done.

And that he immediately connected that it was probably the statement of a person – not of an overview of them like Jon had done with Gertrude.

Jon’s answer, though ;; It had been a huge fandom interrogation after the Jonah reveal: was the original Elias still in there somehow? Watching and being unable to do anything sounded like a fitting Beholding torture, and the statement toyed with the concept too (“He can do nothing but watch.”). In the end, we still don’t know when Elias’s consciousness faded (when Jonah took full possession of his body? Gradually over the years? When the Change happened?), just that he’s not there anymore.

- Lots to cry about when it comes to Jon’s reveals and Martin’s reactions:

(MAG193) ARCHIVIST: There was never anything we could have done. But I–I saw… MARTIN: What? ARCHIVIST: You were right. MARTIN: About what? ARCHIVIST: His body is vulnerable. A–at least to me. MARTIN: … What’s the catch? ARCHIVIST: I could kill his body, sever the link, break The Eye’s power, and… Jonah Magnus would die. MARTIN: Okay, that sounds good but…? ARCHIVIST: But… that wouldn’t actually harm The Eye itself. And with him gone it would… JONAH/ELIAS (BACKGROUND): –of those fools like them now caught and wrapped– ARCHIVIST: … it would choose a suitable replacement. MARTIN: Oh. ARCHIVIST: If we kill Jonah Magnus… I take his place. MARTIN: Oh, god…

* Martin immediately understanding that no, it’s not a Good scenario, that there is a cost or negative consequences coming with it. (Well, or he was simply able to read the room: Jon would have been happier, if it was a hopeful option.)

* Martin was so keen to kill Elias for the whole season:

(MAG174) MARTIN: Thanks for that. … Hang on, you’re still down to kill Elias, right? Uh, oh, Jonah, whatever. ARCHIVIST: I’m still going to confront him. [INHALE] I don’t know if killing him is something I’m even… capable of, but if I can and I have to, I will. MARTIN: Yeeah? ARCHIVIST: Don’t worry. I won’t hesitate. MARTIN: … Right.

(MAG177) BASIRA: … So what’s your plan? MARTIN: Long-term? Elias. He’s up in that that… “Panopticon” tower thing.

(MAG178) MARTIN: … Yeah. I guess. [INHALE, EXPLOSIVE EXHALE] God, I hate all of these… loose ends…! ARCHIVIST: I’m sorry. MARTIN: It’s, it’s fine. [INHALE] We’ll just have to tie them all up in one go! ARCHIVIST: Hm? MARTIN: [SIGH] Around Elias’s neck. ARCHIVIST: … Ah.

(MAG186) MARTIN: If I’d done what Peter had asked… If, if I’d not chickened out, and just killed Elias when I had the chance…!

(MAG189) MARTIN: This is it, then. ARCHIVIST: This is what? MARTIN: Don’t play dumb. It’s the final battle, right? We… climb the tower, take out the bad guy, figure out how to change the world back, and back in time for tea! Right?

… And we had loads of hints leading us to believe that Jonah was either dead already (well, in a way, he already is), and/or that killing him would not change anything to the situation (confirmed!), as already displayed with the domains’ rulers getting exterminated by Jon without leading to any improvement for the victims (Not!Sasha, Jude, Jared) – at the very least, we could guess that Martin was very unlikely to actually get to take his negative feelings out on Jonah.

I love the little twist that this is actually worse than that: if they were to kill him, it would mean losing Jon too, yay!

* Overall, it’s very fitting with the season 5 exploration? Martin focused so much on Jonah who, granted, was the one to scheme for the apocalypse to happen, but he’s now confirmed to just be another cog in the Fear machine – and just like a cog, he’s replaceable. The problem has always been the Fears themselves.

- Jon has been shutting down a lot of options regarding what he could do and what might happen, lately:

(MAG191) MARTIN: … Jon. If… When we defeat The Eye, the Fears… What happens to you? [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: Nothing good. I think it depends on what actually happens. If we figure out a way to defeat them, banish them somehow, kick them out of our reality and back to where they came from, I might… survive? I think I’d stay more or less like this; w–weaker, but fundamentally… still an avatar in a world where the Fears are… once again lurking on the edges. MARTIN: … But I assume that’s the best case scenario? ARCHIVIST: Depends on your point of view, I guess. In the long term all we’d have done is… bought some more time. … If, however, we… find a way to destroy or, uh… eliminate the Powers… I’m not going to be okay. There’s… too much of me that’s part of The Eye now. I don’t… know what would be left of me without it. Maybe I just… die. Maybe I survive, but I–I lose… something. My identity? My mind? My… memories? I don’t know.

(MAG193) MARTIN: And, I’m guessing you can’t… just destroy him like the others? ARCHIVIST: No. God knows what would happen if I called upon The Eye to try and destroy a… vital piece of itself. ARCHIVIST: In the best case scenario, nothing happens. MARTIN: And worst case? ARCHIVIST: No idea…! An enormous explosion that… destroys the world? We get torn apart, but… still suffering, o–or cast off to the edges of the fearscape, maybe? I… I don’t know. […] MARTIN: O–or–or, what about, hum… That’s Elias’s body, right? I mean, yeah, they’re obviously Magnus’s eyes, but that’s still a Bouchard body up there so… So maybe, Magnus’s original body is just… still lying around here somewhere? That, that was a weakness before the transformation, so… maybe we could still use that! ARCHIVIST: It’s gone. Ashes swept away by the winds of ecstatic terror. What you see up there is all that remains. […] MARTIN: Was that the real Elias, is he still in there then? ARCHIVIST: No… No, it, it was… an echo. The last spasm of a corpse. I–it’s far too late for either of them. MARTIN: Oh, damn. […] ARCHIVIST: I could kill his body, sever the link, break The Eye’s power, and… Jonah Magnus would die. MARTIN: Okay, that sounds good but…? ARCHIVIST: But… that wouldn’t actually harm The Eye itself. And with him gone it would… it would choose a suitable replacement.

And I really wonder if it’s to discard these options, or to introduce them as concepts because some are indeed meant to happen…

- I’m screaming that Jon’s realisation explains so well what had happened back at the cabin:

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: “This place wishes to be our tomb. But The Eye does not wish that. No. [STATIC RISES] The Eye wishes instead that it be my chrysalis. [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] It is time that I emerge…” [STATIC REACHING A PEAK] […] MARTIN: Look, Jon, I… I, I know it hurts, but you’ve just got to… ARCHIVIST: No, no, lo–look… I, I–I was listening, and I–I was filled with this… hatred. This anger; I–I wanted to leave, and hunt down Elias, a–and…!

(MAG193) ARCHIVIST: But… that wouldn’t actually harm The Eye itself. And with him gone it would… it would choose a suitable replacement. MARTIN: Oh. ARCHIVIST: If we kill Jonah Magnus… I take his place. MARTIN: Oh, god… ARCHIVIST: And I think… that’s exactly what it wants…!

That explains why Beholding wanted Jon to leave the cabin! And why Jon had felt that rush of violence towards Elias: it was pushing Jon to discard Elias and take his place! And that also explains why Jon felt the pull so strongly in the Panopticon – Beholding was eager.

(MAG191) MARTIN: The Eye isn’t, like… calling you, or something? ARCHIVIST: Oh, no i–it is. But I can’t get a… clear reading on it down here, i–it’s kind of maddening, actually? Like… being on a street you almost remember but… can’t find on a map.

(MAG192) MARTIN: Not keeping you, am I? ARCHIVIST: S–, No, I–, it’s just… I, uh… MARTIN: What, you’re not tired? ARCHIVIST: Oh no, believe me, I am! It’s just, uh… It’s kind of… difficult not to keep climbing? MARTIN: What, like… you’re being called? ARCHIVIST: More like… pulled. Gently, but very definitely upwards, towards the top. MARTIN: That… could be a bad sign. ARCHIVIST: Probably…! Too late to bail now, though.

(MAG193) JONAH/ELIAS: Enough. Tell me: why are you here? ARCHIVIST: “I… I don’t know.” JONAH/ELIAS: Were you drawn here? ARCHIVIST: “… Yes. I was.” JONAH/ELIAS: Against your will? ARCHIVIST: “No.” JONAH/ELIAS: Then why did you heed the call? ARCHIVIST: “Because… this is the place I know I should be.”

We got a glimpse of what Beholding was trying to push for, there is still the question of the reasons behind it. Without ascribing it a sentience, why would Beholding prefer Jon as its conduit? Is it because Jon’s dreams ended with Jon being part of it, and that it feels like a natural evolution, that Beholding is seeking the completion it used to get with Jon’s dreams?

(MAG120) ELIAS: “At last, he looks into The Eye that sees all, and knows all, and clutches at the secret terrors of your heart. The Ceaseless Watcher of all that is, and all that was; the voracious, infinite hunger that tears at his soul, invoking him to discover, to observe, to experience all and everything and forever. It stares into him, and it stares out of him, and he is falling into the devouring eternity of its pupil. He wants to cry out in horror – but he cannot. He. is. whole.”

Is it because unlike Jonah, Jon has been reading statements and feeding Beholding? Is it because of Jon’s nature as an Archivist? Would any of the other Archivists down there be fitting for the position, then? Is it because of Jon’s ability to fear? Is it because Jon, although controlled by Jonah’s script, was the one to “open the door”?

- Relatedly, reminder that we still don’t know what and where Jon’s domain is. Is it friggin’ Beholding itself.

- I’m worried about Martin, I’m really worried about Martin since now, Jon has explained that it was possible to take Jonah’s place as Beholding’s pupil… and Martin had once been set up to replace Jonah in his seat of power…

(MAG158) MARTIN: But, I don’t understand, why are we here? PETER: It’s quite simple, really…! I want to use the powers of this place to learn about The Extinction: what it’s doing, where it’s manifesting. Then we can stop it. MARTIN: And you need me for this? PETER: Correct! Without a connection to The Eye, any attempt to use it would likely end… very messily indeed! But thankfully, it just so happens that you hold such a connection. MARTIN: So that’s it… Both “lonely” and “watching”. PETER: You must admit you’re the perfect candidate. MARTIN: I suppose I am. PETER: There is… of course… just one other complication? [FOOTSTEPS STOP] You’ll have to dispose of the current occupant.

What would happen if someone strongly powered by another power were to become The Eye’s pupil? Would it affect Beholding as a whole?

- Since MAG192 and MAG193 followed each other without a gap between tape, I wonder whether that will be the case for MAG194 too. Will we go back to Jon and Martin at the Panopticon, in front of Jonah, with Martin reacting to what Jon just concluded (that Beholding might have called him there specifically to get him to take Jonah’s place)? Will we go back to them after a small interruption? Will they be back down in the tunnels to think about their options and share with the class (Melanie&Georgie)? Or would Beholding stop them from leaving the room? Will they be joined by Annabelle, or will Annabelle send a message their way? Basira was on her way to London, too – if she were to arrive, that might be an occasion to withdraw and regroup, if the building let them…

I’m going to do this every time, now, but: seven episodes to go. At this point in time in previous seasons, we had only just met Tim and heard about “Peter Lukas” for the first time, Basira had given Jon her statement about Maxwell Rayner’s death (with Jon pondering who had tipped off Section 31 to allow them to find him – that was later revealed to have been Elias himself), Martin had been very tempted to touch the plastic explosive and Jon had read a letter sent by Adelard Dekker for the first time, Julia&Trevor had trailed after Jon after having discovered that he had taken Gerry’s page from “their” book, threatening him (and introducing their future raid on the Institute), and Jon had discovered that Daisy was slowly dying from Hunt deprivation but was still keen to not give in. There is still so much that could happen…?

MAG194’s title has me a bit at a loss: it’s easy to picture a few configurations for the first level meaning (Jon and Martin? Jonah and Beholding? Jon&Martin and Melanie&Georgie?), but I’m really at a loss when trying to picture a second meaning…? Unless it’s about a recurring item such as Jon’s lighter or Salesa’s camera? Or about someone (Annabelle?) revealing things…?

#the magnus archives #tma season 5 #long post/#tma liveblog #mag193

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ollieofthebeholder · 4 years ago

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

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Chapter 32: Martin

They’re right. Jon Prime can’t see the colors of fear like Tim can. It’s something between a shock and a relief to all of them, but especially to Jon. Less pleasing is the news that, apparently, the one in the Institute who can see marks is Jonah, although Jon Prime admits he doesn’t know how he sees them, or even if he actually sees them or just Knows they’re there.

Tim gets very dramatic about this, but Martin suspects it really does bother him more than a little.

They won’t let Tim push himself to experiment, but he does a couple of carefully controlled and supervised peeks at objects and statements. Martin and Martin Prime are both extremely vocal and vehement in their opposition to him going up to Artifact Storage to have a look around, and even Sasha agrees it would be a really terrible idea. Jon makes it unanimous by declaring that Tim has met his quota of bad decisions for the year and begun borrowing against the next. Tim gives in gracefully enough.

He cheers up some when the first Sunday in Advent passes—not that any of them are churchgoers, but it’s a convenient way to mark the start of the season—and they’re able to decorate their house for Christmas. Martin hasn’t celebrated, really, since his grandfather died, and Jon even longer ago than that, but it’s hard not to join in with Tim’s enthusiasm. Jon finds a sprig of mistletoe and hangs it over the door; Sasha teases him about it, then evidently regrets it when it touches off a mini-lecture about its history as a protective plant to ward off witches and demons.

Martin finds himself staring at it every time they pass through the front door. It’s just a silly superstition, of course, but if he thought it would work, he’d deck out every door and window in the place. From the fact that he comes back from lunch one day and sees Tim with a search page called up for protective plants and charms, he suspects he’s not alone in that.

As the calendar goes over into December, they’re all beginning to relax somewhat. Jon is less neurotic; Sasha is less secretive and a bit more open about what she’s doing (emphasis on a bit). Martin is able to keep himself from overcompensating for his shortcomings (or, as Jon insists on referring to them, perceived shortcomings), and Tim hasn’t done anything catastrophically stupid in three weeks. Even the Primes seem more relaxed. Jon Prime is getting progressively stronger; he still says he has trouble thinking down in the tunnels, but he’s able to move around without needing to sleep for two days afterward. Martin Prime seems less worried about him, seems being the operative term. Martin knows it can’t last, but he hopes they’ll at least get through the new year before they have to start really worrying about fears and monsters and cops and bosses.

He should really know better by now.

Martin assumes the footsteps on the stairs belong to Tim or Sasha. He cut his lunch a bit short because he was expecting a callback regarding a statement follow-up, which he’s just ended, and he assumes it took longer than he anticipated. He looks up, ready to pass on the information, but the words dry up in his throat at the sight of the person striding towards him. Solid, with well-defined muscles and a blonde crew cut, the woman looks a good deal like the description of the assassin in the Jeffrey Archer book he did his last school report on, but despite being in plainclothes, she screams cop. This, then, must be Detective Alice “Daisy” Tonner, and Martin has no idea why she’s here.

Her eyes narrow when she spots Martin, and he shrinks back instinctively from the intensity in her eyes before he gets a hold on himself. He hasn’t, he reminds himself, done anything wrong. “Can I help you, ma’am?” he asks, his voice only squeaking a little.

“You’re Martin Blackwood?” she demands.

“Y-yes?”

“The Martin Blackwood?”

If this were any other situation, Martin might respond with a paraphrase of that line from one of the Hitchhiker’s Guide books, he can’t remember if it’s the second or third off the top of his head: No, just a Martin Blackwood, don’t you know I come in six packs? That, however, would be tantamount to suicide. Then he remembers that the Primes got pulled over. “I’m the Martin Blackwood that works in the Institute, yes. Can I help you?”

Daisy—it’s impossible to think of her as anything else—eyeballs him, then grunts. “Detective Daisy Tonner. I need to talk to the Head Archivist.”

“Yep. Of course. Right this way.” Martin jumps to his feet, nearly toppling his chair over backwards, and starts towards Jon’s office. “Uh, can I get you a…cup of tea or…?”

“I’m fine,” Daisy growls.

The small, furry mammal of Martin’s inner being flattens its ears and crouches in the grass, desperately hoping to avoid being seen, and Martin swallows hard. “R-right. Um. This way.”

He leads Daisy over to Jon’s office door and opens it cautiously. He’s pretty sure Jon isn’t recording, at least not on the tape recorder, but he’s usually careful anyway, especially since none of them knock anymore; Jon’s asked them to stop and they’ve decided, collectively, not to ask questions. Yet.

Jon looks up from the spread of papers on his desk and smiles, but it fades quickly. Martin can only imagine what his face must look like. “Martin. Is everything all right?”

“There’s a Detective Tonner here to see you,” Martin answers.

He is in complete agreement with whatever emotion Jon’s face is attempting to convey as he shuts the folder and shoves the papers aside. “Ah…send her in.”

“Okay. I’m, um, there’s something I need to run down,” Martin says. “U-unless you need me to stick around.”

Jon seems to understand. Of course he does. “No, I should be all right.” He doesn’t sound completely sure. “Make certain your phone is on you, though.”

Martin doesn’t bother pointing out that the tunnels don’t get service. “Right.” He steps out and nods to Daisy. “You can go in.”

Daisy doesn’t thank him, just pushes past him and shuts the door. Martin stands still for a moment, trying to shake the creeping feeling of dread, then turns and heads for the trapdoor leading to the tunnels.

Something I need to run down. Jon told Martin, after Melanie’s visit, that he liked that as a code phrase for ducking into the tunnels, so they’ve all been using it lately. Usually it’s to ask the Primes a question or clarify something, sometimes just to check up on them and see if they need anything. Jon and Sasha are taking it in turns to map out the tunnels, too—they’ve almost finished the first level. Maybe. Tim and Martin, on the other hand, occasionally go down just to get some relief from the constant pressure of the Eye.

It’s interesting, Martin thinks as he clicks on his torch and descends the steps, how differently they react to the tunnels, or more specifically to the effect of the tunnels on them. Tim embraces it, and Martin suspects he would spend all his time down there if he thought he could get away with it, but he usually goes down at least once a day, if only for a few minutes. Sasha finds it kind of exciting, not being able to just ferret out the tunnel’s secrets easily, but the problem is that she’s addicted to the mystery of it. Jon is in a weird place; on the one hand, he also wants to know everything about the tunnels that he can, but on the other, he’s already starting to get to a point where if he stays down for too long, he winds up drained and shaky. Both he and Sasha are under strict injunctions not to spend more than an hour a day in the tunnels, and privately, Martin thinks that might be too long for both of them.

And Martin? He’s in a weird place, too. He does like the comfort of not being constantly watched, and of knowing that he can ask people how they’re feeling and know he won’t accidentally compel them to answer, and if he’s being honest, it’s one of the two places in the world he feels completely safe and relaxed (his mind skips away from actually acknowledging what the other place is). At the same time, though, he feels…guilty. Like he’s abandoning someone who’s depending on him.

With a sigh, he leans against the wall of the tunnel for just a moment, then straightens up and heads down to the Primes’ “room”. The door is open, and Martin can just faintly hear Jon Prime’s voice. It’s too low to make out the words, but when he cautiously pokes his head around the doorframe, he sees the Primes sitting up against the wall of the room, their battery-operated camping lantern lit and casting a soft golden glow over the pair of them. Martin Prime’s head rests on Jon Prime’s lap, and Jon Prime absently tangles the fingers of one hand through his curls. In his other hand he holds a book, and he’s reading aloud in a low, soothing voice. Martin almost wants to duck back out again, sit on the floor outside the room, and just listen for a little while.

But Jon Prime glances up as he turns a page, sees him, and makes a small noise of surprise. “Martin. I didn’t see you there. Is everything all right?”

“M-maybe?” Martin feels his cheeks go hot. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt, I—”

“It’s fine,” Jon Prime assures him. He keeps his voice low, and Martin wonders if Martin Prime is asleep. “Come on in. What time is it?”

Martin points his torch at his wristwatch, just to be sure. “Almost one in the afternoon. I just—it’s maybe not an emergency. I can come back—”

“Sit.” Jon Prime sets the book aside and glances down at Martin Prime. “How are you, love?”

“I’m fine. It’s fading fast,” Martin Prime replies. He starts to sit up, but Jon Prime stops him with a hand to the chest. “Jon…”

“Relax. Rest. You don’t need to—you’re fine.” Jon Prime looks up at Martin. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“No, ‘course not.” Martin comes into the room and automatically makes sure he doesn’t shine the torch in Martin Prime’s eyes. “I just…I just wanted to let you know, I guess. Daisy just turned up.”

Jon Prime sucks in a deep breath. “Oh, God.”

“She’s just here to deliver the next tape, though, right?” Martin asks. Anxiety suddenly grips him. He shouldn’t have left the Archives, no matter what Jon said. “She won’t hurt him, will she?”

“N-no.” Jon Prime doesn’t sound too sure. “She didn’t hurt me this time around…not physically. But…in theory, yes, she’s just dropping off the next tape. I accidentally compelled a statement out of her—I hadn’t yet learned I could do that—and made her rather angry, but…well, let’s hope it won’t come to that.” He takes a deep breath. “Then again, she did encounter us. Who knows what she’s thinking.”

“Christ, I should’ve stayed up there. I-if Jon’s going to—God, he’s going to be exhausted after, and none of us are there to cut the statement.” Martin sucks in a breath. “And he’s alone, if she does anything—I’ve got to get back up there.”

“Go easy,” Martin Prime cautions him. “And don’t break the door to his office down. She might…you won’t be the one she takes it out on.”

Martin takes a deep breath. “Okay. Okay. Um, d-do you two need anything?”

“Some paracetamol, maybe?” Jon Prime asks. “We’re getting low.”

Martin winces and glances at Martin Prime. “Migraines?”

“Mm-hmm. Hadn’t had one in a while. I kind of thought I outgrew them, but…” Martin Prime gestures vaguely at his head. “Been bad for the last week or so.”

“I’ll be back later with some aspirin,” Martin promises. “Works better for migraines. M-maybe some of that ginger tea, too? We’ve got a ton of it.”

“Thank you,” Martin Prime says with a soft smile. “Be careful.”

Martin hums in agreement, then heads back to the stairs.

By his watch, it’s been no more than five, ten minutes since he came down into the tunnels—not nearly enough time for Jon to take Daisy’s statement, and Tim and Sasha probably won’t even be back yet. He climbs the stairs, head bowed in thought, pushes the trapdoor open, and steps out into the Archives.

And flinches.

Elias—Jonah—stands next to Martin’s desk, hands clasped in front of him, patiently waiting. His piercing grey eyes are fixed on Martin as he stands, half-in and half-out of the tunnel.

“Martin,” he says calmly. “I wondered where everyone was. Surely you don’t all go to lunch at the same time—have you been exploring the tunnels on Institute time?”

Martin panics slightly. He swallows hard, and he knows his knees are shaking as he climbs out and lets the trapdoor close behind him. “I-I came back from lunch a bit early to take a phone call. Jon told me t-to go ahead and take the rest of it once the call was done.”

“In the tunnels?”

Martin swallows hard. He’s usually fairly good at coming up with a plausible lie to cover something he shouldn’t do, or at least of distracting people from the fact that he needs to lie. But somehow, he doesn’t think he’ll manage it. Not completely.

“I’ve—I’ve been putting some things together,” he says. He manages to take a step closer, then another, until he’s by his desk and not far from Elias. Definitely closer than he wants to be, but it seems important that he do it like this. “Making connections.”

“Have you now,” Elias says blandly.

Martin takes a deep breath. He’s got to give Elias just enough of the truth to make it plausible, but not let on how much he knows, and most importantly, he can’t let Elias know the others know, too. “I’ve been thinking about the statements. One in particular. That woman who ran into Gerard Keay and the—the burn victim. There’s something he said to her, something I can’t stop thinking about—‘For you, better beholding than the lightless flame.’ I wondered what that meant, and—and then I started thinking. You know, I-I feel like—we all feel like—we’re being watched a lot down here, a-and I know it’s not CCTV or anything because there aren’t any cameras down here, but that’s what it feels like—like someone’s peering over our shoulders all the time. And that statement had a lot of eyes in it, you know? There was even an eye pressed up against the camera for just a minute on the footage we looked at.” He swallows hard. “When I go down in the tunnels—I don’t feel that. I can think down there, because I don’t feel like someone’s looking at my thoughts a-and judging them. It’s not just the woman’s imagination, o-or a crazy delusion. There is something that watches us. It might even be called the Beholding. A-at least, that’s what I’ve been calling it. And it’s here. I think it’s watching the Institute. All the time.”

There’s a brief silence, during which Martin swears he can almost hear the Eye blinking. It’s fond of you, Martin Prime said, way back in the beginning of all this, and Martin desperately hopes that’s true. Or at least that it’s fond enough of him to keep Elias from knowing how much he’s withholding. Then, suddenly, he realizes that’s going about it the wrong way and starts instead hoping that the Eye is curious enough about how this interaction will play out to keep Elias from knowing how aware the Archives team is.

“That’s very clever of you, Martin,” Elias says after what’s probably no more than a second, but feels like an eternity. “How long have you known all this?”

Not thought you’ve known, Martin notes. Known. Interesting. And frightening. “A while. At least since the Jane Prentiss attack. I-I was alone a lot, I had time to think, so…I did.”

Elias hums slightly. “I see. And what are you going to do about it, exactly?”

“Wh-what? I mean…” Martin flounders slightly and casts an involuntary glance in the direction of Jon’s firmly shut office door. “I-it’s not like I can—what do you mean?”

“I mean, Martin, do you intend to keep this knowledge to yourself?” Elias lifts an eyebrow. “Or do you plan to tell Jon?”

Sadly, there’s no right answer to this question. Martin tries to summon up his train of thought from back when Martin Prime first started telling him about all this. What would he have done if the Primes hadn’t been there to tell Jon? “I—I have to. He gets upset when we keep things from him, a-and he’s paranoid enough as it is, so if he thinks I’m keeping secrets…I promised I wouldn’t anymore. W-we all did.”

“Of course.” Elias’ voice drips with soothing insincerity and makes Martin’s skin crawl. “Will he believe you, though?”

“I’ve got—I can show him the connections I made,” Martin says. “He can be a bit skeptical sometimes, but he’s not stupid. A-and we’ve all seen enough, done enough, between Jane Prentiss and the couple of things we’ve been able to verify and—I at least have to try.” He swallows. “I don’t think he’ll be skeptical about this.”

“No,” Elias agrees, which surprises Martin. “I don’t suppose he will. And I’m sure your evidence is very convincing. But what will you do if he doesn’t believe you?”

Martin licks his lips and tries to shrug. “Protect him, I guess. As best as I can. If I’m right, he’ll find out the truth eventually on his own.”

“Oh, you are.” Elias’ frank admission makes the breath catch in Martin’s throat. He expected Elias to prevaricate, or attempt to convince him he was imagining things, but…no, no, this is definitely more frightening. “You’re absolutely right, Martin. And I’m sure, as smart as you are, that you’ve gone over a number of other statements beyond Ms.—Saraki’s, was it?—and found even more connections to support your theory, so you know this goes well beyond the Institute.”

“I-I…yes?” The more Elias agrees with him, or seems to praise him, the more frightened Martin gets. Which is probably the point.

“Mm. I wonder, though, if you really understand the implications of what you’ve discovered. There is so much more to this than you realize, Martin, and I wonder if you realize how harmful telling Jon would be.”

“Why? Because he’ll ask the wrong questions?” Martin asks before he thinks about it. “If Jon—he won’t quit or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about. Not now. He’ll, he’ll look into things, start investigating. If I don’t have answers for him, he’ll try to find them on his own—that’s not a bad thing. What do you think will happen if I do?”

Elias jerks his head back slightly a split second before Martin tastes the static on his tongue and realizes what just happened. He tries not to let it show on his face. He’s fairly certain he isn’t supposed to know about that, and there’s no reason anyone would suspect that the Beholding gave them spooky knowing powers. Certainly he’s not supposed to have them. Hopefully his reaction doesn’t show on his face.

It doesn’t seem to. Elias gathers himself quickly. “You’re getting emotional, Martin. Just calm down.”

Martin isn’t sure if he’s relieved or alarmed that Elias seems able to resist his compelling. Then again, he’s not all that powerful. “I’m not emotional! I-I’m just—I was asking.”

“Of course Jon will try to find answers. But please understand that some of those answers…may not be in his best interest. Or yours, for that matter.” Elias leans slightly forward and meets Martin’s eyes. “Allow me to give you an example.”

Martin can’t stop the frightened gasp that rips itself from his throat as Jonah’s—there’s no denying in this instant that they belong to Jonah Magnus—eyes bore into Martin’s. The world seems to go black and white with a green wash and fill with static, and the thoughts fill his mind, thoughts and sights and memories not his own—

Her name on his lips is almost like a curse, and she lets one of her own fall as she sets aside the can and looks into those eyes, and she needs no prompting from the Eye to know what he has come to do. Even as they talk, as they both try to taunt each other and figure out who has the upper hand, she reaches into her pocket and fishes out the lighter, Gerard’s lighter—she never should have left the boy behind, but maybe it’s better this way—flicks it on. One little spark, and it will all end for him. But he reaches into his own pocket, pulls out a dark and ominous object, primes it, aims it at her. It comes to this, to which of them can ignite faster. She dares him to do it. He fires. She feels the impact, gasps and collapses, and for a moment, she wishes she had made other choices, she wishes—but no. She is dying, but in all she has done, she has kept safe that which she swore to keep safe. Still. She thought it would hurt more.

—and the color rushes back to the Archives, all the grey sucking into Jonah’s eyes as he blinks and straightens back up, adjusting his suit jacket with an imperious tug. Martin is pressed back against his desk, clutching it behind him with both hands and barely keeping from crumpling to the floor. His face is wet and his breath coming in short pants and gasps, and he realizes he’s sobbing, not sure if it’s with sorrow or fear. Maybe it’s both.

“Knowledge can be dangerous, Martin,” Elias says, as calmly as if he hasn’t just made Martin experience the death of a fiery old woman from inside her own head, at the hands of the man in front of him. “Do keep that in mind.” He turns to walk away, then pauses and glances over his shoulder. “Oh—and I would be cautious who I shared that knowledge with, if I were you. Jon isn’t the only one who would require proof, and I rather think Detective Tonner might have cause to suspect you had…ulterior motives in making such a wild and bold claim without evidence to back it up.” With that, he strides out of the Archives.

He passes Sasha coming in on his way out, or at least Martin’s pretty sure it’s Sasha; all he can see right now is a blur as he tries without success to get his sobbing under control. It’s definitely Sasha’s voice that speaks next, sounding worried. “Martin?”

“I—I’ll be right back,” Martin manages to choke out. He turns and bolts blindly from the Archives in the direction of the washroom. Once there, he locks himself in and slides down to the floor, buries his face in his arms, and cries.

It’s one thing to know Elias Bouchard murdered Gertrude Robinson. It’s another thing to experience it, to feel her dying moments imprint on him—what she felt in the moments leading up to it. And now he knows what it feels like to be shot, wonders if it felt like that for Martin Prime. God, he hopes he never has to deal with that again.

He takes a deep, shaking breath as the sobbing finally subsides and wipes at his face, then gets up to wash the tears and snot off. Once he’s done, he studies himself in the bathroom mirror. His eyes are reddened, his skin bears the too-shiny look of being freshly scrubbed, but it’s the best he can do. Hopefully it’ll be enough. He takes a deep breath and heads back into the Archives.

He gets there just as the door to the main corridor slams, making him jump. From the fact that Jon is frozen halfway across the Archives and Tim is over by their desks with Sasha, Martin guesses it’s Daisy leaving. Jon sighs and runs a hand through his hair, then turns and freezes. “Martin! Are you all right?”

Tim turns, his face creased in concern, and takes a step towards him with his arms already stretching out, but Martin shakes his head quickly. “Don’t—not right now. Please.”

It’s not that he doesn’t want a hug. He does, desperately. After what he’s been through, he can admit what he shied away from when he first went down to the tunnels—that the safest place in the world is in Tim and Jon’s arms. But he also knows that if he gives in and lets either of them touch him right now, he’ll fall apart. He’s just managed to get himself back together, and they still have half a day to get through, somehow.

Sasha holds out a mug—his mug, or at least the one he usually uses, the cobalt blue one with the raised pattern that looks like a cable-knit sweater, which happens to match the one he’s wearing today—brimming with tea. Martin accepts it with quiet thanks, then manages to sit down before he falls over. Tim pulls out his chair, turns it around, and straddles it, resting his chin on the back; Sasha sits down at her own desk, but doesn’t fire up her laptop yet. Jon hovers nearby, his face creased with anxiety and exhaustion in equal parts. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Martin lies. He’s never felt less fine in his life, but he’s also not sure Elias isn’t listening; even if he’s not lurking right outside the Archives, he could be watching Martin, waiting to see how he’s going to bring up his “theories”. “I was—exploring the tunnels. While you were talking to Detective Tonner. Sorry for sneaking around on you.”

Jon looks confused for a split second, then suddenly seems to understand. “Well, it’s not like I haven’t been down there myself. We all have. In fact, I think we’d best just leave the trapdoor unlocked in the future. I’d like to have a complete map of it anyway. But please, all three of you—don’t go down alone. Certainly not without telling anyone. Take a companion if you feel the need to explore.” He slides off Martin’s desk. “Tell you what. Why don’t we all go down there right now? There’s nothing going on at the moment. We’ll take an hour and look around a bit. Together.”

Sasha grabs a piece of paper, writes BACK IN 60 MINUTES on it, folds it into a tent, and leaves it up on their desks, then gives Jon a charming smile. “Just in case Elias comes down to visit.”

“Right. Bring your tea, Martin, come on.” Jon strides briskly over to the trapdoor, which Martin didn’t lock when he came out.

Tea. Martin opens his desk drawer and pulls out the bottle of aspirin he keeps there, slips it into his pocket, and grabs the box of ginger tea off their station before following the others down into the tunnels. Tim waits for him at the foot of the stairs, makes like he’s going to put his hand on Martin’s back, then evidently remembers his earlier request and instead takes the box of tea out of his hands. Martin nods gratefully.

The door to the Primes’ room is still open. Jon pokes his head in the door. “Sorry to bother you, but I didn’t want to wait until after hours.”

“Two visits in a single day. I’m honored,” Jon Prime says dryly. He’s smirking a little, but his expression falls when he sees Martin come in the room. “I am now concerned.”

Tim hands over the box of ginger tea. “That makes…four of us. Five if Martin Prime there wants to join in the concern.”

“Sure. I love worrying,” Martin Prime says, his head still resting in Jon Prime’s lap. “I’m guessing it’s not your Jon we’re worrying about? Unless he’s more upset by Daisy’s statement than you were.”

“No, it’s Martin,” Sasha replies. “I came back from lunch just as Elias was leaving and Martin was—” She catches herself.

“Having a bit of a breakdown,” Martin replies softly.

“Oh, God. Already?” Martin Prime sits up abruptly, then winces, evidently regretting it.

“Have a seat. All of you,” Jon Prime instructs. He studies Martin in obvious concern. “What did he say to you?”

Martin pulls the aspirin out of his pocket and shakes it once before handing it to Jon Prime. “It’s…I don’t know where to start. He was waiting for me when I got out of the tunnels.”

Haltingly, clutching his tea in both hands and staring into its depths, he tells the others the whole story—Elias’ questions, his own half-truths. Sasha’s eyes brighten when he mentions accidentally attempting to compel Elias, and she turns to Jon Prime, whose lips are set in a thin line. He shakes his head. “I know what you’re thinking, Sasha, but it won’t work. He’s strong enough to resist you. I tried, once, with all the force I have…he answered me, but only because he wanted to.”

“So it’s like Zone of Truth? He can choose to fail the saving throw automatically?” Tim frowns. “That’s unfair.”

“Well, he’s had two hundred years to practice, Tim.” Jon Prime turns back to Martin, and his expression is grim. “I don’t imagine he was pleased with that. What did he say about that?”

“He didn’t mention it,” Martin replies. “I—I think I managed to not let on that I realized I’d done it? He just told me to calm down. Th-then he said…he said there were some answers that may not be in our best interest, and…” He takes a deep breath. “He showed me Gertrude’s death.”

“He what?” both Jons shout in unison.

Tim lets out a string of Italian hot enough to blister paint and starts to stand. Sasha grabs his pant leg and tugs him back down, but even she looks pale in the lantern light. “Showed you. How? Put the pictures in your head?”

“Not pictures. More than video, too. It was like…like VR, o-or—I don’t know how to explain it.” Martin’s voice shakes, and he has to set the tea mug down before he breaks it. “I-it was like I was Gertrude Robinson. I-I could, I could feel what she was feeling, I had her thoughts, a-and I was listening to her talking with Elias—with Jonah—a-and then he…she had a lighter, I think she was going to burn the Archives down, and he had a gun, and she was telling him to shoot her or leave her alone, so he did.”

Jon Prime closes his eyes tightly. “‘Thought it would hurt more,’” he murmurs.

Martin Prime rubs his chest absently. “She must have a higher pain tolerance than I do.”

“It wasn’t physical pain she was talking about,” Martin says. Something clicks into place and he knows it with a certainty he’s felt about precious little else in his life. “It was the emotional pain, the knowledge that she was dying, that her plan failed. That the Fears were still out there and Jonah’s plan could still succeed.” A stabbing headache, not quite a migraine but similar in intensity, hits him directly between the eyes, and he closes his eyes, rubbing at the spot.

“Christ, Martin,” Tim breathes. “Will you take that damn hug now?”

“Y-yeah.”Martin manages a smile as he opens his eyes again and Tim’s arm wraps around his shoulders, pulling him close. Jon reaches over and grips his hand hard; Sasha rests a hand on his other arm.

“God.” Jon Prime looks shaken. He clutches Martin Prime’s hand like a lifeline. “I-I always just assumed…”

Martin shakes his head slightly. “From what I could feel, she was—there were some regrets, but I don’t think actually dying upset her all that much, and I think that kind of surprised her.” He sighs. “Not that I was doing all that great. A-and then it all stopped, and I just…I’m pretty sure I was crying before all that, but I hadn’t noticed. Elias told me that ‘knowledge can be dangerous’, and then said I should be careful about who I shared the knowledge he’d just given me with.”

Tim tenses, but Martin Prime just sighs. “In other words, he thought your first instinct would be to tell Daisy he killed Gertrude. Only there’s no proof for that, so she would have assumed you were covering up for Jon.”

“She said they know I didn’t do it,” Jon murmurs. “They got the CCTV footage cleaned up…”

“Then she’d have blamed me,” Martin says softly. “Not that I would have told her anyway. I’m not stupid. But—”

“But he knew that,” Sasha completes. “I bet he was trying to convince you to tell her. Put the idea in your head. Maybe he thought you’d do it to prove him wrong…”

“And then either you or Jon would get arrested,” Tim says harshly. “Or worse.”

“Probably worse,” Martin Prime agrees. “He—” He suddenly freezes, his spine stiffening. “Oh.”

“Oh? What ‘oh’? I don’t like that ‘oh.’” Tension creeps into Tim’s voice.

“Tim, have you—looked at anyone on the team?”

“L—wh—no,” Tim sputters. “You mean with my—? No! I promised I wouldn’t—a-and that’s, that’s invasive, I don’t—why would I do that?”

“Because I’m wondering how many marks you all have. Separately and individually.” Martin Prime takes a deep breath. “If Jonah knows your Martin is developing powers…”

“No,” Jon Prime breathes. “No, he—he wouldn’t, it won’t—it wouldn’t work that way.” He pauses. “Would it?”

“If they’re all reading statements? Why wouldn’t it?”

Martin feels the other three draw closer to him, all of them managing to huddle in a group together. It’s Jon who finally asks, his voice full of trepidation, “Why wouldn’t what work?”

Dread runs down Martin’s spine as Martin Prime seems to meet each of their eyes, despite his blindness. “If you all have roughly the same number of marks, and you’re all developing powers from the Eye…Jonah might be considering whether or not he has to actually use your Jon for his ritual. Or if he could use one of you instead.”

#ollie writes fanfic #leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall)#tma #the magnus archives #jonmartin #emotional cruelty cw #mind manipulation cw #canon-typical Elias Bouchard asshattery

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sketchy-scribs-n-doods · 5 years ago

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saw your post about time travel fics. do you have any particular ones you can recommend? 👀👀

Yes!! I sure fuckin do!! my good Anon!! And @astupidgaytrashcan and @applestorms , you too my dudes, I saw ur tags ! >:D

Buckle up this is a bit of a long one bc I have Things To Say

Here goes:

Yesterday is Here by CirrusGrey

["Who the hell are you?" Jon could feel his hands shaking.

The man laughed, taking a step forward and raising a hand to point at him.

"I'm you, from the future!" he said, then swayed, eyes going unfocused, and collapsed to the floor in a dead faint.]

This is the 'Everything WILL Go Right This Time Or So Help Me God' Fix-It Queen of the bunch, featuring S4 Jon and Martin hopping back in time to S1 to set things right, S4 Jon being So Done with S1 Jon, some tasty ass Bullying Elias hours, Jon finally dealing with his emotions, and some double JonMartin goodness, 10/10 recommended.

Reverb in These Holy Halls by Wolftraps (AlwaysBoth)

[Undoing the apocalypse would have been enough for Jon, if all his people survived. Without them, Jon's only recourse is making it so it never happened in the first place. He's going to do better this time.]

This bad boy said 'idk if i'm doing this right but by god i'm gonna try'. Features: Jon being Gay and Sad about shit, Jon bitching at Elias, Powerful Archivist Jon, the Web gifting Jon a cat, Found Family, shit going Wrong in completely Different ways this time around, and the avatars deciding they hate Elias more than they hate Jon.

Reflection by LazuliQuetzal

[Jonathan Sims, researcher at the Magnus Institute, is seeing a ghost. Of himself.

Of course, it’s not really him, no matter what secrets it knows, or how many arguments it brings up. So if it tells him to do something? Obviously, he’ll be doing the exact opposite.]

This one's still ongoing, but strong with almost 40k and 8 chapters so far. Bit of a twist on the time travel trope, but definitely excellently and infuriatingly well executed. Features: S1 Jon being the Biggest Bitch Ever, Gertrude Robinson being shady af, S4 Jon doing His Best, more Bullying Elias hours, Martin being Hopelessly Gay, scarily Competent gay amazonian goddess Sasha, and the Jons having some massive arguments and emotional upheaval quality bonding time.

(Also Leitner getting his pathetic little old man bones knocked sideways if that's sweetens the pot for you)

Martin Blackwood Tries to Save the World (and Drags Jon with Him) by TheRealAndian

[It's the end of the world, and Jon and Martin have no idea how to fix it. That is, until a suspicious door lands them unsuspectingly in the past, long before the apocalypse. Now they have to work together with their former coworkers and their younger selves to stop the Magnus Archives from being completed, and maybe even admit their feelings for one another.]

Jon and Martin are SUCH a mess in this one and I love them dearly for it. Featuring: S4 Jon and Martin being super soft, Plans Falling Apart, S1 crew being very confused, Elias Gets Punched ©, Helen Richardson being as lovely as ever, Get Fucked Peter Lukas , many 'oops' moments, more double JonMartin, and a gentle epilogue. <3

Your Today is My Yesterday by ArtificialDaydreams

[“My name is Jonathan Sims... and I am not from this timeline.”

It has been seven months, two weeks, six days, fifteen hours, and thirty-seven minutes since the world ended, Jon wasn’t counting, but the Beholding let him Know anyway. Offered a chance to go back Jon struggles with fixing his past mistakes and keeping everyone in the Institute from realizing he's not the same man he was before.]

This one's also in progress, but at 43k and 16 out 19 chapters done, there's loads to enjoy here! This dude features: Jon trying to figure out a balance between 'old bitchy Jon' and 'new kinder Jon' in front of his coworkers and failing, Jon being Soft for Martin, Elias being a Bitch, Daisy being a Good Friend, Helen Richardson again being the Best Ever, Hunting Down your evil boss hours, and as of the newest chapter, a Gerry being a Good Bro cameo and Martin's sweet sweet manipulation skills.

your future is optional by gayprophets

[There’s a beat of silence, Annabelle clearly waiting for something.

“Oh my God,” Martin says suddenly. Jon is staring at her blankly, either uncomprehending or flabbergasted. “Are you seriously suggesting - you’re not,” he continues, because she can’t be, he must be misreading the situation somehow. “You have to be joking,” he says, desperate, “You’re not suggesting time travel.”

Annabelle cocks a perfectly-manicured eyebrow, smiling serenely, and Jon bursts into hysterical laughter.]

Listen, l i s t en, this one isn't complete either, and technically what's there has no time travel yet, but it's one chapter has 11k of glorious world building and spot-on character interaction building up to the actual time travel towards the end of the chapter. In this chapter 1 out of 3, you get: S5 Jon and Martin being So Fucking Soft with each other (honestly my h e a r t), Annabelle Crane being a Terrifying Bad Bitch, some solid Basira, Georgie, and Melanie interactions with the boys, really some very nice character introspection and wrapping your head around the idea of time travel in the first place, and a Mighty Need for more like hhhhhhhh-

These are just my main favorites so far! I started tma on the 19th of June honestly! I'm new here, but I absorb new shit voraciously so-! asdfhsjsksk tbh I've got like 4 other fics with this same exact trope open rn (in addition to a dozen more with different tropes hahaaaa) and I'm still reading through them bc I'm a Mess lmao, but feel free to hmu for more recs (of any trope type rly) in the future! I have,,, so many,,, and the list only grows,,,, :>

#tma #the magnus archives #magnuspod #jonmartin #tma fic rec #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #time travel tma fics #time travel fix it #time travel fic #fic rec #tma spoilers #prolly just bc of the very nature of these recs honestly #ask sketchy #long post #kinda yea lol bc idk how to shut up lol

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writemarcus · 4 years ago

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Jun. 23: Jason Robert Brown, Savion Glover, Priscilla López, Susan Stroman, Marisha Wallace, and Christopher Wheeldon Join I’M STILL HERE: A Virtual Benefit for the Billy Rose Theatre Division Honoring George C. Wolfe and the Late Harold Prince and Celebrating 90 Years of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; Tickets for the In-Person Viewing Party are Available Now

Jason Robert Brown, Savion Glover, Priscilla López, Susan Stroman, Marisha Wallace, and Christopher Wheeldon join the cavalcade of stars participating in The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts’ I’m Still Here: A Virtual Benefit for the Billy Rose Theatre Division, airing June 23, 2021 on Broadway On Demand at 8pm EST and 8pm PST. The fundraiser will help raise critical funds for the Library for the Performing Arts’ beloved Theatre Division as it celebrates its 90th anniversary this year.

Tickets to the online fundraiser will be donate-what-you-can, with a recommendation of at least $19.31 in honor of the year the division was founded. To purchase tickets to the one-time-only virtual event, visit StillHereAt90.com.

An in-person viewing party at the Library for the Performing Arts in Lincoln Center for donors has also just been announced, including a pre-screening reception and performance featuring Pulitzer Prize winner Michael R. Jackson (A Strange Loop), and GRAMMY and two-time Tony Award winner Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening). For details and ticket prices for this limited capacity in- person event, please contact [email protected].

An incredibly special aspect of I’m Still Here is that it will feature clips of Broadway productions from the Theatre Division’s Theatre on Film and Tape Archive (TOFT), shown especially for this occasion with special permission from The Coalition of Broadway Unions and Guilds and the respective talent, creative teams and rights holders of each production. These archival recordings are typically only available to view onsite at the Library for the Performing Arts. The recordings shown will include the original Broadway cast of In the Heights; Angela Bassett and Samuel L. Jackson in The Mountaintop; Brian Stokes Mitchell in Ragtime; Glenn Close in Sunset Boulevard; Kelli O’Hara and Paulo Szot in South Pacific; Craig Bierko and Rebecca Luker in The Music Man; Meryl Streep, Marcia Gay Harden and Larry Pine in The Seagull; Savion Glover, Jimmy Tate, Choclattjared and Raymond King in Bring in ‘da Noise, Bring in ‘da Funk; Bette Midler in I’ll Eat You Last; Christian Borle and Tim Curry in Spamalot; and more.

I’m Still Here will also include interviews with Broadway legends and emerging creatives; and reconceived performances of musical theatre songs, including Stephanie J. Block performing “A Trip to the Library,” André De Shields performing “I’m Still Here,” original Company cast members from 1970-to-present performing “Another Hundred People,” “Wheels of a Dream,” “Love Will Find a Way,” and more. The evening’s honorees are Harold Prince and George C. Wolfe.

Featuring new performances and appearances by Troy Anthony (The River Is Me), Annaleigh Ashford (Sunday in the Park with George), Major Attaway (Aladdin), Alexander Bello (Caroline, or Change), Laura Benanti (She Loves Me), Malik Bilbrew, Susan Birkenhead (Jelly’s Last Jam), Shay Bland, Stephanie J. Block (The Cher Show), Alex Brightman (Beetlejuice), Matthew Broderick (Plaza Suite), Jason Robert Brown (The Last 5 Years), Krystal Joy Brown (Hamilton), David Burtka (“A Series of Unfortunate Events”), Sammi Cannold (Endlings), Ayodele Casel (Chasing Magic), Kirsten Childs (Bella), Antonio Cipriano (Mean Girls), Victoria Clark (The Light in the Piazza), Max Clayton (Moulin Rouge!), Calvin L. Cooper (Mrs. Doubtfire), Trip Cullman (Choir Boy), Taeler Elyse Cyrus (Hello, Dolly!), Quentin Earl Darrington (Once on This Island), André De Shields (Hadestown), Frank DiLella (NY1), Derek Ege, Amina Faye, Harvey Fierstein (La Cage aux Folles), Leslie Donna Flesner (Tootsie), Chelsea P. Freeman, Savion Glover (Bring in ‘da Noise, Bring in ‘da Funk), Joel Grey (Cabaret), Ryan J. Haddad (“The Politician”),James Harkness (Ain’t Too Proud), Sheldon Harnick (Fiddler on the Roof), Marcy Harriell (Company), Mark Harris (“Mike Nichols: A Life”), Neil Patrick Harris (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly), Arica Jackson (Caroline, or Change), Michael R. Jackson (A Strange Loop), Cassondra James (Once on This Island), Marcus Paul James (Rent), Taylor Iman Jones (Hamilton), Maya Kazzaz, Tom Kirdahy (The Inheritance), Leslie Kritzer (Beetlejuice), Michael John LaChiusa (The Wild Party), Norman Lear (Good Times), Baayork Lee (A Chorus Line), L. Morgan Lee (A Strange Loop), Robert Lee (Takeaway), Sondra Lee (Hello, Dolly!), Telly Leung (Aladdin), Priscilla Lopez (A Chorus Line),Ashley Loren (Moulin Rouge!), Allen René Louis (“Jimmy Kimmel Live!”), Brittney Mack (Six), Morgan Marcell (Hamilton), Aaron Marcellus (“American Idol”), Joan Marcus, Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening), Annie McGreevey (Company), Sarah Meahl (Kiss Me, Kate), Joanna Merlin (Fiddler on the Roof), Ruthie Ann Miles (Sunday in the Park with George), Bonnie Milligan (Head Over Heels), Rita Moreno (West Side Story), Madeline Myers (Double Helix), Pamela Myers (Company),Leilani Patao (Garden Girl), Nova Payton (Dreamgirls), Joel Perez (Kiss My Aztec), Bernadette Peters (Into the Woods), Tonya Pinkins (Jelly’s Last Jam), Jacoby Pruitt, Sam Quinn, Phylicia Rashad (A Raisin in the Sun), Jelani Remy (Ain’t Too Proud), George Salazar (Be More Chill), Marilyn Saunders (Company), Marcus Scott (Fidelio), Rashidra Scott (Company), Rona Siddiqui (Tales of a Halfghan), Ahmad Simmons (West Side Story), Susan Stroman (The Producers), Rebecca Taichman (Indecent), Jeanine Tesori (Fun Home), Bobby Conte Thornton (Company), Sergio Trujillo (On Your Feet), Kei Tsuruharatani (Jagged Little Pill), Ben Vereen (Pippin), Jack Viertel, Christopher Vo (The Cher Show), Nik Walker (Ain’t Too Proud), Marisha Wallace (Dreamgirls), Shannon Fiona Weir, Christopher Wheeldon (MJ: The Musical),Helen Marla White (Ain’t Misbehavin’), Natasha Yvette Williams (“Orange is the New Black”), and Kumiko Yoshii (Prince of Broadway).

Click here to watch New York Public Library’s Doug Reside on Backstage LIVE with Richard Ridge.

The virtual benefit is produced and conceived by co-founder of the upcoming Museum of Broadway and four-time Tony nominee Julie Boardman (Company) and Co-Executive Producer of Broadway For Biden Nolan Doran (Head Over Heels), featuring direction by Steve Broadnax (Thoughts Of A Colored Man), Sammi Cannold (Endlings), Nick Corley (Plaza Suite), GRAMMY Award Winner Ty Defoe (Straight White Men), Drama Desk winner Lorin Latarro (Waitress), Mia Walker (Jagged Little Pill) and Tony Award winnerJason Michael Webb (Choir Boy), choreography by Ayodele Casel (Chasing Magic),Lorin Latarro and Ray Mercer (The Lion King), with new music arranged by ASCAP Award winner Rachel Dean (Medusa) and Annastasia Victory (A Wonderful World), with arrangements and orchestrations by Brian Usifer (Frozen). Casting is by Peter Van Dam at Tara Rubin Casting.

Tony Marx is the president of The New York Public Library, William Kelly is the Andrew W. Mellon Director of the Research Libraries,Jennifer Schantz is the Barbara G. and Lawrence A. Fleischman Executive Director of the Library for the Performing Arts, and Doug Reside is the Lewis and Dorothy Cullman Curator of the Billy Rose Theatre Division. Patrick Hoffman is the curator of the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive. Henry Tisch serves as Associate Producer and Travis Waldschmidt is Associate Choreographer. Animation and Motion Graphics by Kate Freer, Graphic Design by Caitlin Whittington, Sean MacLaughlin is Director of Photography and Ian Johnston is B Camera Operator. Dylan Tashjian is Onsite Coordinator with COVID compliance by Lauren Class Schneider.

HOST COMMITTEE: Ted & Mary Jo Shen, Barbara Fleischman, Agnes Gund, Fiona & Eric Rudin, Lizzie & Jon Tisch, Kate Cannova, Joan Marcus, Daisy Prince, Gayfryd Steinberg, Van Horn Group

LIBRARY FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS THEATRE COMMITTEE: Emily Altman, Margot Astrachan, Ken Billington, Julie Boardman, Ted Chapin, Bonnie Comley, Van Dean, Kurt Deutsch, Scott Farthing, Barbara Fleischman, Freddie Gershon, Louise Hirschfeld, Joan Marcus, Elliott Masie, Arthur Pober, Ed Schloss, Morwin Schmookler, Jenna Segal, Ted Shen, Kara Unterberg, Abbie Van Nostrand, Kumiko Yoshii

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS DOROTHY AND LEWIS B. CULLMAN CENTER houses one of the world’s most extensive combinations of circulating, reference, and rare archival collections in the field of dance, theatre, music and recorded sound. These materials are available free of charge, along with a wide range of special programs, including exhibitions, seminars, and performances. An essential resource for everyone with an interest in the arts — whether professional or amateur — the Library is known particularly for its prodigious collections of non-book materials such as historic recordings, videotapes, autograph manuscripts, correspondence, sheet music, stage designs, press clippings, programs, posters and photographs. The Library is part of The New York Public Library system, which has locations in the Bronx, Manhattan and Staten Island, and is a lead provider of free education for all.

BROADWAY ON DEMAND is the industry-leading livestream platform housing performance & theatre education programming, & the preferred choice of top Broadway artists, producers, educators & professionals. Broadway On Demand has streamed 2,500 events & live productions—from Broadway shows to concert series, performance venues to individual artists, & original content—in 82 countries to over 300,000 viewers. Thanks to a unique licensing interface, ShowShare, approved middle school, high school, college, community & professional theatre productions utilize the platform to stream to their audiences. Broadway on Demand is available on the web, mobile, Apple and Android app store, AppleTV, Roku, Chromecast, and Amazon Fire TV. For access to the complete and ever-expanding Broadway on Demand library, subscribe at BroadwayOnDemand.com.

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#NYPL #new york public library #New York Public Library for the Performing Arts #Billy Rose Theatre Division #Marcus Scott #MarcusScott #WriteMarcus #Write Marcus #THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS DOROTHY AND LEWIS B. CULLMAN CENTER #George C. Wolfe #Harold Prince #theatre #theater #musical theater #musical theatre

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yellowocaballero · 5 years ago

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You And Me (And Your Friend Daisy)

Thanks for pushing me to finish this, Anon! This is a short, fun, and romantic story written in the verse of my other fics Bell, Book, and Candle and No Sin But Ignorance. Takes place some time post the ending of No Sin But Ignorance. That being said, this is probably very comprehensible without knowledge of those fics, so feel free to just view it as a no-apocalypse au. The majority of this was written while writing Feste - more accurately, when I needed a break from the crushing depression of Feste, so that’s why it’s so cheerful. :)

Yes, it’s named after that Garfunkel and Oates song, because that’s the plot.

The rest of the story is under the cut!

*******************************************

“Are you going to tell me where we are?”

“You have to guess! And no peeking!”

Jon sighed, slouching in his seat. He hated surprise vacations. He hated being forced to leave work and ‘take a break’ because ‘you’re contractually obligated to use your PTO hours’. And he did take vacations, he didn’t know why everybody acted like he didn’t. He and Georgie took Gerry to Blackpool once a year for Spring Break. That was a whole week off. That was enough for anybody.

But Martin had been pointedly sending him emails about ‘fun couple’s trips’ and ‘romantic getaways’ in an ultra-subtle act of subliminal messaging. Indeed, the three emailed promotional advertisements listing off fun, relaxing, and romantic things to do with your significant other were so subtle that Emma was forced to listen in on the automated JAWS voice reading them out and then call him a ‘fucking idiot’.

Whatever. It wasn’t as if Gertrude took any vacations, and nobody got on her back for it. Jon was willing to bet that Dekker never sent Gertrude any passive aggressive emails. He would have to ask him later - they got boba together once a month, he was an excellent conversational partner. He was, of course, slightly insane, both for his fervent adherence to the ancient religions and willingness to come within five feet of Gertrude Robinson for personal reasons, but all the best supernatural hunters were.

“Well, we’ve clearly been driving north for the past eight hours, judging from the angle of the sun,” Jon said, annoyed. The car radio was playing the Archers in a dull drone, which Jon had insisted upon, because he and Daisy never missed an episode. This confused and frightened Martin. A bag rustled, and Jon knew that Martin was fishing around in the plastic convenience store sack for more Jaffa cakes. “Combined with the time, that can only mean that we’re going to Scotland. I don’t have any close friends in Scotland and I’m willing to be you don’t either -”

“Hey!”

“ - so unless you assigned yourself the task of following up on the Scottish Slaughter Statement without me assigning it to you, and deciding to bring me along, I’m guessing that we’re going to stay in a hotel and do...touristy things.”

“Wrong again,” Martin said triumphantly. He liked keeping track of every time Jon was innocently incorrect about something, just to prove it to everyone else. “I mean, yes, we are in Scotland, you’re right about that, but we are not staying in a hotel. We’re staying in the country.”

“Darling, I would love to sit on the Scottish Moors and stare out into the endless, unceasing fog with you in complete silence,” Jon said lovingly, “but I thought you wanted to do something romantic.”

“That’s not romantic?” Martin gasped, horrified. “Have you even read Wuthering Heights?”

“You and Gerry are two peas in a goth pod.”

“He’s goth, I’m gothic. There’s a difference. And don’t tell me that you don’t enjoy gothic literature - you’re literally a Byronic hero.”

“Oh, here we go,” Jon sighed, as the car bumped over a speed bump. He hadn’t heard another car for hours now, and he knew that they had to be in the middle of nowhere. The weather had grown colder, more humid, and occasionally he could hear the bleat of cows. It was...calming.

Then Martin started listing off the very many reasons why Jon was a classical Byronic hero, then Jon had to remind him that none of that stuff had technically happened, then Martin began insisting that it happened in their hearts, then Jon got deeply engrossed into today’s episode of the Archers and felt the need to inform Martin about its illustrious and aged history, which prompted Martin to put on Hatsune Miku when the episode was over and indoctrinate Jon into whatever ‘Vocaloid’ was, and by the time the car transitioned to skittering over bumpy gravel they were both entering a heated discussion about the most superior of the ‘Vocaloids’.

“ - and she created Minecraft?”

“And she’s trans,” Martin said heatedly.

“Good for her,” Jon said, just bemused. The car engine quieted, and keys clinked and rustled. “Are we here?”

“Yep! Seven hours later.” Martin sighed and made a quiet, satisfied noise, probably stretching, and Jon didn’t bother to fight his smile. Man was like a cat. “I want to show you around and everything, but honestly that drive was exhausting and I might take a nap first.” He sighed happily. “Peace. Quiet. No coworkers.”

“I’m your coworker,” Jon pointed out, opening the door of the car as Martin did the same. He stepped onto gravel, grinding his trainer a little into it, and breathed in. The air tasted...fresh. Clean. Pure and just a little chilly. It was nice. It perked Jon up, as the wind lightly tousled his curls. He stretched his legs too, cramped from being knitted up in the small car. Martin popped the boot and started loading packages into his arms, and Jon walked over and held his arms out so he could help Martin carry the packages. Martin dropped a picnic basket filled with snacks in his arms, and handed him his own suitcase, as Martin dropped his own suitcase on the ground with a heavy thump. “How does a teenage girl create a video game? That’s very impressive.”

“This week you are my boyfriend,” Martin corrected him, thumping the boot down. “No Emma getting on my case about misfiling the papers. No Michael concern trolling me. No Eric judging me for my taste in tea. No Gertrude terrifying me every second of the day. I am free. I am not going to think about work, or anybody related to work, for a single second. No Entities. No fear demons. No monsters, besides my boyfriend.”

“Thanks,” Jon said wryly. “Aren’t we forgetting someone?”

“Oh, darn it!” Martin opened the back door of the car, and pulled out a carrier. The wire door of the carrier cinched open and Tiresias came bounding out, barking madly and running in little circles around Jon, his tail beating against Jon’s leg. Jon laughed, lifting his burden higher in his arms, and let Martin loop his arm around Jon’s and guide him towards what he had to assume was some kind of building. “C’mere, boy. Good boy! You were so good for the trip! You’re getting a hundred snacks as soon we get inside.”

“Are you going to tell me where we are yet?” Jon asked, exasperated.

Martin squeezed his arm happily as they walked up an incline, shoes scuffing dirt. “I got permission from Daisy to borrow it. It’s her cabin, just outside of Applecross. It’s really in the middle of nowhere, nobody around for kilometers. Just us and a great deal of cows. It’s really gorgeous, Jon, with such clean air and beautiful hills. I can’t wait to go for walks with you. You’ll get so much time to go through your audiobook collection. And we can snuggle, and I can cook for you, and we can listen to more radio dramas, and we can talk about our future, and you can pet the cows…”

“Sounds wonderful,” Jon said honestly, squeezing Martin’s arm back. They paused, Martin rustling his keys again, and Jon heard the grinding of metal before a door seemed to creak open. “I can’t wait to spend this week with you. I could use a little peace, I think.”

“Gods, me too. You have no idea how stressed I’ve been. It’ll be just you, me, and -”

That’s when Martin screamed, and Tiresias barked excitedly and ran forward, almost bowling Jon over, and a familiar voice broke the quiet of the rustic cabin.

“Aren’t you a good boy, Tiresias? Aren’t you a good boy?” Daisy Tonner’s grin was audible through her words, but it held a familiar tint of ferociousness. “Hullo, Jon. Blackwood. What are you doing here a week early?”

“Early!” Martin squeaked. “I said we were coming up the first week of September -”

“Really?” Daisy said, voice casual. Seemingly. “Because I have it down in my calendar as the second week. This is my vacation. And I’m not leaving.”

Silence stretched between them. Jon smiled happily towards the sound of Daisy’s voice, placing his burdens at his feet, and soon Daisy walked forward and enveloped him in a bone cracking hug.

“It’s so good to see you,” Jon said, hugging her tightly back too. “I’m sure we can share the cabin for the week. It’ll be fun, like a sleepover!”

“Oh, I think so too,” Daisy said, her voice tinged in a wolf’s grin. “Don’t you think so, Martin?”

“Good fucking christ,” Martin said.

****

True to his word, Martin was exhausted enough that he immediately made the bed and collapsed into it. Jon lovingly took off his shoes and socks and Tiresias even, adorably, pulled the comforter up around Martin’s ears. But Martin didn’t sleep: he seemed preoccupied in angrily muttering to himself about how he didn’t get the time wrong, she did, this was all her fault, and it was also completely on purpose, devil woman, everybody was trying to ruin everything -

“Love, if I ask her to go, she’ll go,” Jon said.

“No! Ugh!” Martin screamed lowly, muffled, and Jon realized with amusement he was screaming into the pillow. “It’s her house, she’s doing us a favor, I don’t want to be rude! I can’t kick her out of her own home!”

“Are you going to be passive aggressive at her until she leaves?”

Incriminatingly, Martin was silent.

“She’s more stubborn than you are. If you try to solve this with your usual methods she’ll outlast you.”

“I hate her so much,” Martin groaned.

“Don’t say that,” Jon said loyally. “She’s really come around to you, you know. She hasn’t threatened to chop your dick off in - oh, two weeks now. That’s a new record.”

Martin groaned again. Jon kissed him on the cheek, turned the light off - “Jon, you just turned the light on.” - turned the light off for real this time, and went into the living room/dining room/kitchen to start putting away all the food they had brought. He bent over his suitcase, withdrawing Tiresias’ harness, and whistled to call him over before snapping the harness on. Tiresias stiffened into what Georgie called ‘Buisness Boy Mode’, and Jon grabbed his handle with one hand as he loaded the groceries into the other.

“Here, let me help.” Daisy lifted the other load from the floor, leading the both of them into the kitchen and opening the fridge. “I know Georgie’s organizational system.”

Jon just sighed, slowly navigating his way to the fridge to put his own load away. They had clothing to unpack, things to set up, and arrangements to plan, but Jon had the sense that none of it was getting done immediately.

“What were your plans for this week?”

“I normally go up here to hunt,” Daisy grunted, sliding cans into the cabinet. At Jon’s raised eyebrow, she clarified, “with guns. They’re all locked up in the gun cabinet, as is my ammo and knives. Neither you nor Martin have the keys, but the cabinet is in a closet near the bathroom. That should be locked too.”

“Goodness, Daisy, I’m not an errant toddler. I won’t play with your collection.”

“You’re my errant toddler,” Daisy said loyally, giving him a noogie and making him scowl. “Say it. Say you’re an errant toddler.”

“Goodness, Daisy, leave me be -”

Then she lifted him up, like he was nothing more than a bundle of sticks, and held him in the air as he screamed and kicked his legs, trying to get down. Tiresias, the Traitor, the Serpent, the King of Lies, barked happily. “Let me down! Daisy!”

“Say you’re an errant toddler and I’ll let you down.”

“I shan’t. Daisy, stop -!” But then she started tickling him, which was extremely dangerous, and Jon was forced to cackle out in breathless laughter, “Fine, I’m a toddler, let me down, you crazy woman!”

She tossed him lightly onto the pull-out couch, putting away the rest of the groceries herself, and Jon let Tiresias sit on top of him and lick his face as he could almost audibly hear Martin pouting in the bedroom.

“This’ll be fun,” Daisy said, shutting the cabinet and rustling some familiar boxes. “Can’t believe Tim paid me fifty quid to do this. I would have done it for free.”

“Do what?”

“Never mind. I have your copy of Life, do you want to play?”

“Sure!” Jon sat up, feeling Daisy sit down next to him and set out the game pieces. Then something occurred to him. “Wait. What are you doing with my copy of Life?”

“Georgie lent it to me.”

“...why did Georgie -”

“I was going to leave it here for when you came up,” Daisy said easily, and Jon nodded in acceptance. “Spin the spinner to see whose turn comes first.”

Jon considered thinking deeper about this, but Daisy wouldn’t lie to him. She was the most trustworthy person he knew. She didn’t have a deceitful bone in her body. He shrugged and reached forward and found the spinner, giving it a good twist before rubbing his thumb over the braille. Something occurred to him.

“Maybe we can ask Martin if he wants to join -”

“I’m sure he would prefer his rest.”

“Okay!”

This vacation was going to go great. Why had Jon been worried?

****

That night they had a delicious barbecue outside, cooked by Daisy. Martin ate it in angry silence, which was quickly broken by Jon’s frequent nudges and directions for conversation. He wasn’t the most socially adept person at the best of times, but Martin and Daisy were two of his best friends and he knew how to get the both of them talking. He was even able to draw them into a spirited conversation about 19th century literature - Daisy preferred Russian novels, while Martin preferred Gothic romances and Hugo and Jon tended towards nonfiction. Afterwards Daisy grabbed her gun, kissed Jon on the cheek, did something that made Martin squeak in fear, and tramped off to go hunt deer or something. Jon waved her off with a blessing, his sixth sense thrumming with satisfaction for the Sacrifice.

He spent the night cuddled up with Martin, watching Beauty and the Beast on his laptop. Martin was obsessed with Disney movies in a way that explained a great deal about him, and Beauty and the Beast was his absolute favorite. Jon ran his fingers through his soft and feathery hair as Martin squeezed his hand, and Jon’s heart settled in complete contentment. The audio description voice droned gently about the heartwarming falling in love montages, but Jon wasn’t really paying attention: he just felt safe, and warm, and as if he wanted the moment to last forever.

Then his mobile rang, a clear automated voice saying “Gerard calling. Gerard calling.”

“Oh, I should get that.” Jon straightened, throwing out a hand on the coffee table where he thought he had put his phone, and Martin pressed it into his hand. He accepted the call quickly, putting it on speaker and holding it up to his ear just like, he was reliably assured, ‘an old man’. “Hello, honey?”

“Jon!” Gerry yelled. “Did you get the cabin okay?”

“Oh, so everyone knew but me,” Jon said, amused. “You’re on speaker, Gerry, so say hello to Mr. Blackwood.”

“Hi Martin! Are you guys having a good time? You have to take me next time, I want to see Daisy’s guns!”

“You will not see Daisy’s guns,” Jon said quickly.

“Hi Gerry,” Martin said, a smile clear in his somewhat strained voice. “Sure, you and Georgie should come up next time. Make it a party. Why not.”

“Told you she’d do it,” Georgie said, and Jon perked up. “Hullo, love. How’s your romantic getaway going?”

“Oh, it’s lovely,” Jon said, excited. “We’re going to walk down to the town tomorrow, check out some of their antique stores. I’ll let you know if we find any interesting art.”

“I’ve been up to Daisy’s cabin a few times with Melanie, it’s delightful. Great place for her to hunt and for me to practice my carrion photography. It’s always nice just to get away from it all! I hope you haven’t touched any work, Jon.”

“I haven’t,” Jon said loyally. He paused a beat. “Do Statements count? Because I was planning on listening to a few recorded ones as a sort of bedtime story?”

“That’s just self-care,” Georgie assured him. “Treat yourself, queen.”

“Thanks, honey. Make sure Gerry gets his homework done? Do you need any help? I have some time now -”

“I got it,” Georgie said, laughing slightly. “I can still help a fifteen year old with his English. I’ll make sure he brushes his teeth too. Just enjoy yourself.”

“Have a good time, Dad!” Gerry called, the affectionate nickname making Jon smile. “Bring me back a cow!” Slightly more muffled, Jon heard him say to Georgie, “Mum, when Jon goes on a romantic getaway, what do you think they -”

“Night, honey! Night, Martin! Love you!” Georgie called loudly.

Jon laughed, unable to stop himself from waving a little, as if they were there. “Night, you two. Love you too. Stay safe.”

“We will! Bye!”

The line clicked off, and Martin’s arm stretched across Jon’s shoulders squeezed a little tighter. Jon extended a foot and clicked the space bar on the computer, starting up the movie again.

“You’d make a really good dad,” Martin said, almost to himself.

Jon settled back against Martin, leaning his head against his shoulder. “I feel like one already, honestly. Obviously, I have far more experience with teenagers than babies, but they can’t be that hard. If I don’t drop them…why?”

Martin coughed a little, abruptly flustered. “No reason! No reason.”

“Do you want kids?”

“Can’t exactly have them biologically,” Martin muttered, before sighing. “Yeah, I’d love to...foster or adopt or something. I’ve had my - differences - with my parents, but I’m still glad they adopted me, you know? I’d like to pass that on. But...better. Much better.”

“Georgie is talking about fostering again once Gerard moves in with Eric,” Jon said quietly. The thought of Gerry moving out, of living full time with Eric again - it just seemed weird. Almost wrong, although it wasn’t - Eric adored Gerry, and he was a competent father. It was just that...well, technically, Gerry had been living with them since the beginning of the universe. On a purely literal level, they really had always had Gerry with them. It would be strange. “As a - recipient of the foster care system myself, I’d like to make a difference too.” He smiled thinly. “We’re very compatible, aren’t we?”

“Would it be...you and Georgie…?”

“I don’t know. Does it matter?”

Martin sighed a little. “Is it dumb that sometimes it feels like you already have a family built in?”

Hm. Jon hadn’t quite thought about it that way. “You know those jokes about me and Georgie being married are just jokes,” Jon said reproachfully.

Martin moved away a little, leaning forward, slipping his arm from Jon’s shoulder. He abruptly missed the warmth. “But you’re partners. You’re raising a kid. And I know Daisy and Tim think of themselves as your overprotective big siblings, they aren’t even wrong.”

“Many people have siblings? And friends? Some even have kids, I’ve heard.”

“I don’t.” There was really nothing for Jon to say to that, so he didn’t say anything. “I don’t want my entire social circle to just be through you…”

“It won’t be,” Jon said firmly, reaching out a hand and brushing it against Martin’s arm. He squeezed it firmly. “You don’t have to be Lonely anymore, Martin. I won’t let you.”

“Is that a promise?” Martin said, as if he was joking, as if Jon wasn’t certain that he wasn’t. As if he needed the reassurance.

“How can you be lonely when I’m here?” Jon said, and trailed his hand up along Martin’s arm until he reached his neck and he could cup his face. He rubbed a thumb against his wispy stubble, light and thin. “I’m right here.”

Martin kissed him, and then the movie was quite thoroughly forgotten as Jon necked with his boyfriend on the couch like a teenager. They forgot everything, and for a small period of glorious time Jon forgot everything that he knew, in all of its entirety, and his Eye saw only the here and now.

Then the door thumped open, the wind blew into the cabin, and heavy footsteps thumped into the room. Something dragged behind the footsteps, something that sounded a bit...wet.

Martin, who was thoroughly on top of Jon and almost done unbuttoning his shirt, froze. Jon just craned his head, trying to hear the sounds of what was likely a dead deer being pulled in through the entrance way better.

“Hello Daisy!” Jon said, still pinned down. “How was your hunting?”

“Lucrative. We’re eating venison tomorrow.”

“Great! Need any help getting that put away?”

“No, I’m good.” Tiresias barked happily. “Here, boy, you can have a little. Good boy. I’ll probably skin and clean it outside, I just wanted to get my gloves.”

“Take your time!”

Martin sighed and got off Jon, straightening his own clothing. “Yeah, Daisy, take your time.”

“Oh, am I interrupting something?” Daisy said blithely. “I didn’t mean to.”

“You’re fine,” Jon assured her, fixing his own hair from where it had grown tangled. “Want to finish this movie with us?”

“Sure, let me gut this animal first.”

“Great! Scooch over, Martin.”

“You know,” Martin said, “maybe we want to move to the bedroom?”

“If we stay in the living room I can hook up your laptop to the television and we can watch the movie that way,” Daisy said innocently.

“That sounds good,” Jon agreed. He patted Martin’s hand. “Is that alright with you?”

Martin sighed. “Yeah. Of course.”

That night, Jon curled up next to Martin on the creaky wooden bed, listening to the flies buzz around them and the crickets hiss their lilting song outdoors.

His earbuds were still nestled in his ears, the soft hum of his Walkman cutting the quiet night, his own pre-recorded voice reading out a story. Martin sat next to him, and occasionally Jon could hear the soft shift of the pages of a book turning. Every so often Martin would gasp, or make a little noise at some exciting event in his book.

Jon rolled over, throwing out an arm and pulling Martin in close, resting his head on Martin’s shoulder as he let the earbuds roll gently out of his ears. Martin was soft and warm, the cotton of his t-shirt rubbing up against Jon’s cheek, and Jon let his mind gently bliss out and drift away.

He thought about the breakfast he wanted to make the next morning, and of the soft beat of Scottish sun on his face. He thought about the creak of cobblestones as jumped-up jalopies rolled over them, and of the shifting and groan of old wood. He thought of the bright, sharp summer smell of the highlands, and the sinking and sticky marshland.

“We should visit the antique store in town tomorrow,” Jon murmured. “Georgie’s been looking for a new lamp, and I think they should have a nice Rococo one for cheap.”

“Oh? Maybe I can pick something up too.” Martin gently scratched Jon’s scalp, making him bliss out even further. “Nice of you to always loop us in on the best deals, you little shopping catalogue.”

They, of course, had not been to the town yet, and there was no reason for Jon to know of the antique store, or the Rococo lamp. Jon hadn’t even thought about it, the information as available and easy as the layout of the convenience store down the street and a left turn from his childhood council flat.

Martin’s voice broke the quiet, cutting through the buzz of insects. “You know I love you, right?”

“I know everything,” Jon yawned, snuggling into Martin’s side closer.

“Not what I meant.” Martin hesitated, almost awkwardly. “You’re a literal mind reader and everything, but I’m not, so…”

“Oh, Martin.” Jon reached a hand up and cupped Martin’s cheek. “I built this world from the bedrock of my love for you.”

“Uh - wow! That’s - it’s kind of weird how you can just say that and have it be true!”

“Our lives are weird,” Jon agreed, brushing his thumb over Martin’s lips, and he carefully leaned his head up to kiss him, and they passed the long silent minutes just like that.

Several hours later, Jon found himself jerking awake. Martin was snoring beside him, and he couldn’t feel any sun on his face, so Jon figured it was likely still nighttime. He carefully slipped out of bed, reaching out a hand and trailing it along the wall until he managed to leave the bedroom, navigate down the hall, and enter what he was fairly sure was the living room.

“Jon?” A voice broke the night. Daisy, who had taken the pull-out couch. “You looking for the loo?”

It was only then that Jon realized that he didn’t know why he had gotten up. Tiresias snored loudly in the kitchen, adding a subtle undertone to the noise from outside, and Jon found himself shrugging helplessly. “I don’t think so. Did I wake you up?”

“Nah. Hold tight, I’ll help you to the couch.” Sure enough, after the almost silent footsteps echoed through the main room Jon felt a soft hand on his back, and she led him towards the couch. Jon lightly kicked it, testing its height, and gently lowered himself onto it, the springs of the pull-out bed breaking through the night. “What has you up?”

Jon just shrugged again. The bed creaked beside him, and he felt calloused fingers carding through his hair with gentleness that would have been surprising to most people.

“Am I a bad boyfriend?” Jon asked, surprising himself. He hadn’t even known he was thinking that.

“Did Blackwood tell you that you were?” Daisy asked sharply.

“No! No, not at all.” Jon sighed. “I just...I just have different needs than him.” He could already tell what Daisy was thinking, and he shook his head. “Not about the - the you know what thing. I just...I know how much he loves me. I know what he thinks of me, I know his dedication to me. Sometimes I just assume that he’s - capable, of what I’m capable of. Do I not tell him I love him enough? Am I not affectionate enough?”

“You aren’t as perceptive as you think you are, Jon,” Daisy said, amused. “I think you’ll find that Blackwood has quite a few more secrets than you think he does.” She untangled her fingers from his hair and squeezed his arm. “Blackwood’s insecure. All insecure people want mindreader boyfriends. But you force him to use his words and ask for what he needs, Jon. It’s uncomfortable. But it’s good for him. He needs to learn to speak up for himself.” She hummed slightly. “He reminds me of Basira, a little. She’ll never tell you that you bothered her, and she just lets it pile up and up. But then you go just a little too far, and then she explodes all of that pent up anger and frustration on you. She likes to pretend she’s a real robot, but she’s just as human as the rest of them.”

“I’m so terrified of Basira,” Jon said miserably. “Remember when I dropped a plate and she told me that the reason why my gran didn’t love me was because I was an attention seeking nine year old?”

“She’s so mean. I love her so much.” Daisy patted Jon on the back. “Buck up. I’m working on Blackwood. You focus on enjoying your vacation.”

Jon let himself lean to the side, resting his head on Daisy’s shoulder. “I’m worried that Martin will realize that I’m not capable of expressing romantic affection in a socially typical manner and leave me.”

“God, shut up, whiner.” But the bed creaked and Daisy’s head gently slid out from under his shoulder, and Daisy gently helped Jon to his feet. “I’ll get you back to bed. Bitch about your imaginary relationship problems to me in the morning.”

Translated: I love you, I’ll always be here for you, and goodnight. Jon huffed a quiet laugh. “Aren’t the lights off? How can you see anything?”

When Daisy spoke again, a quiet bass growl echoed underneath her words, and Jon grinned with her. He Knew, like how he Knew that he loved Martin enough to destroy the world, that Daisy’s eyes were flickering yellow in the darkness. “Don’t be fooled by appearances, Jon.”

She helped him back to bed, and when Jon slept through the rest of the night he dreamed of nothing but Martin’s weight on his.

****

“What a beautiful morning!” Martin said loudly. “The birds are chirping, the Scottish highlands are beautiful, I am here on my romantic vacation away from everybody with only my lovely boyfriend for company - and Daisy Tonner!”

“Glad to be here,” Daisy said affably.

“This is so much fun!” Martin said, still loudly.

“I think so too!” Jon said enthusiastically.

Tiresias barked.

After a breakfast pointedly prepared by Martin, they all got dressed and saddled up to go walk into the village. It was a quick walk, only about twenty minutes, and Martin and Daisy enjoyed the scenery as Jon enjoyed the warm grip of Martin’s hand in his and the breeze on his face.

When the trail began sloping further downhill, and their footsteps began to slide against the incline, Jon pulled what Gerry would have called a ‘pro-gamer move’ and moved his grip up until he was clinging to Martin’s arm. Martin sprayed a hand out, resting it against Jon’s back, and helped him down the trail.

“Whoah! You alright, honey? Careful of your step!”

“Jesus christ,” Daisy muttered.

“It’s hardly Jon’s fault -” Martin began heatedly.

“Yeah, Daisy,” Jon said, delighting in setting them against each other like the cold, uncaring god he was, “check your privilege.”

Then they were off, because despite Daisy was allergic to social consciousness, and Jon whistled a jaunty tune, composed in the 15th century and unknown to all but its lonely shepherd creator, as they navigated their way downwards.

The village was small, nothing more than two streets with cheerful wooden facades and swing porches set out on the decks with wizened elderly people sipping from bottles of Irn Bru and smoking down cigarettes to the dregs. At least, as narrated by Martin, who seemed to already be mentally writing his small-town murder mystery in the Scottish highlands (Martin’s poetry needed work, but his fiction held a certain massmarket appeal). Knowing Martin, the protaganist would likely be either a grandmother with his own personality, or a thirtysomething gay man who had twelve counts of arson on his record and was running from the cops.

Wait. Wait, Jon should use his words. Ask instead of look. Display interest in Martin’s inner life - which, granted, seemed to be a waste of time when Jon could just Know and not waste his breath, but Georgie had been coaching him in this.

“You should give the ex-con narrator a boyfriend,” Jon said supportively. “Maybe bring back the gay bar owner from the last book?”

Martin almost tripped over the gravel. “How did you know I was thinking of - Jon, I told you not to read my mind!”

“Lay off, you know he doesn’t do it on purpose,” Daisy said uninterestedly, growling at what Jon guessed were passerby on the street.

“Daisy, stop telling me how to talk to my boyfriend -”

“Oh, he’s your boyfriend now, is he?”

“Yes! Yes, he is!”

“Let’s get some ice cream!” Jon said loudly.

“How did you even know there was an ice cream - fine! Fine, of course!” Martin sighed loudly. “Why not!”

As it turned out, they were right in front of ice cream. Jon loved it when things worked out.

****

Twenty minutes later, after Martin laboriously reading out all of the entirely too many flavors to Jon, Daisy growling at everybody at the store like an errant dog, fighting with the owner of the store extremely politely about his actual dog existing, and finally taking their ice cream outside to sit at a picnic bench and attack their waffle cones, Jon felt content.

He indicated this by telling everybody everything he knew about emulsifiers, which were extremely neat and a lot of fun! Because nobody was stopping him talking by saying ‘let’s talk about something else, Jon’ or ‘isn’t that a bit boring, Jon?’ he moved onto the history of waffle cones, safe in his assumption that everybody was as interested in the topic as he was.

“I love you so much,” Martin said, somewhat dazed, when Jon stopped to draw a breath. “Did you know that this is the second time this has happened?”

That stopped Jon short, when nothing else did. “Really? Has it?”

Martin’s spoon scraped his small paper bowl. “Yep. Uh - for my birthday, I think. Me, Tim, and - and Sasha, and you. You ordered rum raisin. I was thinking...did you actually like rum raisin? Or did you just panic?” He laughed, somewhat self-consciously. “You didn’t remember about it even before the whole apocalypse thing, so no sweat, but…”

“Oh.” Jon realized, for probably the fifth time, that Martin held years and years worth of memories in him, and that Jon had only fragments and impressions. He knew that he had everything important, that everything he needed was within him, but - did he? What if he was missing the key to everything, the key to Martin, and all he needed was to just Look deeper? “That’s - I could remember it, if I wanted.”

“It’s fine, Jon,” Daisy said quietly. “Don’t go giving yourself a migraine.”

“I could,” Jon insisted. “I’d like to remember something like your birthday, Martin. Precious memories, or - or something. Give me a moment, I can send a quick prayer, and -”

“You know,” Martin said, and he squeezed Jon’s hand. “I’d rather make new memories right now. Where we are right now, that’s - that’s the most important place, innit?”

Jon smiled at him, and he knew, in the most mundane of ways, Martin was smiling back. “I like to think so too.”

“Ugh,” Daisy teased, although perhaps to an outsider it may have sounded mean, “get that sappy shit outta my face.”

“You’re just as bad with Basira,” Jon shot back, smiling. “You two are in love -”

“Take that shit back,” Daisy hissed.

“You want to get married -”

“Who told you!”

Jon tapped the lens of his glasses smugly. “A little Eye told me.”

“Beholding cuck.”

“No, that’s Peter -”

“Martin would know all about Peter, huh?” Daisy sneered, and the pressure on Jon’s hand intensified for a brief second before it withdrew completely, leaving his hand cold and empty.

“Jon, can you give me and Daisy a few minutes of privacy, please?” Martin said pleasantly.

Jon raised an eyebrow, licking the ice cream dripping down his hand. It was Vast flavor. Tasted like...ozone. “Why?”

“He doesn’t know the area, you can’t send him off alone,” Daisy shot back, strangely smugly. “Come on, Blackwood. Whatever you want to say to me, you can say it in front of him.”

“You know what, fine. Fine!” Martin thumped the table, making Jon start and Tireasias stiffen. “I have done nothing that warrants this kind of treatment from you. You are disrespecting me, disrespecting my relationship, and you are insulting my fucking intelligence. I appreciate you loaning us your cabin, but if I knew that it would come with strings attached then I would have paid for my own bloody hotel! Why are you doing this!”

“Tim gave me fifty quid,” Daisy said, like the wolf that had caught the canary. “Plus it’s fucking funny.”

“Done what?” Jon asked, confused.

“I want you out of my vacation, Daisy,” Martin hissed. “If you won’t leave the cabin, then I am booking my own Air BnB and that’s fucking final! I don’t care if I have to - to fight you in the street about it, I can and I will, you don’t want to mess with me -”

“Sure.”

Martin stopped short. Jon licked his ice cream, fascinated by the drama. “What?”

“I said sure,” Daisy enunciated clearly. “I was waiting for you to fucking say it. I told Basira I’d be home by tonight, anyway. Knew you’d snap.”

“I - what! What! What?!”

“You’re a pushover, Blackwood,” Daisy said. “Your coworkers, your friends, everyone - they just walk all over you. It’s fucking stupid. You are the archival assistant who survived the apocalypse with memories and sanity intact. You lasted longer on the position than anyone since Emma Harvey, and you didn’t have to lose your soul to do it. You looked Elias in the face as you burned his Archives down. You’re not a pussy. And I was sick of seeing you act like one. It’s fucking annoying.”

“I hate you so fucking much,” Martin whispered, somewhat in shock.

“Well, I hate seeing my best friend date a passive aggressive loser, so we’re both unhappy.” Daisy stood up, feet shuffling against the cement, and Jon felt her press a kiss against his forehead. “You two have a nice day out. I’m going to go hunt things, and head back to London. Take care of yourself, Jon. And cut out the PDA, it’s gross.”

Suddenly, violently, with a crushing realization, the entire vacation was recontextualized.

“I don’t appreciate any of this,” Jon said crossly, scowling in her direction. “Honestly, Daisy, you don’t -”

“Blame Tim. Love you, Jon. Love you, sweet puppy. See you later, Blackwood.”

Jon and Martin sat in silence as the sound of footsteps receded from Jon’s hearing, and the low murmur of the small village set in around them. Martin still seemed to slightly be in shock, his ice cream slowly melting, and Tiresias yawned sleepily in the sun.

“I hate her so fucking much,” Martin whispered.

But Jon just smiled, and reached out to brush a thumb over Martin’s close-cropped hair. He leaned in, whispering into Martin’s ear. “Hearing you yell at the scariest woman I know who isn’t Gertrude Robinson was pretty fucking sexy, love.”

“I hate her so - wait, it was? Really?” Martin coughed awkwardly. “Well, she really had it coming, and it’s not a huge deal, and I know she’s your best friend and I should be nice to her, but -”

“ - but she was right,” Jon said firmly. “An arse about making her point, but she was right. I’m working on using my words. You should too. All of the books say communication is key in a relationship. So let’s communicate, alright?” He faltered a little, uncertain if Daisy would want him to say this. “And - and it was obvious, from what she said, that Daisy respects you. It’s a very difficult thing, to win Daisy’s respect. I think she was trying to help us, in her own - unorthodox manner.”

“I hate her so much,” Martin groaned.

“It was very sexy,” Jon hinted.

Martin leaned in and kissed Jon lightly, and Jon could feel his smile against his own. “How about we finish our food,” he said quietly, “walk around town for a bit, buy some souvenirs for your family, and then go back to the cabin and snog and cuddle for a very long time? If that’s okay with you?”

“I’d like nothing more,” Jon said.

And he was right. It was messy, and weird, and painfully uncomfortable.

It was perfect.

#Bell book and candle #immortal with a kiss #no sin but ignorance #my writing #the closest thing you will ever see me write to a safehouse fic #jonmartin #the magnus archives #jonmartin fanfic #the magnus archives fanfic #tma #*bangs pots and pans* i am ace and sex-repulsed like jon so this is the bible how of how to write ace and sex-repulsed relationships #this is my 10 page apology for sidelining jonmartin in my 500 pages of tma fanfic

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