#the magnus archives dating sim

[3y3-see-you]

did u know that in the magnus archives dating sim once u become an avatar u can fuck both The Piper and the Still and Lightless Beast… much 2 consider…

You can play it here: https://dashingdon.com/play/sazandorable/archives-sim/mygame/index.php

[just-an-enby-lemon]

The thing about jonmartin is that Martin wants to be a romantic, he loves poetry and probably watches romance but for him it is a fantasy, a silly game he plays. Martin is at his core very cynical. Things don't work out for him so he doesn't really belive in romance, it is a pretty dream but that's it. He is pratical and realist. Dating Jon he has to remind himself it is real and he actually struggles with romantic gestures, it is something he has to remind himself to do, to remind himself he can do even and honestly who even has the energy and what if Jon doesn't even like it?

Jon on the other hand wants to be cynical. His first coping mechanism was pretend the things he was afraid of weren't real and goddam if he isn't afraid of love. It didn't really work to him so far so it's easy to pretend he doesn't care. But he is a romantic at heart. He saw love and he read about it and he has enough evidence that it is undeniable. And to be honest Jon was always to much a bunch of mushy feelings hidden in a grumpy (and bitter and afraid) trench coat. Dating Martin he has to hold himself so he isn't too much. He plays the grumpy unromantic guy at first. But he just can't stop giving flowers and planing dates (this is the guy that saw a theme park on a fear domain and considered how he wanted to take Martin to a romantic ferris whell date [until he discovered Martin was afraid of them]) and making all the silly things one does when in love.

TR: Martin is deep down very cynical about love but wants to/pretends to be a romantic and Jon is deep down very romantic but wants to/pretends to be cynical about love.

[lonionjon]

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Skrunkly (Cat!Jonathan) and Champion (Cat!Martin) design by @ultramarinaa 🎮

[drawsmaddy]

[ID: A digital illustration of Jonathan Sims and Martin Blackwood from The Magnus Archives. They're sat at a café table, in front of a window that's decorated with large snowflake stickers, gold tinsel, and red baubles hanging from green ribbons. Jon and Martin each have a drink and Martin is pushing a plate with a ham and cheese toastie on it towards Jon. Martin is smiling and talking, while Jon is looking at Martin with a slightly apprehensive expression. End description.]

A lunch break some time near Christmas, 2016

[1nk20ul]

Discovering Jon and Martin’s Birthdays

It’s a wonder how much you can uncover about The Magnus Archives using only a bit of mathematics and a smidge of psychology.

Apparently I have too much time for both and can definitively say that I have revealed the absolute best and most accurate dates for both of their birthdays. Feel free to join me as we dissect piece by piece when these two were born and put to rest the age old question: What is Jon’s zodiac sign?

I’ll put the results in the tags as a TLDR if you’re not interested in reading my method and simply care about what star sign they are or what date to put in your calendar so you can go out for ice cream.

Statement Begins.

To find out the birthdays of Jon and Martin, we first must determine when exactly they joined the Archives. This will be important for the wider picture, as after all, the earliest possible birthday must take place after they start working there. We also must understand the Archive team’s speed in order to understand how to space out our statements and find that aforementioned number.

Gertrude Robinson passed away, according to her file, on the 15th of May 2015. This makes 15th May our earliest possible starting date. The next time the day’s date was specified was on 13th January 2016, when Naomi Herne gave a live statement. This is MAG 13, and our latest start date. Obviously, these numbers are nowhere close to the day we’re looking for, but they act as upper and lower limits. Our answer is somewhere inside.

In Jon’s supplemental notes for MAG 12, he states that Gerard Keay passed away late the previous year. Since Gertrude died after Gerard in early 2015, he must have died in late 2014. This confirms that MAG 1-12 was recorded to tape in 2015. We know that MAG 13, the next statement, was given live on 13th January 2016. This creates, at the very least, an almost two-week gap between archiving statements. This is likely due to the holiday season, so the time between 24th December and up to 1st January can be omitted. To recap, MAG 1-12 was recorded in 2015, and MAG 13 onwards in 2016.

The key to determining archival speed lies with Martin. Martin goes missing right before MAG 17 and reappears at the end of MAG 21. As he gave such a detailed account of those two weeks, our archiving timeline can be significantly accurate. MAG 19-20 were more than likely recorded on the same day, meaning three separate recording sessions took place in two weeks. However, it took a minimum of six weeks to record MAG 14-16.

So far, the timeline looks like this:

Now we have to figure out the left half.

Calculating the average time it takes to archive statements from MAG 13-22 (removing any outliers from our calculations), we can find a true average and apply it to the 2015 year. By March of The Magnus Institute’s 2016 calendar year, the Archive staff was able to archive 1.31 statements per week. I double-checked this number by doing the same with the statements recorded between MAG 22 and MAG 39. By multiplying the average amount of weeks it should take them by the adjusted number of statements recorded, it should equal the number of weeks it actually did take them. If the numbers are the same, the average is reliable. Hoping for the number 20, the number of weeks I had calculated... was 20.11. This average seems relievingly trustworthy and fits Elias’ complaint about the staff “barely getting through one statement per week.”

All we have to do now is multiply the first 12 statements by the 1.31 average to determine how many weeks it most likely took to do the recorded work of 2015. This leaves us with 15.72 weeks and makes the earliest and most probable start date somewhere around 5th September 2015. I will round this to 1st September as I am not expecting the team to start working on statements right out the gate, so these extra four days act as a buffer for everyone to get their bearings and find the tape recorder. Also, it’s convenient for Elias’ financials to start everyone on the 1st of the month.

Now is the fun part - the birthdays. We now know that Jon and Martin’s birthdays must fall somewhere between early September and the end of February. Since March kicks off the Archives living with the threat of Jane Prentiss, they have to take place before then. After that point, the team is far too stressed to have the carefree party heard in MAG 161. We also know that Martin’s birthday has to come before Jon’s, as the team mentions going out for ice cream at Jon’s party. This event has to be long enough in the past for Jon to forget about it, so their birthdays must be reasonably spaced out from one another in the allotted time. Likewise, an amount of time must have passed after their start date for the team to be close enough bond to want to celebrate Martin’s birthday.

Martin’s birth year is easy to determine. Martin tells us his age in MAG 56. His birthday could not have happened at this point in 2017, so his birth year must be 1987. In a Q&A, it was speculated that Jon and Martin have birthdays near each other (and one being slightly older than the other), so only 1987 and 1988 are our options for Jon’s birth year. Let’s look a bit closer at that.

Early ‘88 is closer to Late ‘87 than Early ‘87. At Jon’s birthday party, he says he’s turning 38. Martin is 29 at this time. The obvious conclusion to me is that Jon simply adds a decade to his age. (I find this the most hilarious yet believable scenario.) Jonny was also born in 1988, being 28 himself when that scene would take place. As Jon’s childhood details sometimes mirror Jonny’s, I am taking this as a sign of accuracy.

And by doing some additional work that I will not share here, I can reliably say that these are the best observed birthdays for Jon and Martin:

Martin - 23rd November, 1987

Jonathan - 2nd Febuary, 1988

Also, this makes Martin a potential Valentine’s Day Baby. Do with that what you will.

Thanks for reading!

(Full timeline for those who are interested:)

[swordsonnet]

the archival assistants @ jon:

[forgetmesoup]

Average picnic with an average couple

[noirsloth]

Silly little date

[ceaselessims]

upon relistening to tma i've come to the realization that martin and jon's romance began when the tape recorders were turned off in s3 and i just want to ask the web why she denied us that bc >:-(

[tawnyevergreen]

Had to sketch this after reading the fanfiction Come, my dear, and be a part of my home by @grahamfolgersdeliciousnotebooks

I liked this scene a lot, Great British Bake Off and Jon wearing Martin’s sweater <3

[cruelestpigeon]

can you imagine how annoying it would be to be an avatar of the eye?? like you start a new tv show and the eye just starts supplying you with knowledge about the ending. me personally, i’d have killed the eye a lot faster if it was doing that to me.

[klm-zoflorr]

Oliver ranting to Jon in a coma: my ex ate his notebook while we were on a dinner date. UN-BELIEVABLE what people will do!

[pineconnie]

imagine you’re trying to listen to a horrific paranormal experience you have to research and then you just end up listening to some guy bitching about one of his coworkers for 5 minutes

[bee-ina-boat]

Losing my marbles rn

[accidental-apocalypse]

pspspspsps Martin kinnies pspsps

[landscaping-your-mind]

He’s a pathetic little wet cat, he’s a poor little meow meow, he’s aspec, he’s genderqueer, he has an eldritch being in his head that has a vested interest in him not dying, he is the reason the people closest to him have died, he’s an orphan, he’s completely alone, he’s killed people and would do it again, he’s killed people and seen his reflection in their corpse, he’s a monster, he’s so achingly human.