#not to compare it to the magnus archives again

[silhouettecrow]

365 Days of Writing Prompts: Day 116

Adjective: Polluted

Noun: Crane

Definitions for those who need/want them:

Polluted: contaminated with harmful or poisonous substances; defiled or corrupted

Crane: a large, tall machine used for moving heavy objects by suspending them from a projecting arm or beam; a moving platform supporting a television or movie camera; a tall, long-legged, long-necked bird, typically with white or gray plumage and often with tail plumes and patches of bare red skin on the head, and cranes are noted for their elaborate courtship dances

[thermodynamic-comedian]

gertrude robinson is like joan of arc to me. agnes montageu is like saint lucy to me. i could go on but you'd die

[mourningmaybells]

i have thought about drawing david and lucia in the pieta pose but it seems too overdramatic even though listening to their episode feels like im being shot 3 times

[spiral-man]

Hey! You! The gay people in my computer! Yah you! I just need you to listen to me for like five minutes (I’m either a genius or all the hair dye is finally seeping into my brain). With every new episode that comes out more and more theory’s are made and a lot of them I’ve noticed point towards all the different ominous things the characters say or do and what that could possibly mean. Most often though they lead to the implication of the character being not totally human. And I mean that’s what it’s all about right?

The Magnus Archives is about what makes a monster and the Magnus protocol is about what makes a human.

There’s also been a-lot of talk comparing the two podcasts:

•the intro music being more intense right off the bat in this one

•placing a lot of emphasis on the fact that the employees can leave whenever they want

At first i thought maybe the plot was just moving faster this time around but it’s not that, it’s moving backwards I think.

•Starting with the employee quitting vs ending with Jon and Martin ‘quitting’.

•Starting showing us how the computer just spits out cases whenever and you can’t stop it vs near the end when Jon couldn’t help himself from making a statement either.

Everyone in the Magnus Archives was human at one point or another, I think everyone in the Magnus protocol was a monster at one point or another.

Jonny sims is really good at plot twists and I think this would be honestly genius. I mean, think about it, don’t think about the Magnus archives, don’t think about the characters past or future, detach yourself from the eye and just look at these characters as they are, right in the moment.

“Oh that’s an ominous thing to say”

“oh that sounds like foreshadowing”

“oh that’s a weird way to say that”

how many times about how many characters do we have those thoughts? We’re only 6 episodes in and I can’t even count the amount of times I’ve thought something one of the characters said was a bit odd. A couple times is normal but especially this early on into a series it shouldn’t be so obvious, it’s to easy. We the fans latch onto these little bits of dialogue and theorize them to death and then move on to the next one and do the same thing all over again, connecting them like the web in the Magnus archives.

But this isn’t the Magnus archives.

Jonny sims once said writing the Magnus archives had to be a balancing act because he had to make sure that the timing of it made sense for people listening as it came out as well as people binging it way after it came out, there was only one safe house episode partly because he didn’t want fans listening as it came out to get bored since it would feel alot longer then It would for people binging it later. I think because this is following the Magnus archives there is a new element of it starting off with a pretty large fan base and because of that Jonny can bank on the fact that more people will be listening as the episodes come out and so we will be less likely to realize how often these strange lines are occurring and how easy it feels.

I think everyone in the Magnus protocol is only pretending to be human, doing a poor imitation which just gets worse with time like how the quality of a printed image will go down which each new copy you make. They remind me of the Not!Them, or the distortion, pretending to be someone/something your not and doing it so well it’s almost an exact copy….but not completely, some things are just slightly off, some things make you look twice and wonder.

None of them are human, not completely.

……..

(Not yet?)

[miyuskye]

HERE I GO with this super interesting event from the All Ships Ship Week event hosted by @ficwip

The ship dossier! And what ship I could've dossiered if not my current hyperfixation, aka Jon/Elias??? Sooo, the thing with loving a podcast is that you don't get a lot of official art, since the physical descriptions are also very scarce by author's choice. BUT! they recently made a TTRPG game based on the podcast, which these semi-canon designs. My personal image of the characters in influenced by the huge amount of fanarts circulating around, but, probably an unpopular opinion, I like these designs too. With reference to the image, the top one (not in the ship sense) is Jon, aka the Archivist, aka the pet project/obsession and the bottom one (again, not in the ship sense) is Elias/spoiler, aka the mentor/obsessed.

It would have been great, if I did actually understand the assignment and not gone off the trail with a full AO3 statistical analysis. Under the cut because probably not a lot of people are interested in my ramblings. The dossier is intended for both people familiar with the series, but also for people who know nothing about it. Warning for sparse spoilers about the whole TMA series (not TMP since I still have to listen to it!) (as I said, Elias is a big spoiler himself lol)

Let's begin this trip with a biiig disclaimer. Sadly for us avid AO3 users, the AO3 fandom does not represent the fandom in whole, so these stats are based only on the number of works in the AO3 context. Looking around at non-fanfic related site, i.e. reddit, I know there are some JE shipper there too, though I can't really be sure in what percentage with respect to the non-shipping community (or the people only shipping the canon couple). Links to the guru of fandom stats! toastystats (tumblr), AO3. There's also a github repository but I personally found it a bit cranky to use and it doesn't use an AO3 updated DB, though for big data statistics is fine due to the central limit theorem but for smaller fandom/tags it might be a bit inaccurate. Also the code is in python 2, which is now a bit difficult to use. I personally made my stats by doing targeted searches using the AO3 search function! Super easy to use, albeit a bit repetitive. Stats were made on Oct, 19-22, 2024. Again, I think the results won't change much through the years, especially regarding the main TMA tag data, but who knows if JonElias will surge in popularity (hehe it's a distant hope, I'm pretty much sure that the population distribution is already well-established).

TMA (The Magnus Archive) is a horror podcast, following the events of Jonathan Sims, aka Jon, aka the first part of my ship, who works at the Magnus Institute. This Institute is a facility researching in supernatural events and records supernatural encounters in the form of statements given by volunteering people. Jon is the Head Archivist, meaning he manages the statements and records some "odd ones", as per request of the Head of the Institute and his direct superior, Elias. Sooo yes, he's also his boss. :) lovely for them.

My lovely idiots are the 3rd most popular ship! Such a big achievement for me, who I usually ship obscure ships. As of today, we have 1434 JE works out of the whole 29751 works in the TMA tag. Way to go, JE community, let's keep this up!

The Jon/Martin ship is actually canon in the podcast, so that big percentage, compared to other fandoms, is largely explained by that (instead of simple popularity like Oikawa/Iwaizumi in the Haikyuu fandom). My other favorite ship is Jon/Tim, and I proudly contributed to that 2.78% (ofc also to the 4.8% of JE but it seemed quite superfluous to write).

Fun fact: speaking of spoilers, Elias' character tag in AO3 is a MASSIVE spoiler. It was what ruined the plot twist for me, because I looked for fanfics around ep 40ish (out of 200) and got that spoiled :( I understand why AO3 did that, because before the reveal the tags referring to Jonah and Elias were separated and I guess they wanted to unite them (since I also read some Jonah/Jon works before the reveal - all of them ended up having Elias being somewhat connected to Jonah OF COURSE, but I believe that before The Reveal there was also the belief that Elias was one of his descendants. I became part of the fandom after that, though, so it's just speculation based on older posts I came across).

This is probably my most favourite slide. JonElias has the highest Mature-to-Gen ratio (based on the AO3 rating system) with respect to the other ships. Jon/Martin, being 40% of the works also leads most of the general fandom stats, so it's more correct to actually cite the ship that makes the stat. I also believe that a lot of the more Gen-oriented fics feature Jon/Martin due to them being canon, that is also one of the possible factors influencing their and the whole tag ratios. Due to this, I believe that the Elias/Peter ratio might actually influenced by that, since they're a non-conflicting couple with the main one and are thus frequently included in their fanfics. The other fave of mine also has a higher Mature-to-Gen ratio than the general one, but not as high as JE.

Jon is the main character, so it's obvious that he is the most cited in all the works. Elias is the villain, so it's not so strange. Also, this refers to the characters tags, and this means that Elias might be included as a character even in other ships-based works. I believe the same happens with Tim, since ships with him have a lower presence in the fandom, but he is the third most included character. It's probably because he gets included into most of the Gen/JMart works.

These are the most used AO3 tags for the JonElias main ship tag. Do I really need to explain? They just do the talking in my place lol

A few words on the Alternate universe tag: AUs are somewhat canon in the show, due to plot-related reasons, and I believe this gives us space to imagine, stories where Jon is as deranged as Elias without denaturing canon. I personally believe Jon has the capacity of being feral as, if not even more than, Elias. Canon showed us a glimpse of what we could have but ended up not getting, again, due to plot-related reasons. Some fanfics are based on those glimpses. Also the Do not Archive will be an interesting topic to talk about later!

These are the most used tags for the individual characters. Some of them are also matching but not in their JE tagged works. For example, the tag Fluff might be present in 12% of Elias' works but more than half of those works are Jon/Martin-based works, so he's included in the work but, in a way, not actively participating in the fluff. Also, Jon is canonically asexual, hence the related tag! A few words on that, this doesn't and rightly won't stop people from producing M and E-rated works with him and characters (not necessarily Elias), contrary to what some people might think. And I assure you, as an asexual person, that no one of the JE fanfics I read (even the ones without the Asexual character tag) erased Jon's asexuality. If anything, the ones where Jon's asexuality was present and acknowledged were also my favorites!

Small digression on the Do not archive tag. I noticed that both JE and Elias' tag had a percentage of works being under that tag. Which is used when an author does not want the series staff to read their works. It's mostly used on M+E works (77% of DNA tagged works are M or E rated on AO3), as one would expect. At first I guessed it was related to the pronounced M-to-T ratio of the JE tag (which is even more pronounced on the DNA tag), buuut it turns out the main cause was just a quirk of the data/bias of the data case. As I said, there are only 1434 (as of end-October 2024) works in the JE tag and this means that this number can be biased by a single external source, which causes the shift in the data. This means that this is not a trend!

By excluding the cause from the analysis, the Do not archive tag percentages for JE are still higher than the other ships, but not by such a large margin (around 7% which makes sense).

Nothing to say here, the series reaching its peak in terms of fandom response and also due to COVID making people consume more media content, the JE rise followed the general raise of fanfics in the TMA tag. Which isn't surprising but not to be taken for granted either! Another sad but probably not a trend fact is that Jon/Elias production was slightly more flourishing during the earlier years of the series (especially 2018-2019), than it is now. This might probably related to a ship actually being made canon or probably fandom disappointment in the TMA finale (which I can understand). I read in a lot of earlier JE fanfics very excited comments about "omg I can't wait to see him and Jon in s4/5" and I was like *sad violin noises*, because they didn't get the amount of (canon-expected) interactions the JE fandom thought they would get. Again, this is just speculation and to be taken with a grain of salt.

Unexpectedly, M+E JE works have more words that Gen-rated ones (expected on the JE tag due to their M-to-T ratio, but kinda unexpected compared to the whole TMA tag).

JE fanfics are slightly more kudo-ed and bookmarked than the general fandom trend.

A conclusive remark, is that I made this just to see what behaviours could be extrapolated from such a tiny tag in an otherwise medium fandom (as for 2020, median number of fanworks in labelled big fandom was 45k. Havign roughly half of that number means that TMA is, on AO3, a medium fandom to me).

Anyhow, I wish you happy JonElias day which for me is once again every day since twp months ago :)

[thecorruption-thespiralsversion]

What Sign (Astrology) is what Fear (The Magnus Archive)

I remember in the 2010s, on the astrology side of tumblr. A popular thing to was take albums and assign each song to the sign they felt represented. This is inherently an imperfect practice (Astrology is actually a very complicated process.), but taken lightly it can be loads of fun.

Disclaimer, I researched this stuff a years ago, and like The Fear, I'm basing all this on Feeling. I am by no mean an expert.

Aries - The Sluaghter - As an Archetype, Aries is the sign of The Warrior. The "youngest" of the signs, it's often seen as impulsive and reckless. Angered on the drop of a dime, and always ready for a fight.

Taurus - The Flesh - They are creature of comfort and gluttony. A sign who will work hard now so they can sleep longer later. The Bull, sturdy, strong, and grounded. Somehow the laziest and hardest working sign. They are lover of food, and the physical pleasures.

Gemini - The Stranger - This one feel like the stereotype. All Gemini are two-faced, fake, childish/immature. The eternal child. There is a whimsy to The Stranger.

Cancer - The Corruption - This one is complicated. They're sweet, caring, and nurturing. The Archetype of The Mother, but not The Matriarch. Another Archetype is seen as The Prostitute. This is complicated because it's not about sex, but that of giving yourself for the nurture of another. It is a love that consumes in all ways.

Leo - The Lonely - The Lion, The King. When will you learn that to be on top is to have no peers, no fellows.

Virgo - The Web - Their stereotype is that of a controlling and obsessive compulsive individuals. The is the sign of order.

Libra - The Web - This is a sign often stereotyped as " my way or the highway". Now mind you this is an exaggeration. This is the sign of balance, fairness, and whatever one's perceptions of that is. Equilibrium and Order. The Diplomate, Soft power.

Scorpio - The Dark... The Desolation - Guess this is where the jig is up. There is no one to one. They aren't comparable!!!!! Appropriate that I brake patterns at the sign that actually represents Death. But not The End. I have found most esoteric practice don't regard Death as finality, more a transition. This sign is that of mystery and power. Of night and rage. The Dark Feminine. If I'd have it my way, Agnus Montague would be a Scorpio.

Sagittarius - The Hunt - adventures, philosophy, and discovery are all associated with this sign.

Capricorn - The Buried - The most structured of the signs. This isn't order, but rigidity. Stren and Stoic. They have always been the biggest sweethearts I have ever meet, but they scare me, it not a malicious fear, but that of a child who respects their father. They inspire that sense of "masculine"(not gender specific) discipline.

Aquarius - The Vast - I know many will argue The Stranger, and you're right, all this shit is subjective. But hear me out. The Revolutionaries! The sign that look towards the future, towards endless possibilities, to infinity.

Pisces - The Spiral - The sign closest to divinity, The end of one cycle, and the start of another. What was that about doing the same thing over and over again? But ever The Dreamer you take another turn, another twist.

Aries - The Sluaghter....

The End can't really exist as a concept in this cycle.

But I think The Eye would be all of them. We are all the observers of our lives.

I think therefore I am, we are I.

Archives to our existence. I think that's why I like astrology. It's us trying to observe ourself and others. Find connections, coincidence, and magic in what "I was ment to have for breakfast", and maybe I wasn't. But it fun, these games we play with everyone.

I hope you're all having fun

[tumb1rprincess]

Ah. John finally gets his name. And that little moment where John said he was lucky to have found Arthur, aw, that was so cute. Which it feels weird to call a demonic entity stuck in a blind man's body cute, but that's the word I'm using.

The song the radio changed to in the hospital, was that the same song that was playing in the car at the end of episode 2? I think we've heard that song more than once, and I think John triggers it somehow. Why? What does it mean?

Lol Arthur suggested going to the morgue and I literally went "No, no, please don't." That just sounded horrific. And it was.

John literally being at a loss for words to describe this hound monster thing, that scared me more than anything else. Like, if he's horrified by this thing, you know it's bad. Although when he said they had to stop it, I literally went "Not again." The last time they stopped a monster, everything went batshit insane. But I guess that's John and Arthur's thing now. As dysfunctional and scared as they are, they have to put a stop to these things.

Lol John's here spouting Robert Frost poetry and doesn't even realize it. I love my poetic little demon boy.

This probably isn't the last time we've seen Adam. He sounds scary at this point and I'm guessing he killed Amanda? Like, Arthur told him her name and that was the last thing he needed to find her. But why did he kill her?

I've seen a lot of people compare this series to the Magnus Archives, and Arthur and Jon specifically, and I can see why, besides both of them being horror podcasts. Like, Jon and Arthur were both in comas, they both have wet cat energy, I'm guessing Arthur's going to rack up more injuries like Jon did. And the way John described Amanda's killer (which I'm guessing was Adam), the long fingers instantly made me think of Distortion Michael.

[lilyminer]

One thing I find endlessly fascinating about fandom cultures is how different fandom communities can become so heavily linked together. Becoming like one community of fans who feel drawn to a group of similar pieces of media because of how many fans they have in common.

Some of them are fairly obvious, like some I’ve run into over the years. Like fans of the book series Warrior Cats also tend to get into the book series Wings of Fire. Both are fantasy xenofiction books with intricate world building. Hell for a while there a lot of the most popular creators from one fandom were also popular in the other. Or people who get into The Magnus Archives also tend to find other podcasts like Welcome to Nightvale interesting. Once again they share a medium and similar appeals.

And this effect can lead to situations like I just found myself in where I get into one fandom just to have both fandom discussions and algorithms alike pull me into a circle where multiple pieces of media are so often brought up together they form a subgroup of a fandom space.

My current interests have led me to what I’ve affectionately nicknamed “the depressed Northern/Eastern European video game complex” which from what I’ve seen contains the game I initially showed interest in Fear and Hunger, Pathologic, and Disco Elysium.

Before anyone pulls out their pitchforks I’m in no way saying these games are the same. First of all they do have quite distinct tones. Especially if you, say, compare Disco Elysium (a game filled with so much hope it’s bursting at the seams) to Fear and Hunger, (a game which aims to make progress feel hopeless at every turn). All I’m saying is the second I started looking up Fear and Hunger on sites like YouTube I might as well have typed in Pathologic by how often I saw content for that game instead. And when I did look up Pathologic the algorithm seems all too ready to introduce me to Disco Elysium too.

As a Canadian these games, to me, look like they were developed in pretty close proximity to each other, European standards of distance might say differently idrk. But the vibes and environments of these games feel so similar to me. So yes, there’s certainly debate to be had about if the inspiration behind each games vibe comes from a common experience but to me there’s definitely something there.

Well anyways I find that collective of close-knit fandoms very interesting. I’ve gone as far into Fear and Hunger as I safely can, did a wonderful play through of Disco Elysium. And now I’ll take what seems like everyone’s advice on my next game. See y’all after I play some assortment of the Pathologic games!

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

Tea - a Magnus Archives one-shot

"You must be Martin. Jon used to go on about you a lot."

In MAG 149, season 4, Georgie recognized Martin the moment she saw him just from Jon's descriptions, but we didn't get to hear that.

Have a glimpse into my mind-palace of how it could have happened.

Notes: none. This is just fluff. Spoilers thrugh season 4.

AO3

------

“And then Martin—would you believe this—let a dog into the Archives! A dog! ”

“A whole-ass dog, eh?” said Georgie, sipping her tea, trying not to sound dubious.

“It took him all day to get that thing back out of my Archives. Ridiculous.”

“So… you didn’t fire him?”

“No, I didn’t fire him! Elias put him there for some reason, and I… well, I thought it might be more suspicious if I got him out of the way. The next spy could be worse.”

Spies. Dogs. Evil bosses. “Are you still not going to tell me whatever happened at your weird cult workplace?” she said.

He glared over his coffee. “No, I am not going to tell you what happened at my weird cult workplace. Just. He also makes good tea. That’s all.”

“Bully for him.” She left to go to work.

#

“And then you wouldn’t believe… Martin insisted on ice cream for his birthday. Like we were all children!”

“Oh, no,” Georgie said, pencil posed over her crossword puzzle. “Whatever did you do?”

“Well, I ordered ice cream, of course. No need to rock the boat,” Jon said, leaning on his Oxford English drawl. 

“No, no need to do that,” said Georgie. “What kind?”

He huffed. “Rum and raisin. It was serviceable.”

She knew him too well. “You talked about emulsions again, didn’t you?”

If Jon had feathers, they would have ruffled. “Yes, I talked about emulsions! They’re an important part of modern food theory!”

Georgie laughed, filled out wiseguy for a seven-letter know-it-all prompt, and called it a day.

#

“Martin insists on tea. Insists on it. If I don’t have a hot cuppa, he just… he…” Jon gestures.

“He what?” said Georgie, who really wasn’t sure where he was going with this.

“Well, he gets all… big-eyed, and sad, as if I somehow did it at him,” Jon mumbled, looking down. “I have drunk more tea in the last two years than in my entire life.”

“With your grandmother? I doubt that,” said Georgie, who had come into the picture early enough to meet her before she passed.

“No, she insisted I make tea. She never truly cared if I drank it,” Jon mumbled into his empty cup. “Martin cared.” And then he stared at the leaves at the bottom as though offended they were all that remained.

“Well, I’m sure my tea-making skills hardly compare,” said Georgie.

“They don’t,” said Jon, who did not mean cruelty by it.

Georgie spoke fluent Jon. She understood he wasn’t saying, You suck. He was saying, I miss Martin’s tea. “Are you sure you can’t reach out to him? Maybe outside of work?”

Jon went deep red. “I can’t do that.”

“You sure? I’m sure he’d love to hear from you.”

“No,” Jon said softly, looking now at the floor. “I can’t talk to anybody. It isn’t safe.”

“Safe?” she said.

He seemed to realize he’d said too much. “I… excuse me.” And he closed himself in the guest bedroom to make another of his weird tape recordings.

#

“I’m telling you, Martin might be sending them!” he said, holding up another batch of suspicious documents.

Georgie was fuming. “How could he be? Did you tell Martin where I live?”

“I… no, I didn’t.”

“Then I doubt he’s sending them.”

“I just thought… no, you’re right. I doubt he misses me at all,” said Jon, hangdog supreme.

Georgie threw her hands in the air. As Jon’s ex, she didn’t really think she had the right to push it further.

#

“Martin made me take his jumper home, and it… well, I never returned it. It’s so very comfortable! I feel oddly safe in it. Isn’t that odd?” A confession, wide-eyed, over breakfast. 

“Martin hates oolong,” said Jon over lunch and oolong. “I’m not sure why. Something to do with his mother, I think.”

“Martin always smiles. It’s suspicious,” Jon declared over dinner.

Georgie began to tune it out.

#

“He was terrible at research,” Jon mumbled late as they both sipped some brandy. “But he always tried so hard. He brought in a jar of worms once, did I tell you that?”

“Uh, no?” said Georgie. “Why would he bring in a jar of worms?”

Jon waved his shot glass. “Reasons,” he said like the grim reaper.

Georgie shook her head and threw back the last of her shot before going to bed.

#

Later, much later, Georgie went to the Magnus Institute, trying to find Melanie. She hated the place; it gave her the creeps, and not only because of what she now knew about Jon. It wasn’t even proper fear. It was just yucky, like something slimy between her toes.

Finding no one, she wandered downstairs, into the Archives, and spotted a man at a desk. He was tall, kind of cuddly-wide; his hair was curly and red, and his freckles were bright. His eyes were, intriguingly, the same color Jon had wistfully described as spring green one very late night.

Like Jon, he had a tape recorder going. She was really beginning to hate those things.

He did a double-take. “Oh, you can’t be here. It’s not allowed.”

“Sorry, Melanie told me to wait for her here,” Georgie said.

“You’re here for Melanie?” the man clarified, standing (good lord, he was tall).

“Yeah. I’m Georgie.”

And out came the smile (which Jon had described) and the awkward aw-shucks body language with one hand behind his head (which Jon had also described). “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t realize! I’m sure she’s around here somewhere.”

She knew. He could’ve been conjured from Jon’s imagination for how perfect he was for that man. “You must be Martin.”

He blinked. “Has Melanie been talking about me?”

“No, um. Jon used to go on about you a lot.”

Martin brightened like the sun shining, and then Georgie had to go on for minutes about why she wouldn’t help Jon anymore.

Which Martin insisted she should.

Hell. Jon had no chance. They both had it so bad.

She still didn’t like this place. She still had issues with Jon and everything Jon was doing; but this… she could see this.

Martin and Jon, Jon and Martin. It worked in her head. They fit. 

She hoped it worked out. 

She hoped Jon didn’t drag Martin with him to the grave.

[thatpodcastkid]

Magnus Archives Relisten 5, MAG 5 Thrown Away

Trash apple teeth! Is this anything

Spoilers ahead!

Facts: Statement of Kieran Woodward, regarding items discovered in the refuse of 93 Lancaster Road, Walthamstow. Given February 23rd, 2009.

Statement Notes: There are so many posts out there comparing The Magnus Archives to the Twilight Zone because of Jon's narration and the serial creepy story format, but this episode really stands out in mind as Twilight Zone-esque. Like the Twilight Zone, some Magnus Archive episodes deal with things like childhood guilt and cult-behavior, like MAG 4. But other episodes just kind of say "Damn, isn't that fucked up? Anyway," like this one.

I do love Kieran as a character. He's just so weirdly chill and realistic about everything. There's are some statement givers who are still being tormented by the fears, some who cause fear, some who are reporting on things that happened to people they know, but there's also this interesting category of people who survived because they played the game right. When the audience says "don't go in the basement" or "call the cops," they listen. Woodward gets through this statement unscathed because he moves on from the creepy dolls heads and reports the teeth, then destroys the "gift" left for him and tries to move on. Alan can't let go, Alan doesn't know the rules of the genre, that's why he doesn't make it out.

My two new favorite characters in the series are "Matt, who was raised Catholic and never shut up about it," because he is me, and David who "broke the silence by vomiting loudly into a nearby drain," because he is the most realistic horror character of all time.

Entity Alignment: Whenever I think of this episode, I think of it as the "teeth in a bag" episode. I actually 100% forgot about the metal heart. Now, when you think of those things, it kind of sounds like a Flesh episode.

But, let's all remember our favorite bio majors and their special gift to their professor. The Stranger has a history with teeth. The description of the dolls heads is very "uncanny valley," which is the Stranger's real niche. The thing that really sells me though is Jon's last line in the statement, "All two thousand seven hundred and eighty of them were the exact same tooth." The exact same tooth, apparently from the exact same person, repeated over and over again to the point that the examiner can date them because of their differing stages of decay. You know what that sounds like to me? Someone has been practicing.

The metal heart also says Stranger to me. I know it has a little Flesh energy, but it really reminded me of the hospital episode from season 5. The way the character describes feeling like her body was not her own, that parts of her had been replaced, substituted. The metal heart as the only remanent of Alan feels like that same kind of fear. It's not his, it's not him, but it's all he's got.

Speaking of Alan, does his obsession with watching the house to the point he goes without sleep for days, isolates his friends, and is presumed dead remind you of anyone? He must be influenced by the Eye at least a little bit.

But ignoring entity alignment for a second, Jonny does consistently uses obsessive characters really well. There's a lot of horror media where, in real life, it would make more sense for the characters to give up on their investigations of the supernatural or to ignore it in entirely in the first place. The audience is usually (and rightfully) able to suspend reality for the sake of the story in these situations. But what's so interesting about Jonny's writing is that he explicitly states characters like Alan, like Amy Patel, like Jon, can't stop themselves. It's obsession, it's all consuming, they know it's bad for them, but they just can't stop. It really adds to the audience fear because you're not the only one telling them turn back, their mind is screaming it too, but they still won't listen.

Character Notes: The post-statement in this episode is just 90% Martin hate. Absolutely unhinged behavior. What if you worked at a restaurant at the end of receipts your boss just wrote "This waiter is a goddamn loser and I hate him." Wild man Jonathan Sims everybody.

[whimsikolya]

About Kevin and the dread powers

Just to clarify, this is a post about Welcome to Night Vale and The Magnus Archives because horror podcasts won't let me sleep.

I suffer from the same curse all TMA enthusiasts are well acquainted with, which is to say I've given up on trying to interact with any new piece of media without applying fear entities to everything and everyone involved. With this in mind, I've been asking myself for ages which fear Kevin would serve, and I've come to the conclusion that everyone's favorite prophet is a hundred percent an avatar of the Spiral. I don't usually share my thoughts with the class but I've only had a couple of hours of sleep last night and I've just seen a poll asking this exact question with very, very different results and... well, greetings everyone?

I'll start by saying that I absolutely get why people have completely different opinions on this, because at first glance this man and Desert Bluffs as a whole fit so many of the fears. And sure, the dread powers are colors, everyone is bound to blur a few lines. Kevin's lines are as boiled as a bowl of spaghetti though, we're not talking about blurry spots, there are leaks everywhere.

He's Spiral aligned, sure, but the omnipresence of gore and pain in Desert Bluffs is extremely Slaughter and Flesh coded, his Smiling God sometimes sounds like a manifestation of the Dark, and it's impossible to talk about Kevin without a few dozens mentions of cults and centipedes, so he's a pretty good candidate for the Corruption as well. And then, of course, we also have to talk about the blurry line between the Spiral and the Stranger, which makes it hard to see why he'd fit one more than the other. Conclusion: it's an absolute mess. I'm so sorry for how messy and long this post is inevitably going to be.

But hey, I'm doing my best to make sense here, so let's start by ruling out most of these options in a somewhat orderly fashion.

First of all, I'm automatically going to ignore the fears that didn't make an appearance in that little introduction. I can see the influence that the Beholding or the Buried might have on Kevin, but it's simply insignificant compared to the impact of the ones already mentioned. Again, colors and all that.

The Dark is easy to rule out too, but I couldn't ignore it when Kevin's eyes are black and It Devours describes the Smiling God as "that light that sometimes shines out of cupboards and basements, a cold light". But Mister Pitch already has his cult and I think there's too much focus on sunlight and not enough on what that darkness might hide to really go with it.

The Slaughter and the Flesh are harder to brush off, mostly because of, well, all the barbecue sauce. Violence and pain are, have been and will probably always be omnipresent in Kevin's life, and he's very likely a cannibal as well - with a morning routine that goes "burying what's left of breakfast". However, I think it would be too easy to stop at that. First of all, while the arrival of the boy in recent episodes proves that Kevin has always been somewhat open to violence and bloodshed, I'd argue a lot of it came from Strex. Triptych makes it clear that there was no issue with blood and viscera in Desert Bluffs before StrexCorp. And more importantly, hiding behind these fears specifically... the Spiral does that a lot. I completely believe Es Mentiras would've been equally as able to trigger the apocalypse as the Eye, because it has the same kind of special relationship with the rest of the dread powers, but that thought would be too long and too off topic. The point is, the Spiral served us the confession of a cannibalistic priest and a whole statement about a man forced to hurt himself via eating a computer. I'm really writing too much so long story short, I'd argue it really comes down to this: what's the end goal there? In the case of a Slaughter/Flesh avatar, it would be the gore/meat/pain/violence itself; to draw fear out of these things. For Strex and thus for Kevin, when violence and blood are gratuitous, the point is, most of the time, to keep people guessing. To instill doubt, to play with them. It's a "beat your employees to a pulp the day they start their new job to ensure their self-esteem and trust are never quite there" sort of violence. It's a "trick a whole society into thinking humanity is a food chain and they better bite before being bitten" sort of cannibalism. It's a different fear altogether, and so it doesn't fit either.

The Stranger and the Spiral are not always easy to differentiate, so I get the hesitation between the two. And yet I feel like it's pretty simple in the end. The Stranger, I Do Not Know You, is about concealing - thank you, Michael. It's hiding the truth and leaving you with nothing. The Spiral, It Is Not What It Is, is about lying, about twisting the truth so that you get it wrong. As much as I get the symbolism of masks and skins, and as much as they fit Kevin, he does not.. exactly hide anything. He never lies to Carlos about the blood in his studio, he doesn't hide how horrifying StrexCorp is - but he does say the truth with a big smile on his face and in his voice. He denies nothing, but he twists the reality of what happened to him, of who he is because of it. As the Archivist himself would say, he is the question "what hides behind a smile? Is a friendship true, or is it reaching with hands that cut you?" And you know who Kevin always calls a friend? His dear double, of course. He's once again clearly leaning towards the Spiral here.

The Corruption may just be the most tricky, if only because of the shared imagery. With the Smiling God being a giant centipede, and his little Temple of Joy hosting nothing less than a cult, it's hard not to entertain the possibility of Kevin turning to the Crawling Rot, willingly or not. He seems to have had toxic relationships with both family and friends all throughout his life, too, but he himself sounds like he's doing quite well with his new family. If anything, it means that he is/was a victim of the Corruption rather than a potential avatar to me. He may even have jumped off of his metaphorical tower Mike Crew style, right into the arms of the Spiral.

There would be plenty of examples, but to keep this sweet and short I'll focus on the main thing that the two entities share here, that is to say the cult/faith part. I'm a huge believer (ah) in the idea that the Spiral is equally as fond of religious devotion as the Corruption - not saying that they are the only ones, but they are the only ones that matter here. Father Burroughs and Bethany O'Connor, but also the statement giver of Sculptor's Tools who mentions going to church, are proof of this. Both entities target those who have faith to gain power through it, but again, not for the same reasons. The Corruption targets people whose beliefs betray a lack of and longing for connection to nature/others/etc, like Prentiss or the members of the Divine Chain. The Spiral targets people whose beliefs betray their guilt, doubts and insecurities - say a priest who couldn't save a young girl, or a woman who's quick to judge someone on his appearance. They prey on different concepts entirely and when it comes to Kevin and his faith in the Smiling God, I think it's pretty obvious which side he's leaning towards.

Now I'm aware this is a "why Kevin isn't aligned with this or that power" more than a true "why Kevin is Spiral aligned" rant. But this post is so long already that I'm going to stop here before I lose the rest of my sanity and bore all of us to death. I hope a number of points that connect him to Es Mentiras still shines through this whole thing, by contrast at least. I would also be very happy to write another post focusing on each and every single thing that makes Kevin an avatar of the Spiral to me, if anyone happened to be interested in that - and/or to discuss or argue this further, even though I doubt there's an audience for dreadfully long WTNV x TMA rants. But hey, if there is, you know where to find me. My opinion is probably completely off from someone else's perspective which is always fun. I'm just a dedicated listener with a ridiculously strong hyperfixation on both Kevin and the Spiral.

Going off the air until then. Until next time, Desert Bluffs. Until next time!

[umberpath]

My friend and I were discussing some of our favourite characters: Roui from The Crown of Leaves and Jonathan Sims from The Magnus Archives, and how they compare and contrast. We got the idea to swap their species and I just had to draw it right away :-]

It's not a full AU per se, more like a thought experiment of them swapping universes. More thoughts below:

Jon is a parban sahash with a small hint of maroosh. He probably dislikes suddenly being a sahash at first, but I imagine he'd grow to tolerate it and eventually get neutrally comfortable. Being surrounded by mystics all day would drive him insane, though it might fascinate him all the same.

We think Roui would probably hate being a human, but at least he would survive The Horrors! With the way he handled the Slough it's safe to say he'd be able to handle things. I can picture him looking around the archives and asking a lot of questions haha. I think being in the archives would also give him that little pang of longing for Nouri again.

[haemosexuality]

some people are very mad at the implication that the LN world is ~All A Dream~ but i dont think thats exactly it? like to me it seems very clear that the ln world is a real place, and all that happens in it is real. i think that what's happening is that when they go to sleep, their consciousness is transported into this paralel reality (the Nowhere) and they leave once they awaken, but as they spent more and more time there they slowly succumb to whatever powers or entities rule that world and they become trapped there. its like. kind of like the dark worlds in deltarune, or the other world in coraline, or the upside down in stranger things, or the fear reality/ies in the magnus archives you get the idea

those entities seem to both feed off of and be created by childrens fear, a paradoxical "it exists because children fear it and children fear it because it exists" thing. in an interview a dev said that "something happened before in [the kids] lives that made them a good fit for little nightmares" and i think that "something" is being traumatized: you have more nightmares that way.

something interesting about six specifically is that she's always described as being from somewhere else, not belonging 'here', etc, one description even says she "awoke in a world she cannot recognize" which. straight up confirms shes Not From This World, but like, if all of the kids came here because of nightmares whats different about her? why do they apparently 'belong' in the nowhere but she doesnt? maybe she has, like, too much willpower to succumb to the powers or something and thus doesnt belong with the other kids trapped here who have all given up, but then again shes also described to be "fading away from this world" at the start of ln2 which does seem to mean that shes succumbing to it? like, giving up and fading away? idk idk

bandai website description, issue 1 of the comic

also from the bandai namco website. six's "terrible fate" might be her succumbing to depression or whatever but have no idea why guiding mono to the signal tower would be important? maybe its not actually about the tower and its just about having a purpose and a friend to hold on to so she still has hope

ok heres my tinfoil hat theory: obv the podcast, the devs, promotional material and concept art all seem to be saying that ''kids go to a nightmare world when they go to sleep and sometimes get trapped there" is whats happening, but this post theorizes that maybe the nightmares noone in the podcast is having are prophetic and like. the nightmares explained video says that "the nightmares are crossing into the real world". what if what happened is that vulnerable kids who kept having nightmares were going to this future reality where the world got fucked up because of these entities, and maybe whenever they succumbed to them the entities were able to use their bodies to cross into our world, which eventually led to them being able to take over? resulting in the future fucked up reality kids were going to in their dreams? its not like little nightmares is unfamiliar with time paradoxes thats basically what happened to mono. idk!!!!

i keep bringing up other media but im not really comparing them im just using similsr exampled to explain what i mean bc its so weird i cant think of how else to do it. anyways what if the kids who fully give up and succumb to the fear become like the goners frok undertale. everyone just forgets they ever existed

[andmaybegayer]

Last Monday of the Week 2024-07-08

House isn't full of people anymore, time to spend like three weeks washing things and getting a routine going again

Listening: My parents """excuse""" for visiting me was the Rod Stewart concert at the O2, which they insisted on getting me a ticket for even though I'm pretty mid on Rod Stewart. He's fine! I don't hate his music but like, not a show for me, especially when I'm now much more used to random bands I've never heard of in a bar.

He's doing the best show an 80 year old man can do, leaning heavily on his supporting act to fill in for the fact that he can barely amble across the stage. Still sings pretty well, within the bounds of all the effects that are used to punch up live performances this big. Here's Sailing

Watching: subbing in a podcast here for reasons: Finished The Magnus Archives. God dammit I see why everyone hated that! They almost did the good thing! They were so close! Kill the world and stop the things in their tracks! Leave the boy, we don't need him!

The final season has a lot of really good individual statements and moments but man that really does kill it dead.

Reading: Trains back and forth to Vienna were a good chance to read a bunch of The Traitor Baru Cormorant, I'm almost done. It's so good, especially when I can compare this to A Memory Called Empire and Iron Widow, which are respectively quite similar but good in a different way and very different while struggling with the kind of finickly politics that Baru handles so well.

Baru Cormorant is so up-front with its empire. I mentioned when I read AMCE that it felt (rightly) sanitized partly because we were ambassadors in the Imperial core, well, Baru Cormorant goes the other way, putting you right at the forefront of the Empire.

Playing: Nothing really, although I did put my parents through some VR demos because they wanted to try it out and I think they did genuinely like it, especially fiddling with some of the fun tactile demos that Facebook and Valve have put together. It's such a different way of interacting with the computer.

Making: A lot of photography that needs to be processed.

Tools and Equipment: Things that come up when other people are in my kitchen: you really don't need dedicated cutting boards for meat and vegetables in the home kitchen. The purpose of this is to isolate vegetable ingredients that may be used raw OR cooked and you don't know which at preparation time, which is a commercial kitchen thing. If you're cooking everything you're working with you can freely mix meat and vegetables without worrying too much.

The only time it matters is if you're, say, chopping fresh garnish or salad, where it will not be cooked, in which case a second chopping board or just washing your current one is a good idea. You do not, however, need to keep track of which boards you use for what, since if you're not cleaning your boards well enough that you need to worry about this you have bigger issues.

[mllemaenad]

The Magnus Protocol: Putting Down Roots

Well, Colin is the most interesting character. It might just be because I've done IT. Never mind the supernatural. That error does not mean anything. You're seeing that error because it's the last thing that failed, but it only failed because nine other things failed before it. The first thing that failed is the actual problem, but you don't know what that is because you currently can't get to the top of the log file because of all the other things that crashed. So what the hell is wrong with you, you stupid machine?

It's all very relatable.

That said, a ".jmj error" does seem likely to be the text-to-speech programs crashing, so it probably is a supernatural error and it probably does mean something.

For the moment, it still seems most reasonable to speak as though "Norris" is Martin. It may not be, of course. It could be a disembodied voice with no personality attached to it at all – but what do you do with that, until the narrative makes something of it? It could be somebody else entirely, but in that case I know nothing about them or their motives so there's nothing useful to say until they reveal themselves.

So for now: Occam's razor. It sounds like Martin and it came into being after the conclusion of The Magnus Archives, so the simplest guess is that it is Martin. If and when useful evidence to the contrary surfaces, I will change my mind.

Also: Norris told a story about a man who killed his love and then lost himself so badly that he turned into a tree like bloody Harold from the Fallout series. It also dealt very much with feelings of being forgotten and unnoticed:

Norris/Samuel Webber I can’t go home. Not for a few days at least. And I’ll have to avoid the usual haunts until they forget about me again. That won’t be difficult. What’s one more stressed doctor. Just a grey man in the crowd, unnoticed until I’m useful. The Magnus Protocol: Putting Down Roots

That's a problem from Martin's past, but also a problem he might reasonably said to be having now, if he's explaining the horrors of the world to people and nobody (with the possible exception of Sam) is listening.

If that isn't Martin, it is something doing an uncannily good job of explaining why Martin might not be having a great year.

And, while this is evidence of nothing, for the moment I am much amused by the idea that a ".jmj" error is the cast of The Magnus Archives continuing their longstanding tradition of complaining about statements. One of those creepy messages comes in and Martin just wails "Again? Seriously?" and the whole system blue-screen-of-deaths. It may not be true, but it's funny in my head.

I do note that the new format gives a much greater capacity for bad or ambiguous endings to the tales. There's a thing John says in season four that sticks with me:

Archivist One thing that always strikes me when I read statements like this is… the bias of survivorship. With one or two notable exceptions, the only statements the Institute receives are those where the witness has successfully escaped whatever terrible place or being has marked them for a victim. I wonder how many don’t make it out. How many of those shapes in the water were once just like Mr. Shakya. – The Magnus Archives: Submerged

And he's right: there are a few instances of letters-to-be-read-in-the-event-of-my-death, and a few cases where a person who is clearly still being pursued by something stops in to tell their story before being run down, but most of the stories end in an escape. They aren't exactly happy, but they do tend toward the hopeful: by luck, tenacity or skill you may survive. Even the cavalcade of horrors in season five has finally has something you could call a happy ending: you can assume most of those people lived, and even went home.

If you compare the first four stories of The Magnus Archives with the first four stories of The Magnus Protocol, you get a very different pattern.

The Magnus Archives:

Nathan Watts of Anglerfish outwitted the titular monster – he spotted that the voice did not come from the figure's mouth, and got away.

Joshua Gillespie of Do Not Open outlasted the coffin, using music ice, and apparently an iron will to resist its siren song.

Across the Street is the odd one out: while Amy Patel seems to have survived the experience unscathed, the story is clearly about Graham Folger, and the monster very definitely got him.

Dominic Swain of Page Turner was rescued by Gerard Keay.

But in The Magnus Protocol, because the stories are harvested, they can just end – and so far, they do:

Harriet Winstead's fate in First Shift is unclear: did she escape, or was she killed or taken? She is last seen in fear for her life and seeking shelter.

Likewise, in the episode's second story, RedCanary's fate is somewhat unclear, although only in the sense that there isn't a definitive ending: there's a clear implication that their explorations had permanent consequences. More than that, while it is uncertain if Harriet got help, it is certain that RedCanary did not. Due to the anonymous nature of the forum, they were warned and banned when their behaviour began to reflect the peculiar things that were happening to them. Nobody went to help.

Daria of Tweaking lived (at least so far), but is afflicted and changed by whatever the tattoo artist did to her, and the most distressing thing is that she seemed largely unaware of that fact. She knew that the tattooing itself was weird and invasive, but did not seem to find her persistent self-mutilation odd, and is merely awaiting further "inspiration" to continue the process.

Samuel Webber of Putting Down Roots turned into a tree, and while it is not completely clear if that means he died, he's definitely gone – his belongings simply found among the roots.

There has not, so far, been a story that matches the general pattern of The Magnus Archives, in which a person who is at least broadly fine describes the weirdest thing that ever happened to them. People here ... they disappear.

Everything feels much worse in this universe.

In terms of the overarching plot, Alice's plot against Colin seems unnecessarily petty, and also weird. I've turned her logic over in my head a few times, and I do not believe it. There might indeed be occasions where a bigger IT department would be better at troubleshooting problems than the one local guy, but those occasions probably do not include a scenario where you're running 30-year-old proprietary German software that is mysteriously haunted by text-to-speech programs that should not be there. Colin freely admits he does not understand the system – but it is highly doubtful that anyone else does either.

She also says this:

Alice All I’m saying is that Colin tinkers with this system all the time and I don’t see any oversight. If you queried upstairs asking about it, all bambi-eyed and innocent, some alarms might go off. They might even come down and do a refresh or reboot or whatever. – The Magnus Protocol: Putting Down Roots

This contradicts a lot of what was said in First Shift, in which Colin was indicated to be essential personnel who might not be allowed to quit, and that he was being leaned on by a minister to accomplish ... something. Now, granted, Alice may simply mean that a senior IT person isn't monitoring him – but it does seem that the people "upstairs" are aware of Colin's activities, and seem to be in contact with him about them. And her insistence on a "refresh or a reboot", aka "turning it off and back on again" is interesting in light of the earlier conversation:

Colin Do you have any idea what will happen if this thing finally managed to extinct itself? Alice We’d go home early? – The Magnus Protocol: Putting Down Roots

Calling in IT only makes sense in the context of killing the system: shutting down whatever they are using and migrating to something consistent with what everyone else is using. Then they could be supported the same way everyone else is, and have their software updates managed at an enterprise level. And what would that do? Stop the voices? Unleash indescribable horrors on the world? Couldn't say.

But the core of the episode is a small-scale power struggle over the stark difference between Colin and Alice's attitudes to their work.

Colin seems overworked, highly stressed and oddly dedicated: he learned German to help his crappy IT job, for a start. He is suspicious of the system and what it is recording, and disinclined to be "friends" with it, but also seems to regard its failure as potentially catastrophic. He is under some kind of pressure from above that indicates that someone regards his work as critical, but does not seem to have clearly stated what that means to anybody – or if he has, they weren't listening.

Alice is committed to the idea that their work is meaningless, and engages with it as little as possible – she sticks around while Colin is fixing her workstation, but exits to make coffee the moment Norris starts talking again. She's stated previously that she believes they only exist as a forgotten department and is unmoved by the thought of their programs finally biting the dust.

Sam, as the new guy, is caught between them: he's naturally more engaged with the stories than Alice is, and has clearly been looking into the history of The Magnus Institute, but he's also closer with Alice than with Colin and being mentored by her.

The plot goes nowhere, because Sam declines to participate. It's impossible to say who is right and who is wrong, or if both characters are just screwing around because their jobs are awful – but it is interesting that this ideological difference escalated so early.

Something strange is happening. Do we care, or do we not?

Of course, it's also fair to note that the characters themselves may be unreliable. John continued to pretend to disbelieve the statements in The Magnus Archives long after he'd worked out the correlation between the ones that required the tapes and the ones that were true – because he believed that was the prudent thing to do. It may be that Alice is deeply invested in everything that is happening here and simply refusing to say. But you can't know these things until the characters crack so, for now: Alice is committed to not caring, and Colin is committed to finding things out, and this is becoming a problem.

The story ends with a minor spat between Gwen and Alice, which is interesting because it sheds a bit of light on Gwen's past. Her surname is Bouchard, which makes it easy to make assumptions – but it's hard to tell what is still true in an alternate universe. Apparently The Shining and A Nightmare on Elm Street still got made, but The Magnus Institute is in Manchester so all bets are off.

In this instance, however, there seems to be a pattern: Gwen, like Elias, seems to have come from money.

Alice Let me guess, fancy gowns, champagne, bathing in the blood of the poor – that sort of thing? Gwen You know we make the same, Alice. An old friend just made partner at her law firm. She wants to celebrate. Alice You sound thrilled. Gwen Oh I can’t wait to catch up and tell them I’m still working in the same cesspit I was last time they asked. – The Magnus Protocol: Putting Down Roots

Elias, however, was something of a feckless stoner whose most notable trait was an utter lack of a defence mechanism for dealing with the supernatural. I would not describe Gwen as feckless at all, and while Elias was picked as a means for an immortal to hold on to life and power, and thus ostensibly rose quickly to the top of The Magnus Institute, Lena seems to be actively stymieing Gwen's career.

But it creates an interesting pattern. The OIAR is implied to be a place with a high turnover rate and little security – and it's a bastard of a job that no one enjoys and seems to be accomplishing little. It's easy to wave your hand at Sam: he's here because of whatever weirdness has led him to research The Magnus Institute.

But. It's him, but not just him. Sam is overqualified for the job. Gwen has connections, which usually lead to better prospects. No idea what Alice has been doing with her life, but ...

Alice Fine. Yes, I’m working that night. I’m working every night. I was born down here and I’ll die down here. Happy? – The Magnus Protocol: Putting Down Roots

So why are these people still here?

[ao3feed-jonmartin]

when time shatters anew

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/uTzNk8S by ten_steps_away March 12th, 2016 Sasha and Tim arrive at the archives for a (comparatively) normal day at work. Turns out you can't even walk through the wrong door down there without the very fabric of time shifting, twisting, and swallowing you whole smh Post-Change Jon just wants out of these freaky corridors and see Martin again. (and to send his long-dead coworkers back to meet their fate) Words: 2843, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Fandoms: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: Multi Characters: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Sasha James, Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Helen | The Distortion (The Magnus Archives), Martin Blackwood Relationships: Sasha James/Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood & Sasha James & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Tim Stoker Additional Tags: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Time Travel, Sort Of, no beta we die like Sasha, but not here!! :D, Dissociation, POV Multiple, Asexual Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, that's not important to the fic, but it is to me, Distrust, Dreams, Slow Burn, Post-Episode: e160 The Eye Opens (The Magnus Archives), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/uTzNk8S