#so hey at least this basira isn’t involved in all that

[queerpanicking]

basira isn’t a corrupted cop in this universe good for her

[spoondrifts]

long post ahead I'm sorry-

crack au where Jonah Magnus is a good guy but everything keeps going wrong and he spends all of his time running around trying to stop his employees from diving headfirst into their Fuck Up™ of the week

in this au Jonah is almost entirely incompetent but he's got the exasperated parent thing down enough to make up for his lack of braincells

he's also at least 7% dumber than he is in canon

s1 Jon: please call pest control there are so many worms

s1 Elias: I already did

Jon: and??

Elias: they ate them

Jon: the worms?

Elias: the pest control guys. the worms ate them

Elias spends the entirety of season 2 desperately trying to convince Jon that none of them killed Gertrude (in this au Gertrude just had a stroke or something in the tunnels). Elias stops Jon from destroying the table but a week later something heavy falls on it and the NotThem escapes anyway. Elias bashes in Leitner's head with a pipe after mistaking him for the monster and Jon gets framed.

now Elias has to convince this hunter that Jon is innocent while Jon runs around and harasses various fear avatars (who are all very amused with Elias' wayward Archivist). Jon assumes Elias knows nothing about all this bullshit because Elias is just his weird and uptight boss who accidentally killed someone, he can't possibly know that there are literally fear gods ruling over them

olive ⚰ has named the group 'Avatars ✨'

JMagnus 👀: Jude please don't hurt him. I'll explain everything when he gets back to the Institute.

���: too late

JMagnus 👀: What?

🔥: too late

🔥: burned him

[JMagnus 👀 is typing]

JMagnus 👀: Where is he now.

🔥: going to mike

JMagnus 👀: Mike Crew???

🔥: ya

Elias RACES to Mike's house but he. he fucking misses them. the Beholding helpfully tells him that they're all going back to the Institute so Basira and Daisy can interrogate him, which isn't ideal, he'd really like to not go to jail, so he drafts up an employment contract on the way back and barely manages to escape the whole thing with his life intact.

then he explains everything to Jon because if Jon is going to end up being the Archivist, being uninformed won't do. Jon becomes the Archivist completely on accident and Elias is desperately trying to make all of this work because, haha, the Unknowing is coming up, and Elias is not in the fucking mood to deal with clowns.

olive ⚰ has named the group 'all that is terror uwu'

spidey🕸: lmfaooo jonah how do you make an archivist on accident

JMagnus 👀: He stumbled into it. All I can do now is ensure he doesn't die.

JMagnus 👀: Or get further injured by the rest of you.

🔥: woops

🎭: hEy gUyS lOnG tiMe nO sEe

🎭: gEt iT eLiAs

🎭: sEe

JMagnus 👀: Beholding puns are not amusing from a manifestation of the Stranger.

🎭 has named the group 'eLiAs bE niCe tO niKoLa cHaLlEnGe'

🔥: haha

spidey🕸: I'm sure Nikola will be on her best behavior

🎭: yEaH i wOnT kiDnAp yOuR aRcHiViSt

[JMagnus 👀 is typing]

mike n ike: hey guys what'd I miss

🔥: arent you dead

mike n ike: yeh but I came back

JMagnus 👀: NIKOLA ORSINOV WHERE IS JONATHAN SIMS

🔥: can't you see haha

mike n ike: heh "see"

JMagnus 👀: NIKOLA

spidey🕸: wow he must be pissed

spidey🕸: he left out the punctuation

JMagnus 👀: I WILL BREAK ALL OF YOUR PLASTIC BONES WHERE'S MY ARCHIVIST

🎭 has left the chat.

JMagnus 👀: what the FUCK

since he's still a coward Elias sends Michael to go fetch Jon, only finding out after the fact that he very nearly almost signed Jon's death warrant. Elias is now speedrunning Jon's development because fuck the Unknowing is coming up really quickly and Tim is a self destructive mess and Melanie keeps trying to stab Elias and Martin is a pining idiot and goddammit he didn't sign up for this

Elias prepares Jon the best he can for the Unknowing, because even though he knows the ritual will fail, the Circus can still cause a considerable amount of damage and he needs them out of the way.

the Unknowing happens. Jon ends up in a wack ass coma, Tim is dead, Daisy's in the coffin, and Basira is starting to look like the better choice of Archivist because jesus christ Jon has no self preservation instinct. Elias doesn't get arrested this time around but his ex husband starts coming by the Institute and fucking with all his employees. and the Flesh is attacking. jesus. goddamn.

olive ⚰ has named the group 'bully elias'

JMagnus 👀: Why are you all so mean to me? I'm arguably the nicest one here.

🔥: ur joking right

Peter Lukas: you're not nice you didn't buy me an anniversary gift 😢😢😢

JMagnus 👀: I was busy.

Peter Lukas: doing what

JMagnus 👀: Stopping the Flesh from destroying my Institute. Besides, you didn't remember my birthday.

Peter Lukas: you're 200 years old how could I remember 😓

helen!!!!!: We All Know I'm The Nicest One Here!!

JMagnus 👀: How did you make your text that colorful?

helen!!!!!: IDK

JMagnus 👀: Liar.

helen!!!!!: That's Literally My Job

olive ⚰: hey eli your archivist just woke up I think

🔥: ew why

helen!!!!!: How Delightful!! Maybe I'll Throw Him A Glad You're Alive Party!!

olive ⚰: should we invite him to this chat since he's an avatar now

Peter Lukas: no 🙅 🚫❌

Peter Lukas: I hate archivists 😤😤

olive ⚰: still mad about gertrude huh

🔥: were all still mad about gertrude

🔥: but jons fine once you burn some manners into him

JMagnus 👀: Can you all please stop hurting Jon? Or talking about hurting him? I would like my Archivist to not acquire any more scars.

🔥: damn

Peter Lukas: damn 😔

Elias keeps trying to teach Jon how to pick certain victims to feed off of because personally he has no qualms about feeding from innocents but Jon!! actually trusts him!!! so Elias doesn't want to push Jon into making decisions that will offend his moral sensitivities.

things are actually going okay for a while. Elias starts going home at a reasonable time in the evenings and Jon is actually getting some sleep. and then-

Elias is having a nice dream about Peter trying to fish Simon Fairchild out of a sky filled with eyes when he abruptly sits up in bed, wide awake.

"Ah, fuck," he says to Peter, who is laying on the floor where it is Lonelier™. "Jon's doing something stupid. I Know it."

Peter's mumbled "isn't he always" goes unnoticed as Elias hurries to the Institute, where he finds a fucking rib on Jon's desk and the coffin in the middle of the room.

Peter Lukas has named the chat 'archivists ruin my sleep schedule and my sex life'

JMagnus 👀: What the fuck do I do?? I can't go into the Buried! Why is Jon so stupid? I didn't know he had zero braincells when I hired him!

🔥: ngl why havent you fired him yet

JMagnus 👀: Beholding won't let me. We're all bound to the Institute.

🔥: F

JMagnus 👀: Why are there no Buried avatars in here? Please someone help me.

mike n ike: lol the buried is gross why would anyone go down there

spidey🕸: does he have an anchor?

[JMagnus 👀 sent an image]

🔥: is that a fucking rib

spidey🕸: wow that's not a good anchor at all

spidey🕸: he needs someone he loves

JMagnus 👀: Thanks. Gtg.

spidey🕸: np

🔥: are we not going to talk about his rib

🔥: how the fuck did he get that out of his body

🔥: yall

🔥: YALL

it takes three days for Elias to find Martin.

"Please tell me why the fuck you're dabbling in the Lonely," Elias says as Martin steps sheepishly out of the fog.

"Ah. Well. Jon can't See into it very well and sometimes we like to spice up our se-"

"Stop before I have to gouge my eyes out again."

"A-Again-?"

Elias drags Martin back to the Institute. Martin starts setting tapes on the coffin because "Jon loves these" and Elias starts bashing his head into the wall.

Jon climbs out of the coffin with Daisy and Elias almost considers locking Jon in his office so the damn archivist can't do anything else ridiculous. instead, Elias very calmly takes Jon by the shoulders, and shakes him like a rag doll.

"Stop fucking with entities, you stupid, stupid man," Elias says, shaking Jon more viciously now.

after several hours of breathing exercises Elias returns to his house and doesn't take his Sight off of Jon for the rest of the night, which is a fun experience for Peter when he wakes up and finds Elias' bloodshot eyes staring directly at him in the morning.

JMagnus 👀 added Daisy to 'archivists ruin my sleep schedule and my sex life'

Peter Lukas has named the chat 'archivist hate club'

JMagnus 👀 has named the chat 'shut up peter'

Peter Lukas has named the chat 'you love jon more than me'

JMagnus 👀 has named the chat 'I don't love either of you I'm heartless'

Peter Lukas has named the chat 'I want a divorce'

spidey🕸: jeez take your marital dispute elsewhere

spidey🕸 has named the chat 'lonelyeyes dni'

Daisy: wtf is this

mike n ike: it's a chat for avatars

mike n ike: and ex avatars ig

Daisy: didn't I kill you

mike n ike: yea

JMagnus 👀: Hello, Daisy. Welcome to the group chat.

Daisy: why is Jon not in here

Peter Lukas: because I hate him 😁

spidey🕸: Elias talks mad shit in here and Jon would get offended

Daisy: if you talk bad about Jon I'll rip your throat out

Daisy: :)

JMagnus 👀: Noted.

mike n ike: he's kinda rude tho

Daisy: I've killed you once

Elias' only goal now is to keep Jon and his assistants from pulling any more wild stunts without his supervision. his renewed involvement with the archival staff results in a few things he'd hoped to avoid: drink invites, physical contact (Martin is surprisingly quick to start hugging Elias once he realizes Elias won't stop him), and- shudder -feelings. because Elias genuinely cares about his staff and doesn't want any harm to befall them. especially Jon. Jon is his Archivist, the only one to ever succeed like this, and Elias will be damned if he lets anything happen to him.

"Why do you care?" Jon asks, once, compulsion thrumming like static on his tongue. "About us, I mean. I would've assumed you'd want to perform the Beholding's ritual."

Jonah Magnus attempted the Watcher's Crown once, when he was young and new. he'd brought his patron close, but not all the way through, and the backlash of power killed all the inmates at Millbank and severely crippled Jonah's connection to the Eye for months afterward. he grew to assume that the Beholding simply preferred the world as it was--ripe with fear for watching. it didn't need a ritual.

he instead dedicated himself to growing stronger, cultivating his Institute of knowledge, his stronghold. if he tore out a few people's eyes when he got too old, then, well, collateral. but he doesn't want the world to end, and knows now that no ritual will ever succeed unless it brings in all the Powers at once. and he doesn't want that either.

it's concerning to him that Jon seems to be collecting marks regardless. the only ones he's missing are the Dark and the Lonely, and Elias is determined to keep it that way.

he explains all of this to Jon who, to his credit, takes it pretty well. Jon is fascinated with historic life and Elias spends some time simply recounting tales of his youth, when he still bore the name Magnus.

they bond. it's good.

and one day Basira does a little too much research and discovers the dark sun waiting in Ny Alesund. she insists they need to go and see what's left of the People's Church, they need to ensure everything is taken care of. Jon is rather insistent too. and Elias wouldn't have been inclined to let them go, except Peter was finally home after weeks at sea, and it wasn't like Jon was defenseless, he could call Elias if anything went wrong...

so, very reluctantly, Elias gives them the all clear. Basira, Jon, and Martin head north, and Elias almost forgets they've gone when he arrives home and Peter already has dinner prepared.

Jon comes back marked by the Dark.

Elias curses himself, over and over, for being foolish enough to let them go, for not keeping a closer eye on them. he knows the ritual won't work unless a certain incantation is spoken, so he'll just have to keep world-ending written chants away from Jon. easy. and it's not like Jon will even get marked by the Lonely. Peter wouldn't.

(but Martin doesn't have the same level of control, and sometimes...)

it's an accident. Martin and Jon are testing it, pushing the boundaries, when Martin pulls them both into the Lonely. Elias threatens divorce until Peter caves and fetches them, but it's too late. Jon has been marked by all fourteen Powers.

Elias tells him, and warns him to check everything he reads.

helen!!!!! has named the chat 'apocalypse babey'

JMagnus 👀: How are you doing that?

JMagnus 👀: And the apocalypse is not imminent. I have the situation under control.

olive ⚰: ha yeah

JMagnus 👀: What do you mean by that?

olive ⚰: nothing

JMagnus 👀: Well, now I certainly think it's something.

olive ⚰: it's just

olive ⚰: don't you think it's kinda weird that @spidey🕸 has been offline for so long

🔥: thats weird shes always online

JMagnus 👀: Oliver, what are you implying?

olive ⚰: idk

olive ⚰: just weird, that's all

🔥: never good when the spiders are quiet

olive ⚰: hear hear

Elias gets a sinking feeling in his stomach, and beside him, Peter looks alarmed. meanwhile, in his flat with Martin making tea in the other room, Jon has a statement clutched in his grasp.

Hello, Jon.

I would apologize for the deception, but I'm afraid that's quite what I'm good at. I'm not one to monologue, that's more Jonah's shtick, so shall we get on with things?

I admit I underestimated Jonah Magnus. He's still remarkably easy to manipulate, but when he abandoned the Watcher's Crown ritual I knew I would have to take a different approach. The Mother is not so satisfied with the world as she may have insinuated. It is our turn to rise, Jon.

At the age of eight, you were marked by us. We sent you to the Magnus Institute in the hopes that a new Archivist would rekindle Jonah's desire to end the world. Unfortunately, it seemed as though he grew fond of you, and so we brought in a new plan. We marked you. One fear at a time. Jonah gave an admirable attempt at protecting you, but ultimately, he is an incompetent old fool, and I am a Weaver. Even Jonah Magnus dances to invisible strings.

Everyone underestimates a spider until it bites. Poison is poison, Jon, regardless of the medium in which it is served.

You will be safe in this new world. Martin, too. Perhaps even Jonah and his Lukas, if the Mother deems them worthy.

Now, please repeat after me...

Jon reads the ink scratched words, eyes welling up with tears and hands trembling, as thunder crashes outside and a howling gale picks up beyond the windows. Martin is shouting something, there's the crawling press of Elias' gaze as it rests heavy behind Jon, a silent observer. He can feel Elias' soothing presence, cool and calm in the raging storm.

Elias is still watching out for him.

Strings are wrapped around his wrists, jerking his arms up in a poor mockery of religious regard, strange hysterical laughter clawing out from his throat.

Jon's tears run red. Somewhere, Elias is still watching.

The door opens.

[wolftraps]

"They’ve got one single person who is Desolation + the End (an orphan Daisy found in the burned out shell of a house that they all sort of co-raised...)" Oh I'd love to hear more about them. Both in the Institute family accidentally an entire baby sense and in the WOW is this the wrong person to have mad at you sense. Give them a touch of the Hunt and they're deadlier than any Slaughter. (Course, thats what mum's for.)

Right, so, uh, I didn’t mean to write so much. But I guess that’s the story of Reverb. So, here’s 2500 words of Daisy and Jon raising a monster, I guess?

Basira finds the lead. There have been rumors that the Lightless Flame is trying to create a new Agnes. Jon thinks they may already have. He doesn’t Know, but his attempts to do so gave him a nasty sunburn for a couple hours, so he passed it off to them instead. Almost everyone involved in Agnes’s birth and childhood are gone, but there are still a couple known contacts, and at this point, Daisy can usually just follow the smell of burning.

It’s Basira who finds the lead, though, and takes them up to a tiny town about 100km north of Glasgow.

To what was a tiny town north of Glasgow. Most of it isn’t even smoking anymore by the time they get there. If anyone survived, they’ve already fled. All except for one. There’s no sound that gives them away. No crying or screams. Daisy just follows the scent of smoke to the epicenter of the destruction, and huddled in the middle of the burned out shell of a house, with their head buried in their knees, is a child.

Her first step into the building disturbs some rubble, just enough to get the child’s attention without immediately prompting an attack. Their head snaps up, and they may not be crying now, but the redness of their eyes says they have been.

“Daisy,” Basira warns as she takes a step closer, and Daisy motions for her to keep back.

Another step, the child tenses. Another, they still don’t attack. Another. Another. When she’s finally only a couple meters away, the kid makes ready to run. So that’s where Daisy stops, and sits down amid the rubble and ash.

“Hi,” she says softly. “I’m not here to hurt you. My name is Daisy.”

No response.

“Can you tell me your name?”

Nothing.

“That’s alright. You can tell me when you’re ready.” Daisy slowly gestures at the destruction around them. “I’m going to take a guess and say you did this.” The child tenses. “Also going to guess you didn’t mean to.” They stare at her suspiciously for another few seconds and then jerkily shake their head.

“That’s okay,” Daisy reassures them. “I understand. I’m going to sit here as long as you need to feel comfortable, okay? You can talk when you’re ready, but I’m only here to help.” Their eyes flick briefly to Basira, still standing just outside the demolished wall. “That’s my partner, Basira. She’s not going to hurt you either. She’ll stay right there unless you say she can come in.”

And so they stay for another twenty minutes, sitting in silence.

“D-Daisy?” the child says eventually, their voice cracking and hoarse from smoke.

“I’m here.”

“You… don’t really look like a Daisy.” Daisy laughs.

“My real name is Alice.”

“You don’t look like an Alice, either.”

“Yeah. I didn’t really like it. Daisy’s better.” They nod.

“I’m… I’m Shay.”

“Hi, Shay. Good to meet you.”

“I… I really didn’t mean to,” they say, and their shoulders shake, but there are no tears. Daisy suspects they may be too dehydrated. “I just… I just wanted to see. And- and then I couldn’t stop it. And everyone was screaming! And- and-”

“Shh-shh. It’s okay, Shay. Can I come closer?” Shay nods and Daisy moves slowly, no sudden movements, until she sits again at Shay’s side. “I’d like to hug you, if that’s okay.”

“I- I don’t-”

“That’s fine too. I’m right here. However you need me.” Shay studies her for a long moment, barely breathing, and then a sob wracks through them and they’re buried in her side.

“I didn’t mean to!”

“I know. It’s okay. I know.” She rocks them gently until the shaking stops.

“What’s going to happen to me now?”

“If it’s alright with you, I’d like to take you home now.”

“Your home?”

“My home.”

“With you and Basira.”

“With us, and my friend Jon. And Martin and Sasha. Our whole little family. And yours if you want it.”

-

“A child,” Georgie says incredulously. “Someone gave you a child?”

“Technically, Daisy acquired a child. I thought it best they learn in a more stable environment. Also they’re almost eleven. It’s not like we’re trying to raise a toddler in the Archives.”

“I’m not sure that’s better, Jon.” The child in question side-eyes them, but says nothing, just continues to sort papers. “They’re very quiet.”

“Now,” Jon scoffs a bit. “There was a bit of a row earlier, and a yell that may have spawned a small tornado. Shay is cleaning up the mess they created, in silence, or they won’t be going out with Sasha tomorrow to witness Hurricane Gabrielle hit Florida.” He meets Shay’s glare with a flat stare of his own. Stubborn ten-year-olds have a remarkable ability to not be intimidated by staring, though they still break first, with a touch of an embarrassed blush.

“Jon! They’re a child.”

“Georgie! They’re not human. And I’m certainly not going to push them to pick a second patron at this age, so I would rather they participate in events that will occur anyway than for them to start blowing things up near our home.”

“So if they don’t behave, you’ll starve them.” The glare Jon aims at her has her taking a step back. It’s not often Jon aims any of his powers at Georgie, but it’s abundantly clear that that isn’t something she should have said.

“If they don’t behave, they will be taken to northern Georgia, where the hurricane will likely cause serious flooding, but little irreparable damage. They’re already Desolation, Georgie, and I am not going to punish them for living.”

-

“Shay.”

“Oh, uh, hey, mum! W-what’s up?”

“Explain.”

“I’m just… protesting? Oh, come on! We’ve been careful. Minor injuries and some lingering trauma only. And you can’t tell me some of these assholes don’t deserve it!”

Daisy looks at them sternly for a good half minute, just enough to let them squirm.

“You’re targeting the wrong pressure points. And his lordship is over there,” she points to the building currently behind Shay, right on the edge of the localized earthquake they have going.

“Oh. Oops.”

“If you want to level the building three down from that, I won’t complain. Got a Stranger I’ve been after for a while squatting there.”

“Aww.”

“Don’t.”

“What? I think it’s sweet you still bring him Strangers for their anniversary!”

“You want pointers or not?”

“Not saying another word. What’s the secret to efficiently destroying a building?”

-

Jon finds them in the tunnels, sitting against a wall, wrapped around Patrząc. He sits beside them, just close enough to brush arms. Even then, he can feel the heat coming off them. Not burning, but feverish at least, if they were capable of having fevers.

Neither of them say a word for several minutes.

“I keep trying to cry,” Shay says, soft and flat. “I want to. I- I really fucked up this time, but I just… can’t. I can feel them, their terror, and… I can feel when it stops. Every single one, it feels like i’m being dropped into ice water, but I’ve been burning so hot, it feels more like a balm. I… I know we’re not human, but shouldn’t- shouldn’t I be sad? Or… something?”

Jon leans his head back against the wall and considers. “I- spent a lot of my youth blaming myself for… everything, really. It took me a long time to accept that ‘you always have a choice’ and ‘some things are beyond your control’ aren’t mutually exclusive. Just because there is a choice, doesn’t mean it could’ve gone any other way than how it did.”

“Didn’t you literally go back in time to change everything?”

“Yes. And I changed… a lot. It was hard to think of it that way at the time. Back then, it seemed like no matter what I did, everything was still going to go wrong. Some people probably would’ve been… No, no one would’ve been better off. Not in the end. That’s what I still have trouble remembering. We told you I came back because the world ended.”

“Yeah? Because of Jonah Magnus. You came back to kill him, so it didn’t happen.”

“I’m the one who ended it.”

“Wh- wait, what? But you…”

“We tried to run away, but I was too much the Archivist to go without statements. Basira sent us some, but Jonah slipped one in, and it held the words to perform the ritual. By the time I realized what it was, I couldn’t stop reading. It wasn’t a choice I deliberately made, but I ended the world.”

“Oh… fuck.”

“Heh. Yeah. And still, I wouldn’t have come back- I wouldn’t have been able to come back- if Martin hadn’t been killed.”

“I don’t-”

“Do you know about Agnes?”

“Agnes… Montague? I read some of the statements, why?”

“If Daisy never found you. If you were raised by the Lightless Flame. You were meant to be her replacement. Your birth was orchestrated to bring about the apocalypse in the image of Desolation.”

“… Oh.”

“Agnes was conflicted. She had doubts. Eventually, she decided she couldn’t do it. She told them to hang her, so her spark would return to the fires of Desolation and they could try again.”

“… Oh.”

“Do you know the difference between you and her?”

“She chose not to destroy the world and I’m going to do it by accident?”

“No. It’s the same as the difference between timelines for me. The people around Agnes made her choose between dying and ending the world. The difference is that your family would never want you to do either.”

“I… Jon- Dad- There- there are still so many lives being lost. Because of me. And-”

“And you can feel them. Yes. You said it doesn’t feel bad. Does it feel good?”

“Wh- Um… Not- not especially? Mostly it just… is. It’s almost like… part of me wants to be satisfied, but instead I’m just numb.”

“That’s probably the best we could hope for.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know. I’ll do my best to explain. We should go back up, though. Your mother is being gruff, but it’s because she’s worried about you.” Jon starts to lever himself up but is stopped by a warm grip on his arm.

“Could- could we stay down here, just a bit longer? The- the cold feels nice.” Jon smiles softly and sits and lets them lean in to rest their head on his shoulder, even though they’ve got enough height on him it can’t be comfortable. The two of them won’t be able to sit here forever. A fretting Daisy is already wearing a hole in the floor of the Archives with her pacing. And it’s unlikely the forest fire is going to go out without some supernatural intervention. He remembers this feeling, though, and how much he depended on Martin’s support.

He can give them this, for a little while longer, and then he’ll call Oliver Banks.

-

Ethan has been at the Institute for half a year when he finally meets Jon’s kid. They’re… a lot livelier than he expected. They blow through the Archives like a whirlwind (and, in fact, may spawn a small one, though it only disturbs some of the discredited statements, so it’s not like it matters), and almost slide into a seat across from Jon.

“Mum says you have something for me,” they say, practically bouncing. “What is it? What is it?”

“Hello, Shay. Lovely to see you too. I’m doing just swell, thanks for asking. How are you?”

“Oh please, you know exactly how i’m doing. But… yes, hi Jon, I missed you too.” Ethan has never once had any cause to doubt his mother’s love, but he doesn’t think he’s ever seen her look at him with half as much fondness as Jon looks at Shay. Though, in fairness, that’s probably because he’s a bit too close to the situation with his own mum.  “Soooo?”

“The Vast.”

“Oooh, that’s a new one. I thought Martin still had a pretty good hold on the Fairchilds.”

“Simon is trying his hand at space exploration again and won’t answer our calls. Helena says this new avatar isn��t a Fairchild and has no stake in our alliance.”

“Is she telling the truth?”

“Unfortunately. Kinsey Harris is a former RAF pilot. In 2031, there was a malfunction and his plane went down. He did not. In August of 2032, he came to the Blackwood Institute and made a statement. Ethan?”

Jon has been doing this more and more lately, quizzing Ethan on case numbers. Sometimes he remembers from his searches through old statements, sometimes he doesn’t. On at least two occasions, though, he’s known without ever seeing it.

“Umm… 07.2031.2032/08/14… I/L/R?” Jon nods, and Ethan tries not to look too proud of himself.

“New guy?” Shay asks, looking him over. They had clearly missed him in their sprint to Jon’s office.

“Not that new,” Jon scoffs.

“Jon.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t need to! Martin and Mum and even Sasha did it for you! I’m pretty sure Sasha doesn’t know what year it is half the time, let alone how long it’s been since I last visited the Institute.”

“Sasha knows what year it is at least 86% of the time, and she knows when it’s been too long since you came home.”

“Can’t we go back to you asking me to kill a guy? That conversation was a lot more fun.” Jon stares at them until they start to squirm, just a little, and Ethan’s spent enough time with him that he’s pretty sure he can see Jon fighting a smirk.

“Kinsey took one of our HR employees, Buried-aligned. She was missing for a week before she crash-landed in the front hall. Now one of our library staff, Len, Pitch, is gone.” All of Shay’s fidgeting has stopped, and there’s a sense of… something in the Archives. Static tension. The calm before a storm.

“Right. Give me everything you have on him.”

“Ethan has been collecting it all. He can fill you in while you grab something from the canteen.”

Shay doesn’t so much roll their eyes as their whole head. “You cannot judge me for skipping a couple meals. I was busy.”

“I can and I will. Go. Eat lunch. And we will see you for dinner later.”

For a second it looks like there’s going to be an argument, but Shay stops before saying anything. “Who’s cooking?” they ask. Jon really does smirk now.

“Georgie and I are making curry.”

“Yessss. Okay. I’ll see you later. Love you!” They drop a kiss on Jon’s cheek and then Ethan is being pulled up the stairs by someone with Jon’s intensity and Ms. Tonner’s feral energy and he wonders if maybe he should be worried, but doubts he’s going to have much time for that.

[haberdashing]

The Blind Meeting The Blind

TMA fic, sequel to A Rude Awakening. A few hours after waking up blind twenty-three years in the future, Elias gets the opportunity to meet another member of the Jonah Magnus Hate Club, though it doesn’t go as smoothly as he might have hoped.

on AO3

If Elias had thought things had moved quickly when he woke up, when the news was suddenly and unceremoniously dumped on him that he had been possessed by his old boss for the last twenty-three years and that the only reason he was himself again was because he’d been forcibly blinded, well, things just kept moving at that speed from there.

First there was the confrontation in the Panopticon, taking down Jonah Magnus for good, killing the body that had kept him going for over two hundred years now. The whole thing was strange and a bit overwhelming, naturally enough, but it was... it was good, knowing nobody else would have to go through what Elias had, at least not at Magnus’ hands. Also, if he’d had any doubt about the reality of the situation, about how the man Elias had known as generally decent boss James Wright had in fact been the founder of the Magnus Institute and had royally fucked up Elias’ life to keep running it, well, that was settled there. Which wasn’t great to know, exactly, but when so much had been up in the air, Elias didn’t entirely mind having a bit more certainty about his current situation.

Then there was the others--Jon, Basira, Daisy, and Martin--all rushing to explain a great number of things to Elias, some of which made his head spin, some of which didn’t seem possible, and yet all of which he was at this point willing to accept as his new reality, because it made more sense than any alternative he could come up with.

First, after Jonah Magnus was finally dead, the others explained how their lives, too, had been changed for the worse by Magnus’ actions in one way or another. Elias couldn’t help but think that he’d gotten the worst lot of the bunch, even after he knew what the others had gone through, but he kept his mouth shut about that. All that voicing that opinion would do was lead to arguments and risk alienating the few people Elias knew now, the few people he could tentatively see as his allies in this strange new world.

Then there was the explanation of the fear entities, how the Magnus Institute had always been dedicated to the service of the one Jon had called the Eye or the Beholding before, how there were thirteen other entities much like it dedicated to other commonplace fears, how people’s lives could be upended by encounters arranged in some way by these fear entities, how some actually chose to willingly serve one of them and were forever changed by that decision.

Oh, and apparently the world had ended, which really seemed like it should have come up a lot sooner in the conversation than it did. Apparently it was just common knowledge at this point, though, and everyone who hadn’t been unconscious for the last few months was beginning to take it for granted. Magnus had arranged for it to happen, apparently, had voluntarily assisted in letting all fourteen fears loose on the world. Had done it using Elias’ body, of course, but the others were very clear on the point that this didn’t make any of it Elias’ fault, though he hadn’t honestly thought about it that way before they all went out of their way to reassure him otherwise.

(Even with all this information being dumped on him en masse, Elias got the feeling that a few things were being left out or glossed over. Things that were more personal, perhaps, or things that might be sore spots for other members of this motley crew he had found himself part of.

For instance, all of them had seemed eager to touch briefly on the point that people could serve fears and then quickly move on without much in the way of further discussion, and Martin in particular seemed determined to reassure Elias that just because Jonah Magnus had used his body to end the world didn’t mean that the world ending was in some way his fault, while Jon was the lone man out in not uttering any of those same reassurances.

There were stories there, clearly, things purposely left unsaid, but Elias didn’t push to find out what exactly it was they were avoiding telling him. Those stories would come out in their own time, he figured. Better not to rock the boat.)

And after all of that, there was more, because aside from everything else Elias was in the future now, twenty-three years into the future--alright, maybe it was everybody else’s present day, and sure it wasn’t technically time travel, but that didn’t stop 2019 from still sounding more like the setting of a mediocre sci-fi movie than the actual current calendar year--and with that came a lot of mundane information to catch up on.

(Though sometimes it seemed like the others didn’t even remember 1996, or know how far back that really was compared to the present day, thought he needed introductions to things he already knew about--yes, Martin, he knows what the Internet is, thank you!)

So much had changed in politics, in entertainment, in technology... as their little group made their way to a restaurant (or maybe it was a bar? Elias wasn’t sure, and the name of the place sounded like it could go either way) for a celebration and a rendezvous with some like-minded souls, the others explained to Elias how cell phones had become both so common that it was unusual for somebody to not have one and so powerful that, despite by and large being smaller than the cell phones he was used to, the vast majority of them could wirelessly connect to the Internet in one way or another.

(Martin had even lent Elias his own cell phone to examine for a moment until all involved parties realized that without enabling some settings that none of them knew off-hand how to enable, all Elias could tell was that he was holding a smooth chunk of metal and plastic and glass and that it made various electronic sounds when he touched it or pressed any of its several buttons. Martin had meant well, at least. A for effort there.)

As Basira helped guide Elias into a seat, Martin asked, “Want me to put some music on? No use in having a smartphone if it doesn’t get to do anything smart, right?”

“Elias should probably get dibs, he’s never even used a smartphone before.” Daisy paused for a moment before adding, “My money’s on the Spice Girls.”

“What?”

“It’s era-appropriate, isn’t it?”

“Basira, don’t tell me you’re taking her side on this one.”

“Bet we could find an album from 1997 you’ve never even heard before, blow your little Spice Girls-loving mind.”

“But- no, I-” Elias turned towards Martin and, more importantly, away from Basira and Daisy, not really in order to hear Martin better but just to make a point. “Something from the Beatles, maybe? The Beatles are nice.”

“Beatles it is!” Martin started tap-tap-tapping away on his phone to get the music to play.

Here comes the sun, doo-do doo-doo...

“Oh, you’re no fun.”

Here comes the sun, and I say...

“Shut up.”

It’s all right.

Despite his banter with Daisy, only some of which was entirely facetious, Elias started to smile. Some of what caused his heightened mood was the choice of music to play in the background--he’d grown up listening to Beatles albums, wishing he could’ve seen them in concert, and hearing their music always reminded him of a simpler time, before Mum had died and everything had gone to hell. Some of it was the lyrics of this particular song--the world may have ended, and a lot may have changed very quickly, but he’d found a group of people who understood, who’d helped him through the worst of it, and...

Well, “all right” might be a bit of a stretch, but at least things probably weren’t going to get any worse.

That would take some real creativity on the universe’s part, for starters...

Little darling, it’s been a long cold lonely winter...

Not long after Martin stopped tapping at his phone, Elias heard a different tap-tap-tapping in the background loud enough to be audible over the music, the sound of something hitting the wood floor again and again, moving slightly closer each time.

Little darling, it feels like years since it’s been here...

“Melanie! Good to see you!”

Martin mumbled a quick “I’ll just put this away” and turned off the music he’d been playing, which was definitely the polite thing to do given the situation, but it still irked Elias some to have the music he was enjoying turned off so abruptly.

Elias turned to face Melanie, or at least to face in her general direction, shooting her an awkward grin and a silent wave, neither of which prompted any reaction he could discern.

A new voice--Melanie’s, presumably--spoke up, but didn’t quite return the group’s greeting as she pulled up a seat and flopped into it. “So you did it, then?” In a slightly lower tone of voice, a bit like a stage whisper, she added, “He’s dead?”

“Yeah. Yeah, we did it.”

“Thank God. I’ll drink to that--and I’m buying this time, too.”

“Oh, you’re buying? In that case...” Daisy raised her voice, making it ring throughout the... Elias still wasn’t sure if it was a restaurant or a bar, though his money would be on it being a combination of the two, as she said, “Hey, what’s the most expensive thing you’ve got to drink in here?”

“Yeah, yeah... pull a stunt like that and I’ll do it right back when it’s your turn to pick up the tab.”

“You would, wouldn’t you.”

“Round of Old Canoe for the table?” Basira suggested.

The group murmured a few words of assent, and Basira got up, presumably to hunt down their server.

“I thought Georgie was coming.” Jon said. He sounded surprised, but also... sad? Wistful? More emotional than Jon seemed to be most of the time, at any rate.

“She came down with a nasty cold yesterday.” Melanie replied. “Said she’d have to take a rain check on celebrating. Thought I should stay home too, but I told her I’d make it here just fine on my own. Which I did, obviously.” There was an edge to that last phrase, but though Elias could guess it had something to do with her not wanting to be underestimated, any further details were lost on him. (Another story left unspoken there, he presumed.)

“Ah. Well, when you see her, tell her... tell her I hope she feels better soon.”

“Right.”

A moment later, and six glasses of beer were set on the table, one for each member of their little group.

“Cheers?”

“Cheers!”

Everyone clinked their glasses together--somebody bumped their glass into Elias’ fingers at one point, but the minor ache that followed barely even registered against the background noise of agony that remained in the holes where his eyes should be--and then drank as one. The beer tasted awful, but Elias just kept gulping it down just the same, caring less about the taste than about the sheer alcohol content involved; if there’d ever been a night that called for some drinking, this had to be it.

Elias was a little ashamed to realize that he was the last one to set his beer glass down, having emptied it entirely before he did so.

“That tasted absolutely disgusting,” Elias pronounced, “and I want another glass of it immediately.”

Elias had expected this to prompt another round of banter, perhaps offense either real or feigned from Basira for not caring for her choice of beer.

Elias had not expected Melanie to burst out saying, “Why is Elias here?”

Elias had to think for a moment before responding. “Oh, we’ve, uh, we’ve met then?”

“Don’t even start with that, I’ve had more than enough of your fucking mind games already, I know my asshole ex-boss’ voice when I hear it!”

Somewhere in Elias’ mind, he quietly filed away Melanie’s outburst as proof that Daisy hadn’t been lying when she’d said some people had known him--or rather, known Jonah Magnus in his body, really--as “that asshole.” Great reputation to start out with right there. Thanks again, Jonah Magnus.

“Maybe he had my voice, but unless we met back before 1996 and I don’t remember, that- that wasn’t actually me you-”

Melanie spoke over Elias, apparently not caring enough about his words to even let him finish saying them all. Rude. “I thought you killed him! I thought that was the whole point! Didn’t you say you killed him?”

A few “shhh”s rang out through the table, presumably because talking loudly in a public place about having killed people was generally not a good life decision, but after that, it seemed like Elias wasn’t the only one scrambling to come up with a suitable response.

“We did kill him!”

“Sort of.”

“Yeah, sort of, it’s all a bit complicated...”

Melanie scoffed. “If you guys are letting Elias of all people pull some- some power of friendship bullshit, well, count me out.”

“It’s not like that!”

“What is it like, then?” The disbelief was practically dripping off Melanie’s words.

“It’s like some old bastard from the 1800s just finished hijacking my body for the last two decades and counting, that’s what it’s like!”

Elias got the feeling, in the uncomfortable silence that followed, that the others hadn’t actually expected him to butt in like that, that they had thought he would just sit back and listen quietly while they debated, well, him.

Melanie’s voice sounded a little less hostile when she spoke up again, which wasn’t saying much, but the disbelief from before was still there in full force. “Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“And do you have proof?” Elias opened his mouth to respond, but before he could settle on a word with which to begin his rebuttal, Melanie had already continued on. “And sob stories don’t count as proof. I already know you’re good at twisting words, I don’t need more of that. I want evidence.”

“I...”

Elias let the words trail off as he realized that evidence was something he was sorely lacking in at the moment.

How could he prove who he wasn’t? How could he prove that he wasn’t the asshole who’d taken over his life for decades without warning? How could he prove what he didn’t remember, what he didn’t know...

Wait. Knowing. That was it.

Elias turned towards Jon.

“Jon. That- that thing you did when we met, where you asked me about who I was and I had to tell you... somehow... can you do that again?”

Jon let out a long, low sigh before replying. “Compelling people isn’t some sort of parlor trick, Elias.”

“But it makes people have to tell you stuff, have to tell the truth, right? That’d- that’d have to work, wouldn’t it?” Elias turned back towards Melanie, though he naturally couldn’t see the expression on her face as he added, with a wry smile, “That’s got to be evidence.”

“Hang on.” Melanie said. “Didn’t you already try that on Elias once, and it didn’t work right, because... because Elias?”

“That was then. Things have changed... a lot of things have changed. It-” Jon sighed again, softly. “It would work now. Already did, in fact.”

“Then do it.” Elias insisted.

“You... you want me to compel an answer out of you?”

“Yes!” Elias responded, so quickly and emphatically that he wondered if that answer itself had been compelled, either purposely or accidentally.

“...fine then. Who are you, and why should we trust you?”

Elias could feel the compulsion for sure this time, the pressure, the tingle, as the words started spilling out of his mouth before he thought them through. Getting magically compelled to tell the truth was an odd feeling, and an odder one to start to be getting used to, and yet, here he was.

“I’m Elias Bouchard. Only child of Julian and Nancy Bouchard. Mum’s dead, though, has been since I was twelve. Dad might be too now, I suppose, ‘s not like I’ve had the time to check. As of a couple hours ago--or, or what feels like a couple hours ago, in May 1996--I was James Wright’s secretary back in the Magnus Institute, possible promotion under discussion. So we’ve got the Institute background in common, I think, but based on what I’ve heard, that might make you trust me less if anything. If there’s something I can be sure we have in common, though, it’s that we all hate Jonah Magnus. Bastard took twenty-three years of my life away--would’ve taken it all if you lot hadn’t stepped in, I suppose. Sounds like you’ve all taken a dislike to him as well for one reason or another. So that’s- that’s what I have to offer for myself. Just another member of the Jonah Magnus... what’s the opposite of a fan club? Anti-fan club? Hate club? The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and all that, right? Though he’s dead now, so...”

Elias had to take a few deep breaths when he was done, and his hands were shaking a little. That was... that was more than he’d expected to get into with that speech. Came with the whole compelling thing, he supposed, but still, it was strange to be involuntarily spilling his life story to a group of near-strangers.

As Elias focused on his breathing, he heard somebody laughing loudly, and realized with a start that it was Melanie.

“The Jonah Magnus Hate Club... God, I like the sound of that.”

“You- you believe me, then? Because I’m not sure what else I can do to prove it, but I swear, just because I’ve got the same face and voice as he had when- when using my body- it doesn’t mean that was me-”

“Well, I can’t exactly see your face, anyway.”

It took Elias a moment to put the pieces together, and when he did, his stomach lurched a little. He was starting to regret that beer. “They gouged your eyes out too, then?”

“What? No!” Before Elias could ask for clarification, Melanie continued, with a strange pride in her voice, “Took them out all by myself.”

“Wait, but you weren’t possessed by Magnus-”

“Close enough. I was stuck in the Institute, doing his dirty work, helping literally bring about the end of the world-”

Martin butted in at this point. “We didn’t know that part!”

“The specifics, no, but the general shape of it all...” Melanie let out a sigh before continuing. “Blinding myself... wasn’t exactly ideal, but it was sure as hell better than the alternative.”

“Well, that much I get. If the others didn’t take my eyes out, I guess I’d be either--either still possessed or just plain dead, I suppose. So yeah, I’ll take this over the alternative any day.”

Melanie drummed her fingers on the table for a long moment. “...can we start over? I never really... introduced myself properly, did I?”

“Sure.” Elias let out a shaky laugh. “Yeah, that’d be nice.”

“My name’s Melanie King. Was a professional ghost hunter-” God, Elias could hear his father’s voice in his head saying that that didn’t count as a real profession, but like hell was he going to give a voice to his father’s uppity opinions. “-then got roped into being an archival assistant for the Magnus Institute. Worked there for a few months, realized it was literally evil, got out the only way I could a few weeks before the world ended. Been living with Georgie ever since.”

Elias still didn’t know who Georgie was besides “the person that Melanie was living with” (and a suspicion, based on Jon’s reaction to her absence, that there was some history between the two of them), but, well, the puzzle pieces were starting to come together a bit more, even if more and more of them kept getting chucked at his head erratically as the hours went by.

“Got it. Well, it’s nice to meet you, Melanie King.”

“Same to you, Elias... Bouchard... sorry, that just sounds really weird, since you- well, not you--but ‘Elias Bouchard’ was my jerk boss-”

“It’s fine, I get it.” He didn’t get it, really, didn’t fully get a lot of this still, and calling it all fine was arguable as well, but a few white lies were worth it to preserve the fragile peace still being formed, Elias figured.

“You know what’s funny?”

“What?”

“I tried to kill you a couple times. Well, not you-you of course, but...”

Elias felt the tips of his mouth curling ever so slightly upwards. “Honestly? Can’t say that I blame you.”

[i-swear-this-is-for-homework]

buried alive

[centaurianthropology]

The Magnus Archives ‘Dark Matter’ (S04E15) Analysis

I return!  After a very nice vacation in the land of sometimes-internet, I’m excited to get back to writing up the newest episode of TMA. And it’s even more fun to come back for the long-awaited conclusion of the Daedalus Space Station story.  We’ve had the Lonely, and we’ve had the Vast, and finally we get the perspective of the crewmember representing the Dark. And a member of the People’s Church of the Divine Host, no less.  Come on in to hear what I have to say about ‘Dark Matter’.

Although Manuela didn’t say much new about the Dark itself, I definitely found some interesting points in the statement.  First off, a great deal of the ‘creation’ that happens with each power seems driven the feelings and beliefs of its adherents.  Manuela was well aware that the Dark Star couldn’t be created with real science, but because she was a scientist, it had to feel like science for her to accomplish her task.  This seems to mirror a lot of powers.  For Jon, he has to feel as though he’s asking questions and getting stories to generate any real power.  For Jude Perry, she had to feel as though she was creating pain for people who didn’t deserve it.  For every avatar and every powerful adherent, their power comes from feeling.  

And I think that’s why Peter and the other powers require consent to truly use someone.  And it can’t just be lip-service consent either. Someone has to FEEL as though they belong to a power, they have to believe it, or it simply won’t work.  I think that may be why Georgie seems so impervious.  By removing her fear, the End may have inadvertently created someone who will never feel the possession of a power.  Because the fear also seems to be a crucial component.  They have to feel, believe, and fear, and somehow that alchemy translates into true power.

I’m also interested that it was the Dark that initiated the project to fund the Daedalus.  The Vast would seem to have just as much reason, but we don’t know what the ritual they needed was.  Perhaps space wasn’t necessary for them the way it was for Manuela to create the Dark Star.

I also wonder if the Fairchilds and the Lukases knew they were chipping in to help the Dark with its ritual.  From the statements given by Kilbride and Chilcott, I can’t see that they were any obvious part of a ritual, and indeed, Jan Kilbride was used to prevent a different ritual later.  He was specifically only touched by the Vast (and Manuela knows that Gertrude used him to stop a ritual, and lied to him to do it).  So, if they weren’t all competing for the same ritual, why help one another?

That’s a question I keep coming back to.  Helping another, similar power seems logical when it’s not about a ritual, but rituals by their nature eliminate all other powers.  So why would any power knowingly assist another in performing one?

And it seems, at least according to Elias, that the Dark hasn’t performed its ritual yet.  Which is very interesting, as Peter insisted to Martin that every power save the End, the Web, and the Beholding had a go and failed. Who’s lying?  Is Peter deliberately concealing the other unattempted rituals from Martin to make him think Peter isn’t trying one of his own? Or to focus Martin on this supposed 15th power?

Or does Elias want Jon in Norway for a reason not related to the Dark Star (and I have absolutely no doubt he was instrumental in getting Jon this statement when he did)?  Jon flailing at the Dark while the Beholding gears up for the Watcher’s Crown would be quite practical.  

Or does Elias not really care much what Jon does for a bit?  Is his focus on Basira instead?  The beginning of this statement, the way that Manuela spoke of the head of the Institute, may be the strongest evidence yet that Elias is Jonah Magnus, or at least that Magnus is a parasitic personality that attaches to each head of the Institute in turn.  It seems a stretch that Elias, pre-Institute, knew Maxwell Rayner, especially since we know for certain that Rayner and Magnus were acquainted.  It’s not 100% confirmation, perhaps, but I would say it’s a strong bit of evidence in favor of Jonah being a parasitic personality that moves from host to host.

And Basira was right that Elias can’t enact the Watcher’s Crown from prison.  But if the parasitic personality of Jonah Magnus can leave Elias’ body (potentially through its death, as Elias seemed very excited indeed for Basira to try to kill him), could it leave prison behind in a shiny new Basira suit, all ready to enact the Watcher’s Crown from Jon’s side.  

And if Peter and Elias are working together, this could be the link there.  It’s not that Peter desperately needed Martin, but Elias desperately needed Martin out of the way.  Getting Martin to cross over to the Lonely, and damn near destroying Melanie and Daisy, would leave Jon with little option but to rely more and more on Basira. And if Magnus could slip into her mind without her noticing, how better to slowly push Jon to be receptive to their own ritual than through the guise of a friend?

But that circles right back, doesn’t it, to the question of why one power would help another perform their rituals.  This is potentially two rituals the Lonely has assisted in, neither of which are its own. The Lukases helped create the Dark Star. If Peter really is trying to steal Martin as a favor to Elias, he’s potentially helping foster the Watcher’s Crown.

Why?  What is the Lonely getting out of helping the other powers near completion of their rituals?  The Web I can almost see ‘helping’ only to screw with the other powers, but the Lonely has no such obvious motivation in its makeup.  In fact, helping others, getting involved, seems the exact opposite of what the Lonely would do.

There are pieces missing. The Watcher’s Crown is on the horizon, and Jon seems to have all but forgotten about it.  The Lukases are helping other powers with their rituals for no clear reason.  Elias is playing a long game, but I think Basira far more than Jon is at the heart of it. Peter may or may not believe there is a 15th power on the rise, and Martin is hey to stopping its emergence.

There are so many balls in the air at this point, and I still can’t see any obvious shape for this season.  I know it’s still early days, but unlike previous seasons, it’s not that there’s no clear antagonist, it’s that there are too many.  Each splintered fragment of the Archival team seem to be focusing on a different power and a different problem, with no cohesion between them.

It makes me really want to see what would happen if they could all sit down and properly compare notes. Jon has his knowledge, but it only goes so far.  He tried to Know about the Dark this time, but he can’t see into it for obvious reasons. Basira has some more of the pieces of the puzzle, but they may or may not be accurate, depending on what Elias’ game is.  Martin is working on something totally separate, but I have to wonder if it’s not more connected than anyone thinks.  

No matter what, the endless refrain for this show of ‘things would work out so much better if these assholes would just talk to one another’ continues.  With so many balls in the air, I have no idea how they’ll fall throughout the season.  I don’t trust Peter or Elias, and I think the changes we’re seeing in Basira are only the beginning.  For all I can tell, the colonization of someone’s mind might be a gradual thing. Elias needs to maintain contact with her in order to transfer Magnus over to her, and so he continues to lead her about, detaching her from everyone including Daisy, encouraging her to view people only as tools for her to use or discard.  She may be in the process of becoming Jonah already, and no one has even recognized it as such.

Conclusion

And with that we’re five episodes to the midseason finale.  I really sort of hope that’s not Ny Alesund, because we’ve spent the better part of a half season building up other major plot issues (Peter Lukas, Elias in jail, Helen, the attacks on the archives, everyone being split off from one another), and this has come on very suddenly.  No buildup, just bam.  New threat, deal with it.  And while that’s moderately exciting, I’d rather focus on the stuff we’ve been building toward rather than a new ball in the air.

So I hope that the Dark Star will get the same gradual treatment that the other stories have, or that it’s a red herring from either Peter or Elias or both to distract from what’s really going on.  I don’t particularly care about the Dark, as I haven’t given enough time to do so.  I do care about Peter’s effect on the cast, on Jon’s isolation, on the looming threats of the Lonely and the Watcher’s Crown. Even the Extinction seems more pressing than the sudden introduction of another ritual.  And considering the contradictions between what Peter and Elias have said regarding the other rituals, I think it’s a fair bet that whatever is happening at Ny Alesund, it’s not so straightforward as a new ritual to disrupt.  

Other things are at play here.  Whether Peter and Elias are working together or at odds or (my personal theory) both, they’re doling out contradictory information, and no one is checking on what anyone else is doing.  I really want, no matter what happens in the next five episodes, for that to happen. If only to piss off Peter.

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG124 /o/

- There was a delicious echo between this statement and MAG021, in the sense that it had been the first statement involving Simon Fairchild (The Vast! ~Distance~!), with its follow-up interrupted because of… Martin popping up:

(MAG021) ARCHIVIST: […] It might just be a coincidence, but I recall the name “Simon Fairchild” was one of the ones used by– [DOOR OPENS, CHAIR TUMBLES] My god! Martin?! [SOMETHING SQUELCHES] What… What the hell is–? What are these things?! [CLICK.]

(MAG124) ARCHIVIST: […] Still no sign of Peter Lukas of course, or Mar– [STATIC] Wait– Wait. [CHAIR SCRAPING] [OPENS DOOR, FAR:] Martin! Martin!

From Martin coming back from his two weeks-long Prentiss siege (where~ he was~ all alone~ and nobody~ had checked~ on him~~~) and forcing himself into Jon’s office, to Jon running out of his own office to finally see Martin again after a week of being back to work (following his six months “coma”). It just… installed, right away, the shift between then and now? It hurts thx I hate it ♥

- *OBLIGATORY LOUD SHRIEKING* since in MAG120:

(MAG120) MARTIN: W… what… What are you doing here, mister Lukas? PETER: Please, call me Peter. MARTIN: N–no. No, I think I’m okay. PETER: As you like. […]

And now:

(MAG124) ARCHIVIST: Wh–where have you been, I–I mean, I–I–I thought– MARTIN: N–no, no, I’ve… I’ve been here, I just, er… Y’know. Been busy. ARCHIVIST: Busy. MARTIN: Yeah. ARCHIVIST: … Right. Working for Lukas. MARTIN: N–no, Pe–Peter’s… eh. It’s complicated. ARCHIVIST: … Right.

1°) *weeps loudly* Martin, what the heck happened for you to get on first name basis with “Peter”, now… (Answer: “Relationship Status: It’s Complicated”.) 2°) By contrast, I don’t think we've ever heard Jon ooze quite so much disrespect towards someone. I mean, calling Peter by his last name like this? Jon? Jon??? Even in the previous episode, he was still using first+last names (MAG123: “Working for Peter Lukas.” and it was exactly the same phrasing!!), he tends to use honorifics or mention people through first+last names or first name only, even for monsters… So by contrast, this makes it sound like he’s Out For Blood. Someone is reaaaally not enjoying the idea of Martin working for someone else, uh. 3°) … Martin literally denied working for “Lukas”…?? Is it a matter of “this is not what he’s doing right now”, is it a matter of Martin actually doing something for the Institute/something that is technically not Lukas-related, is it a matter of making a distinction between “Peter” / “Lukas”, is it a matter of a third party being involved? Or… Well. I have Questions And Ponderings about where Martin is (presumably in the Lonely dimension?) and what control he has over his comings and goings… but I also do wonder, since Martin slipped and almost said something when Jon spat Peter’s name, while Martin had been apparently very cautious not to tell Jon anything about his current whereabouts all through the exchange… what if. actually. Peter was there in the room right now and Martin knew it? MAG120 had demonstrated that characters not seeing Peter doesn't indicate that he isn’t actually witnessing events himself, since… he knew how Elias had behaved before revealing himself to Martin:

(MAG120) ELIAS: G– goodbye, Martin. Be seeing you. [DOOR CLOSES] [SILENCE] MARTIN: [LONG EXHALES] [VERY SHARP SQUEAL OF DISTORTION] PETER: Must be a relief. MARTIN: H– uh– PETER: Honestly, I thought there’d be more of a scene, but… he always surprises me.

… So, given that Jon is not hiding his annoyance about the mere concept of Peter (and given Jonathan “Bad Decisions” Sims’s luck overall), I… wonder… if this wasn’t Martin almost slipping up to say that Peter was there too, before remembering to not say anything about it? (But even if it wasn’t that during that scene, overall: I’m still wondering if Peter mightn’t be just roaming the Institute and having the time of his life listening to Jon’s complains about him and just. Not showing himself to him. Best way to avoid compulsion and to get on Jon’s nerves.)

- Curiously, the tape recorder got into static mode when Jon spotted Martin – not the distorted screeching sounds from Peter’s appearances (MAG100, MAG108, MAG120): usually, with Peter, there is a “peak” of it during his arrival/departure (well, departure in MAG100; the tape stopped while he was still there in MAG120, and he left through the door in MAG108), and a constant screeching as long as he’s there. Here, there was only a peak of static when Jon spotted Martin and, I think, nothing afterwards? Can’t 100% guarantee it, but I think it was the same static from Jon’s compulsion, which… could mean that it was Jon’s powers which allowed him to See Martin, because he was thinking of him?

(MAG124) ARCHIVIST: […] Still no sign of Peter Lukas of course, or Mar– [STATIC] Wait– Wait. [CHAIR SCRAPING] [OPENS DOOR, FAR:] Martin! Martin! MARTIN: Oh. … Hi, Jon. ARCHIVIST: Martin, i–i–it’s… I, I–I haven’t seen you– MARTIN: Yeah. S–sorry.

Or was that Jon’s… “Insight”, like when he knew Tim when would be there in MAG114? He was waiting for Tim, back then, so it was something he already knew; maybe the static here was Jon Knowing right now about Martin’s presence? There was something akin to a ruffling noise, back in MAG099, too, when he mentioned Gerry in relation to Gertrude (something he had never learned prior to that), and I’m not able to tell if it was Jon’s clothes ruffling or actual static… It could be the same thing in all cases, perhaps? … aaaand now that I think about it, the fact that he knew/felt that Basira had a statement in her bag in MAG122 could also be not because he Can Feel Statements Overall Since He Is Tied To Them (smells like food.), but due, also, to that ~Insight~, since same static. Don’t know! Jon, what the eff are your powers, what the eff are you, what the eff do you know about them, etc. But the static in MAG124 could also be unrelated to Jon: Peter’s appearance (with the huge screeching) had been preceded by static in MAG108, while Martin was deciding to ask Basira about Melanie and calling for her to no avail (implying that he was already getting isolated at this point, since Basira heard him call for her afterwards). Static might be showing up when people are getting Isolated/released from isolation, while the sharp distortions are Peter’s sounds specifically? We’re lacking data so far, since we don’t know much about what is happening exactly with Peter’s appearances and that other dimension overall? For example, were Peter’s three appearances in season 3 him sneaking his way into reality (and the tape recorder reacting to the intrusion and his presence because he’s a spook), or Peter swallowing a piece of reality into the Lonely (and the tape recorder reacting because it’s not in the right space anymore)? I wonder, more and more, if there isn't something about time being involved with the Lonely, rather than only space: Peter had made a lot of references to time in season 3, and there was the fact that Basira came in to see Martin as if he had just called her name (despite the fact that the whole Peter-Martin exchange had happened in the meantime)… *squints, once again, at Elias’s clock*

- Anyway, if it wasn’t a coincidence nor Martin’s decision to pop up, and if Peter was behind it: hey Peter, remember about that? :w

(MAG108) PETER: […] And what’s Elias like to work for? Aside from orchestrating unsettling encounters? MARTIN: That’s… that’s a lot of it, to be honest. PETER: And that’s not something you look for in an employer, I assume? MARTIN: Well, he’s… I mean, you just… you’ve just said he’s watching us.

(Jon, if you still can’t meet Peter: blame Martin, it was probably because of this that “unsettling encounters” don’t happen anymore around here.) (Martin had asked for less murder, too!! I still hope that the researchers from 3rd floor are okay >:()

- Yyyyeaaaaah, so Martin basically confirmed that, even though he is unreachable (MAG122: “We don’t see him around the Archives much these days. Best I can figure, he’s working on something with Lukas. […] he comes and goes. He’s busy. Well, he seems it.” / MAG123: “Martin is working very closely with The Lonely, who is, predictably enough, isolating him”), he’s basically here, though in the Lonely dimension/space/whatever?

(MAG124) ARCHIVIST: Wh–where have you been, I–I mean, I–I–I thought– MARTIN: N–no, no, I’ve… I’ve been here, I just, er… Y’know. Been busy. ARCHIVIST: Busy.

Is it the exact same place of reality as in Barnabas Bennett’s letter (MAG092), since Barnabas has… ended up as bones? If it is the same one: *screams* about what Martin is risking and/or the implications behind the fact that Martin is still alive so far D: Is it because the Institute/Archives are Beholding’s territory that both spaces are still able to interact a bit? Barnabas had felt the difference (“I know that what is done by those I cannot see might be felt here – I have found glasses broken and pages torn that were not so the night before. It is my hope that if I leave a letter here, in your institute, you might find it, you might be able to save me.”) and Elias had confirmed that his letter had reached Jonah Magnus, so it indeed looks like the Institute/Beholding can pierce through it or act as a bridge or diminish the Lonely’s influence…

- Okay, so regarding Martin himself: it was abundantly clear that he doesn’t want to tell Jon anything about what he’s doing, but also… He was shit at giving Jon reasons not to worry, and we have had ample proof that Martin can be very good at lying (he’d lied to everyone about going to uni for at least seven years before Jon extracted a confession out of him, and gave a stellar performance of getting surprised and hurt and offended when Jon asked him to stay behind in MAG116 in order to lower Elias’s guard, before suddenly turning steel-cold and in control as soon as Elias had left). So. How come Martin Blackwood wasn’t able to convincingly deceive Jon here? Was it because Jon spotting him was a surprise? Was it because Peter had suddenly dropped him back in the Archives as a ~little joke~ (Jon had mentioned Peter right before mentioning Martin)? Is it because Martin is still too weak to Jon / was very tense because he feared that Jon would compulse the hell out of him? Was it because he’s really really uncomfortable with what he’s doing, and fearing Jon’s reaction? Was it because he didn’t even care about being convincing? ;; He wasn’t surprised about Jon being awake and back, so either he had been able to see Jon even though Jon couldn’t see him, either Peter told him about Jon’s return. So… definitely, Martin is doing his thing and it’s ;; worrisome. I don’t think it’s worth hoping that the six past months (and Martin’s current… work…) haven’t messed him up, but I’m not sure that his exchange with Jon was indicative of his current state? It was mostly Martin trying to slip like water between Jon’s fingers, and trying to say the least possible (that part was obvious). So whatever he’s doing, it’s… probably not pretty, or could easily be interpreted as very bad without the full picture… (Martin is not stupid; he agreed to something in the trailer; he probably felt like he didn’t have much of a choice, or that he could get something valuable in exchange, and it clearly sounded like a sacrifice. That doesn’t mean that it’s not probably meant to backfire, but at the same time… he’s not currently being a victim?)

- BUT HAVING JON AWKWARDLY TRYING TO REACH WAS SO PAINFUL AND ~*IRONIC*~, rfdjfvjnfd I’m crying but I’m laughing and I love and I hate it. Jon not used to Martin trying his Best to not talk to him, Jon being the one who is trying to make small talk, Jon asking Martin about his poetry………………………. the stuttering, the long pauses, Martin perpetually trying to announce his departure………….. (And it also highlighted how… Jon doesn’t know much about Martin? He knows that he likes spiders, he discovered (creepily.) that Martin writes poetry (progress!! Jon didn’t say anything mean about it this time around, focusing on the activity rather than the result. Careful, Jon, next time, if Martin Gets Better, he’ll probably ask for your honest opinion about a piece and you’ll be screwed.), he knows that Martin makes tea, he knows that Martin used to write letters to his mother… that doesn’t make a lot of topics to try to grab his attention.) There is still something comforting in the fact that Jon is now trying, though? That he’s aware of what he has lost, and is trying to change, to reach, to inquire about others? Of course, it’s heart-wrenching that it’s not currently working, that the situation has changed, that it doesn’t evolve into communication, that… it might be too late. I don’t feel like it’s getting depressing, though (… not yet maybe.), because there are still efforts coming from Jon, and he seems to be following his decision from MAG117 about trusting and trying even when things don’t come to him naturally anymore. Season1!Jon wouldn’t have bothered. Season4!Jon might be too late for this, but he’s trying, and there is still hope (… for now) that it will matter in the end? (Or, precisely: it will fail, again and again, and the new tragedy will be that Jon and the others never managed to reach out at the same time.) Even with Martin’s departure, I wonder if Jon wasn’t still aiming for something:

(MAG124) MARTIN: … Look, Jon, I, I’ve really got to go, so… ARCHIVIST: Oh, er, okay… MARTIN: I’m, I’m sorry that you– ARCHIVIST: Wowowow, it was… good t–, it was good to see you. MARTIN: … Yeah. [STEPS LEAVING] ARCHIVIST: … yeah… [CLICK.]

The fact that Jon stopped Martin’s reflex to apologize and that “It was good to see you” meant that he wasn’t shutting Martin off, and maybe… throwing out an awkward attempt to give him something to fight off the Lonely? Those words are especially nice, especially caring (like Jon wasn’t asking anything out of Martin but giving something?), and it’s not a sentence that you would have expected coming from Jon’s mouth.

- There is currently a Thing about Jon coming back to his roots as Head Archivist (the statements from MAG122 and MAG123 were at the end of Gertrude’s direction/the beginning of Jon’s) and here, we kinda had a nod towards Jon’s first steps in the Institute… given that “Simon Fairchild” was one of the first cases Jon had studied as a researcher!

(MAG051) ARCHIVIST: […] One of my first cases as a researcher for the Institute in 2012 was looking into the history of a jeweller in Hackney, that had reported cases becoming cracked in the night. Nothing was ever taken but, each morning it would be like a heavy weight had been dropped upon them. Looking into it, it turned out that the jewels had, in the 1930s, belonged to a con artist and fence, who had attracted the displeasure of the local population. When one particularly irate customer threw him out of a fourth-floor window into a crowded street at midday… no one claimed to have seen anything. A minor possible haunting with a decidedly pedestrian backstory, but notable because while I was never able to discover the original name of the con artist, one of his many, many aliases was Simon Fairchild, and it appeared on several business listings around the time. Whether it’s a coincidence or not is something of a moot point at this stage, however.

(YEEEET) So, Simon again. I had stupidly assumed that he might have died in MAG051 (August 2006, expedition to retrieve antiques from a 19th century steam yacht, “The Maria Fairchild”), because there had been no trace of him after the events and the statement-giver had been told by the Captain, when inquiring about him, that “The sea is a dangerous place”. But nop, he was still active in 2012 and it looks like it’s his Thing to just… come and go (after taking someone in the process). Woopsies. But since he’s someone who is tied to Jon’s first steps in the Institute, and that Jon said that:

(MAG124) ARCHIVIST: Simon Fairchild is one of the… recurrent figures that I think disquiets me the most. Not simply for what he does, the endless spaces of highs or depths to which he’s so quick to condemn his victims, but… the joy he seems to take in doing so. And I don’t think there is much to this tale beyond that: an evil man tormenting and killing simply for his own pleasure, and to feed the power that sustains him. […] I do not think I ever wish to meet him.

1°) Oh My Gods, Jon, Don’t Bring It On Yourself. (10 episodes later (probably): Jon Meets Simon Fairchild.) (I mean. You know your luck, Jon. Don’t tempt fate.) 2°) The casual shade towards (other) monsters, Jon, please… Hey, old man! Jon finds you stereotypical and too random for his taste. I’m really reassured that Jon is using a few keywords such as “victims”, “evil”, “tormenting”, and that he’s… looking down on him. That’s also good. The less neutral Jon will be about Avatars hurting people, the betteeerrrr ;; (I’m afraid of him getting… used to that dynamic, insensitive to it? Perceiving it as something normal, and mostly concerned about the ~creativity~ displayed?) (Simon had been compared to a “vulture” back in MAG051, and we also had the case of Mike Crew preying on the acrophobic brother back in MAG075… it’s not even specifically a Vast thing (since we’ve also had Elias swooping in as soon as Melanie mentioning being desperate in MAG084, or Peter around Martin) but I’m still nervously laughing that they just. Go nnyYYYOOOOOOOOOOMM as soon as someone vulnerable to their Patron is feeling things.)

- (Simon was fairly recognizable, it wasn’t especially “!!” that Jon went straight to the… meat during the post-statement, and highlighted right away that it was him although he hadn’t been named. It just makes it even more surprising that he didn’t even mention the possibilty of the girl being Annabelle Cane in MAG123. Jon, are you hiding something again? Or are the spiders encouraging you to not think too much about her…?)

- (I’m not mentioning the statement much in itself but: that was dreadful, really loved it, really resenting the fact that the episode just happened to be released when we got snow in Paris, really reassured that I could avoid the tramway during a few days and that I don’t go to the mountains anymore =D)

- nervouslaughter.wav that the statement had a son and his mother (and no father anymore) being close and then drifting away => poof! Martin invoked in the adjacent room. (mARTIN……)

- “It’s been a week and… Melanie’s attitude towards me hasn’t softened” => It sounds like Jon is back to the ~casual~ rhythm of one statement a week, which was more or less his cruising speed excepting for awful accumulations due to Circumstances. That’s a kind of normalcy he can have some control over and it’s a bit reassuring that the statement dependency doesn’t seem to have escalated, what’s with his new… status.

- Still no reference to MAG118 and MAG120’s tapes but That Means Nothing given that Jon tends to overall hide things and to reveal them much later. (He didn’t ask Martin about his mother, at least.)

- (Also: who is currently in possession of the Web lighter right now? And has Jon... stopped smoking, since he woke up.)

- Okay so if they don’t leave the Institute much and kind of live in the Archives nowadays, what are they all doing with all this free time, since…

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: […] No notes or follow-up in the statement, and obviously no research done by myself or… my team. (MAG123) ARCHIVIST: […] The investigation is tricky, I don’t want to impose on Basira and, obviously, Melanie and… Martin… aren’t available, but I did do some light searching myself on Gregory Cox. (MAG124) ARCHIVIST: […] In other cases, I might think for locations noteworthy, might to try to piece together some wider plan. But Fairchild seems to travel far and wide for his victims, with no motivation other than… variety. I do not think I ever wish to meet him. … Of course, even if I did want to do research into the statement, I wouldn’t have any help doing so.

… they’ve never been this bad at doing the follow-ups, holy heck. But ;; Sasha was the one who could hack, Tim was the one flirting his way into records, and they’re both gone. Martin sometimes went to talk to people (and have them weep on him) and he’s unavailable. Melanie is, uh, not keen on helping. Which leaves Basira, who had connections in the police, so mmm. Indeed, if she’s not helping Jon with follow-ups, what is she doing…

- So !!! regarding Basira!!

(MAG124) ARCHIVIST: […] And Basira, though she is very willing to talk, still doesn’t seem to trust me enough to let me in on whatever plans she might have – if she has any plans at all, of course. I could… make her tell me, I know that, but… I can’t afford to burn any more bridges.

1°) =D Yeah, Basira said she was “more of a talker” in her first appearance (MAG043). I wonder (due to that “very willing to talk” which sounded like… Jon.) if she’s trying to keep Jon updated with the Institute’s mundane gossip. 2°) I had somehow not considered that Basira could be planning something, and I feel so stupid about it… she’s Basira! Aaaaaaaaaand. I wonder if she’s been researching The Watcher’s Crown by herself? She picked up that their ritual was still a possibility (MAG123), she had been the one to notice the regularity surrounding The Dark’s (MAG108): she’s very good at drawing connections between data to understand patterns. And it would also explain why she’s so cautious around Jon: as long as she has no way to be sure that Jon is against their ritual, as long as she doesn’t know what state Jon currently is in, it wouldn’t be a good idea to share what she has found. Jon by himself hasn’t done much to be reassuring, since he… Knew that she had a statement on her as soon as he woke up, and asked for it even before asking for water. From an external point of view, his awakening made him look more inhuman than human, even though he’s also been quite good behaviour-wise since then… 3°) Jon’s argument for not compulsing her is a tiny (TINY) bit creepy, since he’s thinking about the strategic consequences more than uuuuuuuh, Basira’s feelings on the matter??? But it’s also… typical Jon. The fact he’s aware of consequences is even an improvement compared to season 1? But it’s also highlighting that either the need to know, either the stress of people hiding things from him, is taking its toll on him, and I don’t know how long it will last before he snaps ;;

… I do wonder if that won’t be Jon’s dilemma pretty soon: trying to trust the assistants like he had decided to at the end of season 3, not probing them too much, waiting for them to open up to him when they feel it’s Right, not compulsing the truth out of them (and accepting that they’re taking risks and could get harmed in their own involvements), or… compulsing them hard and extorting what is actually happening (losing what remains of their trust in the process, directing their disgust/hate towards him maybe, but also ensuring that he would be able to save their lives)? I mean, for Jon, Tim just happened. He chose to trust Tim, to give Tim the opportunity Tim sought, and Tim didn’t come back from that. That could change his perspective a bit about his way to try and save the assistants.

(Overall: AHAHAHAHAHA, SOBBING ABOUT MARTIN, WOW THAT WAS SO RUDE. SO, SO RUDE. At this point, only Elias will to be happy to ~see~ that Jon has woken up, uh.)

[queerbycrs]

so... i’m not finished writing this yet, but since apparently the idea is So Popular going by @iamalivenow‘s post, i thought i’d... lay out the basis of my the magnus archives good place au? vague spoilers up to current canon of tma (ep 120) and definite spoilers up to the end of s2 of the good place

my basic thought, at first, was that this isn’t a “full” tgp fusion -- it would incorporate elements of tma canon, and involve various kinds of amnesia. so, the characters are tormented by not remembering bits of their lives, or remembering things that line up wrong, or having flashes of memory that don’t make sense.

so, in this au, the characters already knew each other in ways that are similar but not identical to canon. that’s part of the reason elias-as-michael is so confident it’ll work out: that idiot michael just threw together some humans and hoped they’d click perfectly horribly. these people have history, and it’ll torment them or just be informational, as required.

so, elias is michael, obviously. pre-redemption. (my thought for this is that the torture actually works so it never proceeds to the actual plot of tgp s2-onwards, so no need to figure out how it would work with elias. alternately, the humans go off through the afterlife without architectural assistance. who knows)

i’m not set on who janet is, but i might go with the suggestion of distortion? because that sounds hilarious, honestly

and there are def soulmates in this au, because it makes things ALL THE MORE PAINFUL. from most-to-least solidly formed ideas:

basira and daisy. basira remembers a picture-perfect life on earth, fifty years of marriage, dying in each other’s arms.

daisy remembers being a serial killer and trying to hide it for years until basira caught on and daisy killed her in a fit of rage, and spent the rest of her life regretting it.

neither of them have accurate recollections. but according to their first day in the good place, basira is correct, and daisy doesn’t know what the hell is going on or why she’s here, with the love of her life, who she thought she killed in the biggest mistake of her life.

(basira prolllllllllly doesn’t belong in the bad place, but elias prolly just snatched her up for his Evil Plans. no one better to torture daisy with, right?)

next: martin and jon. they remember working together, in... an archive? or something? and martin was in love with jon, and jon was oblivious.

well, the official matchmaking systems of the afterlife have chosen! you’re the perfect match for each other! have fun!

martin is completely blissed out at first! it’s wonderful! he spent all those years in hopeless love, and now he gets to spend eternity with the man he thought could never love him back!

and at first, jon is actually... okay with it? he’s a little nervous, because he’s never had a relationship that didn’t crash and burn (okay, sample size of one, but that says a lot in and of itself) but it feels so easy, at first, and it’s... okay. it’s nice.

but then his memories start to get... weird. he has dreams of the archive where he worked, except it’s... different. he remembers worms, and running, and a man’s body on the floor of his office.

he remembers a tape recorder, and he starts recording here, too. just in case.

eventually, as jon’s paranoia starts to build and build, things start going bad for martin, too: he’s having nightmares too, of worms and crushing loneliness, and jon is retreating and won’t talk to him, and this cute older guy who works at the kayak rental/canoe group/scuba-diving-but-without-equipment-because-we’re-dead-and-don’t-need-to-breathe place keeps hitting in him and he’s kind of into it and he feels Really Bad about it

and then i get to, like, melanie and tim and georgie, and in this version of the au i don’t know what to do with them, so i would probably pair up melanie and tim -- their respective responses to stress don’t work well together, at All, so i guess if the tension started turning up they’d probably torture each other pretty effectively.

which leaves georgie. and i’m thinking, maybe elias just doesn’t know how to torture her. she was added to his carefully-planned group without advance notice (probably as a test, those goddamn suits in the department don’t understand how difficult and complicated this is--) and so he just. tells her that her soul is perfectly complete on its own, and she has the admiral for company, but she doesn’t have a soulmate.

georgie’s like, sweet. she can live her best life (afterlife) and hang out with her cat that will be with her forever! this is awesome.

(the admiral probably died of natural causes a few years before, after living a full and very happy life; it got a lovely afterlife until georgie arrived and they got to hang out again. this is how it is for all pets. don’t @ me you know i’m right and i will not take suggestions)

it’s not perfect, because elias just keeps throwing Problems at her to see what’ll stick. but she’s doing pretty good.

alternately:

basira/daisy, and

jon/tim. tim’s reaction to jon’s paranoia is probably a lot more external than martin’s is, which probably leads to some nasty fights. jon probably thinks tim is turning against him, it’s a whole big mess. tim might get seduced away a couple times to increase his guilt and add some depth to their bad relationship, because this is Literal Hell.

melanie/georgie, because Wrench Thrown Into Plan, had to make some adjustments. there’s probably some memory mismatch and external pressure, but it’s not too bad.

martin is a complete person who needs no soulmate to make his afterlife perfect. not a monk, like jason (elias scoffs at the heavy-handedness, the unsubtlety of that.) just perfectly fulfilled in solitude.

he probably gets fully seduced by peter lukas, aka mr. “kayak rental/canoe group/scuba-diving-but-without-equipment-because-we’re-dead-and-don’t-need-to-breathe place” guy. and then there’s a lot of, “oh god this was a mistake what will we tell our soulmates” from peter (externally) and a lot of “i’m going to be alone for literal eternity and even my hookup doesn’t know about it, because it’s so unusual to not have a soulmate” from martin (internally.)

looking at it now, version 1 does seem better and more thought-out, so if i do actually progress with this i’ll prolly go with that. but hey, if someone wants to run with version 2... (or one, idc really) please do, i will love it.

SO. onto: demons!

you know in the beginning of tgp season 2, when michael is doing the pep talks to the demons and one of them keeps asking if he can bite the humans?

okay, that, but with jane prentiss

she just wants to infect them. just a lil. just a few worms in their houses, even

(elias screams internally. why are his demons so incompetent.)

nikola is a mannequin in the windows of one of the stores in the cute little town. she moves... just a little bit... whenever you look away (like a weeping angel.) she probably shows up in people’s houses in the middle of the night and stands at the foot of their beds. when elias is asked about it, he assures them that it was just a nightmare.

there are so many spiders in this afterlife. martin loves it. nearly everyone else... does not.

jude perry owns a pizza place with a classic pizza oven. it’s... weirdly hot in there? (”she spent all her years on earth perfecting this pizza,” elias explains to someone who feels like they’re dying of heatstroke. “she adapted to the heat. it would be cruel to take it away from her.”)

the pizza is delicious, once it’s burned the roof of your mouth to bloody strips

mike crew runs the skydiving/flying place. the humans don’t understand why it’s so painful and weird when they do it. they’re clearly just doing it wrong! why don’t they try again. and again.

not!sasha is there, and sasha isn’t. (i don’t know, i can’t think of how it would work.) (maybe she kept throwing a wrench in elias’s plans so he didn’t want her in his neighbourhood.) she’s soulmates with some random demon and is probably out there, idk, tormenting people with weird uncanny valley.

she runs a wax museum, like the museum in tgp s2, when the gang goes to the real bad place and it has plaques for the first person to do some petty bad thing (telling a woman to smile, sending an unprompted dick pic, flossing in an open-concept workplace, etc.) the wax figures also move in creepy ways, just a little bit.

i’m sure once i write this i’ll flesh out more of the demons, but one last thing:

who is mindy st. clair, you ask?

my answer is: it’s not one person. it’s gertrude and gerry.

but how, you ask? isn’t that like, a really special, one-time thing?

well, dear reader, for one thing, points and afterlife designations work differently in this au than they do in tgp, for practical reasons of getting all the characters i care about into hell. and also, the system doesn’t make sense.

so gertrude and gerry either a) both evened out the points (and medium places aren’t very uncommon) or b) this is an au where you can be “claimed” by the good place or the bad place at random, and neither place wanted them. either/or.

the thing is, though, that the medium place is not meant to be torture. and for the vast majority of people, being alone for eternity with only the most mediocre entertainment and literally nothing to do? is torture.

for mindy, she was incredibly self-centred; being alone is fine. she doesn’t mind being around other people for short periods of time, and she probably wants to get laid, but she’s okay in her own company.

most people are not. and obviously we don’t actually know much about gertrude and gerry’s relationship, but what i’m going to guess is that they didn’t hate each other, or especially like each other, but they aren’t each other’s favourite person, either.

thus, the best person to spend eternity with for absolute mediocrity, they can both be alone when they want and also have company when they need to not go completely off the deep end.

and that’s what i have so far.

and here’s a bonus if you read this far: i also started writing a tgp magnus archives au, where michael (tgp michael) got the gang together in s3 by sending them all to the magnus institute to give a statement. i have most of eleanor’s statement written. still not sure what i want to do with it, but there you go: fusion-ception, an au both ways.

[inklingofadream]

I think a big part of the reaction to their reaction is also like.

They don't necessarily extrapolate the results of asking Jon to not eat IRL trauma. And they’re not consistent with Jon and other people. Especially Basira.

Like she doesn't seem to SUPER mind him eating Floyd's statement on the way to deal with Manuela! Because then Jon'll be juiced up to go when they have to face down a threat! Technically, Basira knows before anyone that Jon's taken statements outside the archives since his coma, she just doesn't put it high on her priority list until after she finds out that it didn't all happen under her supervision.

It gets exaggerated in some circles, but part of the "is this helpful" equation is also "is this consistent?" imo. And at least for Basira it... isn't, really. Especially when you add in her support of Daisy and her speculative ability to starve out the Hunt and be normal vs her skepticism of Jon's attempts to do the same. And since Melanie's avoiding Jon, we get more of Basira, who in general is HORRIBLY inconsistent in her moral judgements, not just with Jon. So her threatening to kill him for taking statements feels more like an overreaction because we KNOW that if Daisy slipped up with the Hunt she would not be "one strike you're out" about it.

Like I think if you take it in isolation, Melanie's response is pretty OK? She doesn't seek Jon out to pester or antagonize or confirm her judgement of him (cough, Georgie, cough), she just says "Hey, I Can't deal with you, please stay away from me." And she sticks to that. Probably helps that she's in therapy.

And when they are interacting it's often because Jon has Done Something (either taking statements or performing nonconsensual surgery on her) and she has a right to be mad, then! The only situation in S4 where she's really unfair to Jon in a specific-to-her sense (bc it's unfair that he has like 3 ppl to interact with and as one of those she hates him, but more in a universe being unfair to him than Melanie doing anything) is her reaction to the surgery. Because she’s not as mad at Basira as she is Jon, even though Basira was definitely equally involved in the whole thing (and iirc the one who SAID they should do it without letting Melanie know!). And she has a non-Archives support system in Georgie, so she theoretically could be mad at Basira without also totally isolating herself (which is more flat math than actual relationships tend to be, but you can tally those numbers and have Melanie come out on the losing side without making great leaps in logic, is my point)

And I think that S5 casts this all in a worse light, particularly for Melanie. Because the answer to “do we grant it to everyone equally?” tends to be “yeah, more or less, unless they’re Jon”

And it feels more like a betrayal that Melanie is so hostile in S5, because when we last saw her in S4 it was “we could try being friends, as long as anything supernatural is far away from me.” And instead of a continuation of that feeling, where she’d be rightly kinda miffed at him (Melanie isn’t the best at “he did it but it wasn’t his fault” but she can at least kind of get it!) but also willing to work with him on the more important goal of fixing things without being super hostile, and knowing/acknowledging that the reason she’s in a position to do that is bc he told her how to quit, it feels more like a continuation of pre-blinding Melanie’s reactions.

Anyway I don’t know that this makes sense/goes anywhere, but in short i feel robbed of awkward trying-very-hard-even-if-they-don’t-succeed Jon and Melanie S5 friendship and I think that a lot of her and Basira’s stuff (and to a lesser extent Martin) makes more sense if you’re more willing to really examine what their situation between seasons 3 and 4 would’ve looked like, with Jon,Tim, and Daisy gone and the Institute under attack and Peter’s influence. And they kind of seem to be carrying that dynamic forward without accommodating it for Jon’s conscious presence instead of as coma boy. And so they never really treat him/look at him as part of the “in-group”

Thinking about the idea of Jon being bullied for no reason or whatever like. The three people he sees in season four for at least a year had hell visions of him watching their worst trauma like. Not only were they friends with him sometimes but the reaction of “you’re putting other people through that hell on PURPOSE now? That thing you did to me? Fuck you! Knock it off or there will be consequences.” Isn’t like. Wildly rude and out of character. Maybe a over reaction, but it’s totally justified

Yeah I honestly think that that is a big part of it but none of the characters ever actually address the fact that they were dream tortured with Jon watching for a year and... the fandom is bad at extrapolating when it comes to certain characters, I guess. Of course, people can extrapolate that Jon is in more pain than he lets on, but their empathy doesn't necessarily extend to side characters with less time to talk about their feelings into a tape recorder.

Is it an overreaction, though?

That's an interesting word. It's a bit of a slippery one, in the sense that what is and what is not overreacting is going to vary wildly based on who gets to decide. And it's kind of a loaded term that gets used for Certain Kinds Of People's reactions more than others.

My personal stance is that no reaction is an overreaction. Reactions are just what they are. Looking at any given emotion and labelling it "overreacting" is 1) inherently subjective and therefore not a useful label and 2) unhelpful in terms of de-escalating conflict.

In Basira's case, Jon has spent weeks telling her to trust him and tell him her plans. He then blames her for not stopping him from taking a live statement. Then she finds out he's been doing this regularly, which has condemned people to a lifetime of psychological torture. Even without having my stance of "no reaction is an overreaction," I think this is still an extreme reaction where she has a good reason to say "if you don't stop, I will kill you."

BUT

While I don't judge, or care if anything is an overreaction, I do think it's important to analyze the reaction in terms of if it's helpful. So I'd recommend putting aside the question of whether Basira or Melanie's response is overreacting and instead ask "is this helpful? Does threatening Jon's life actually help him do better by other people? Is threatening his life necessary to stop him from hurting other people?"

And then, and additional useful question: "Can we reasonably expect someone in a situation with this level of stress to act in the perfect most helpful way? What level of excuse do we give to people on the basis of stress and trauma, and do we grant it to everyone equally?"

And as for the answers to those questions--fuck if I know!