#turns out tma is not gone anymore

[go-to-the-mirror]

episode 199 is the worst thing in the Entire World i am in Agony

[ceaselessims]

someone mentioned a while ago that it's odd that (presumably, if sam is in the tma-verse) a universe without fears had a tape recorder click on without prompting,,,,

but the very last scene of tma, when the fears are supposedly gone, a tape recorder still clicks on by itself, at least a few days to weeks after jon and martin are gone.

the only difference is that basira, melanie, and georgie guessed (correctly) they were able to turn it off. something is still able to listen if it ever wants to.

sticking to the science element of the magnus protocol, perhaps what happened here is like a chemical reaction.

TMA is taking place under a hood, where the elements can be mixed and matched to create different reactions in a controlled environment. elias was able to make this huge big chemical reaction under the hood. He was able to calculate the equation so it would be unbalanced in favor of the Watcher.

This reaction was going to sustain itself until all of the elements (read: other fears) slowly blinked out of existence. Jon was going to be an accelerant, speed up the chemical reaction to make it die out faster.

but everyone else says to open The Hood, expose the reaction to the rest of the room. Maybe the reaction continues, maybe it doesn't. Maybe the elements are able to be recombined and it happens again, maybe they aren't. The only way to find out is to open it up.

and they do.

they open the hood.

and the reaction stops

the space allows for the chemical bonds to break and the reaction and chemical equation becomes balanced once again.

but just because the elements are balanced, doesn't mean they're all gone. they aren't in enough quantities to be harmful anymore, but that doesn't mean they're not still there

[jouxlskaard]

Strap in, fuckers. This is a long one.

I've seen a lot of discourse and discussion recently about why TMAGP isn't resonating with listeners as much as TMA did, with a lot of people pointing towards the infrequent structure of each episode and the lack of subtlety that TMA had once excelled in. And while both of these are true, I think the main culprit that has caused these problems for listeners is one thing: the pacing.

TMAGP is only going to be 60 (Edit: 90) episodes long, compared with TMA's absolute behemoth of 200. When I'd found out about this, I'd assumed that it meant TMAGP would have a much smaller story - not having to establish as much information as TMA did, and allowing the story to have lower stakes as a result. This certainly wasn't a bad thing, as many sequels that have tried to one-up their predecessors have gone disastrously wrong, but I knew that the structure would be different to TMA as a result.

However, from the 12 episodes that we've seen so far, it appears that TMAGP is going to have similar levels of stakes to TMA - not the same stakes, of course, but they'll likely be on close to equal footing. This means that TMAGP has to establish the same amount of information to listeners with significantly less time to do it in, and the pacing has to speed up to adhere to that. In the first 12 episodes of TMA, we had established one possible recurring statement character (Gerry), a disturbing worm woman (Prentiss), and the fact that Jon doesn't like his assistant and refuses to believe any of the statements. In the first 12 episodes of TMAGP, we've established every important protagonist and what they sound like, two recurring statement characters (Bonzo and Ink5oul) with one that has already physically appeared, much of Sam's backstory and his ties to the Magnus Institute and the fact that something is deeply wrong with their workplace. That is a big difference.

This difference in pacing is what I believe is turning listeners away from what they'd originally enjoyed about TMA, because there's no longer that warm, comforting atmosphere when you listen to it. Its sound isn't designed to come from a tape recorder and a tape recorder only anymore; it's no longer a sit-down and listen to the Archivist tell you spooky stories for 20 minutes anymore; and, like I mentioned earlier, the structure is no longer the same throughout each episode. The horror anthology aspect, whilst still being there, has now taken a back-burner to the metanarrative because so much has to be established in so little time. To many, that's a bad thing. They listened to the original because they liked the statements, and the little things connecting them hinted to a much larger story at play. When this story was revealed, we got to see Jonny Sims and his brilliant prose at its best, because there was no longer anything to hide and the statements were in their purest forms - no longer having to establish information to the audience, and simply basking in the fear.

I'm sure we'll get to see the same thing in TMAGP once the narrative reaches that point, but the current pacing has uprooted a lot of listeners' expectations for the show. I'm going to listen to the entire thing, personally; yeah, it's different, and it doesn't deliver the same vibes and comfort as TMA did, and I probably won't be able to fall asleep whilst relistening to the more obscure episodes like I could before, but in a frankly disturbing way, I'm still fascinated with what Jonny, Alex and the other writers have created. This type of horror is the only kind that I genuinely enjoy, and I'm excited to see what direction Protocol goes in.

Edit: I feel like I should clarify that I don't see this comparison as something that takes away from TMAGP. Alex has said that it's going to be different from the get-go, and I do think that comparing it to TMA is an exercise in futility to an extent. I just wanted to talk about the shows together because I feel like they complement one another, and the narrative beats that I've talked about are less to do with TMA on its own and more to do with general narrative structure. We have buildup, payoff and pacing no matter what show it is, because that's what makes a story. I think TMAGP could be taken a little bit like Deltarune in terms of its relation to the original source material: separate entities with some overlap in character and themes. At the end of the day, it's still early days for the show and this entire spiel could just end up gathering dust - I just think it's a cool thing to think about, and it gives me an excuse to infodump about how pacing can affect a narrative and the audience's response to it.

I wrote this while my cat was laying on me. Have a picture as a reward for reading this whole thing.

[colduncrustable]

the martin antis working so hard to make waves is so funny. like, you are very much allowed to like/dislike any character you please! but making it your whole personality or acting like you’re cooler for it is a little bit silly. you are not morally or intellectually superior for hating on a fiction character.

not to mention all of the characters in tma are very nuanced and complicated, just like real people (!), and erasing all of that to serve a certain narrative is a complete disservice to the entire body of work. jon and martin’s relationship was never meant to be easy, they first and foremost worked closely together as boss/employee, and in a workplace that was actively putting them in dangerous and horrible situations. the whole point is that they’re both super fucked up but they have each other anyway. they both have flaws, they both have gone through a great deal both with and without each other, but they found love anyway. the idea that the dynamic change in s5 is due to martin just being this villain is so wild? like he’s not a doormat anymore but he also loves jon so fiercely and stands by him over and over again?

jon hated him, jon ignored him, was verbally horrible to him again and again, literally sent him on a dangerous investigation and said if anyone had to die might as well be him, jon accused him of murder, screamed at him, jon was on the run, jon died. martin was his number one defender through everything, even when honestly? he didn’t do a lot to prove he deserved it. but martin was strong in his loyalty and did his best to be a supporter anyway. he picked up extra work, he thought of him kindly when no one else did, he mourned him, and he put himself directly in the line of fire for jon. for everyone, yes, but especially for jon, he says that. because after everything, protecting jon is still his number one priority.

it’s so important to his character that he isn’t s1 martin anymore—that he learns to be a real person who has thoughts and feelings and a backbone. jon wanted that, and does it not say something that they don’t work out until martin learns to have a little bite? there’s a difference between being a real complicated traumatized human person, and just straight up being evil, or an asshole. jon had to learn how to be a lot of softer things but martin had to learn how to square his shoulders and stick out his chin. they had different arcs, and that doesn’t make either of them inherently evil or bad. it makes them real and not perfect and very multilayered, yeah.

martin didn’t handle every choice or action perfectly, he made a lot of mistakes, and he never claims to be the best person ever. but jon also fucked up, a lot. it isn’t a competition or a comparison, that’s really not how that works. but they work because of their flaws. that’s a big part of them fitting together. martin represented the humanity they were saving, with all his good and bad. jon was well beyond that, and while that doesn’t inherently compromise his character, it does mean he’s viewed in a much different light.

(meaning i think jon’s sins are seen very very different to martin’s.) (to be clear i think both deserve to be looked at critically, but hating either of them devoutly seems sort of silly.)

i’m not sure how you can listen to tma and all the ways it dissects and reflects on humanity and turn around and run blogs or make posts in the fandom about how you hate one of the main characters for being all of that.

jon never would’ve made it through without martin, even if martin wasn’t the key to everything, he was the reason to push through and not give up. martin is why jon didn’t go full monster mode, why he held onto who he was and his humanity, even with the whole ‘kill bill’ thing. martin gave him a reason to keep going, to try, to care so deeply. obviously there were other factors but jon says it himself, martin you are my reason.

if you can’t handle the fact that martin isn’t a grade a soft boy by the end of the show that’s a lot more about you than it is about him. he grew and maybe not always for the better but he could be a real person for jon instead of some kind of mirror or blank slate to be reflected on. i genuinely don’t understand how he can be misunderstood so deeply.

they’re both fucked up ! and if they are alive Somewhere Else you bet your ass they’re having long talks and going to therapy and fighting and making up and pacing the floors and figuring it all out together. it isn’t clean or easy or necessarily enjoyable all the time, but humanity isn’t either, love isn’t either. they went through unimaginable trauma, and expecting either of them to be holding it together any better than they already are is wild. context, it’s important. but let’s not turn multi-dimensional characters into flat one word answers.

it’s very human to like and dislike, love and hate based off of bias and experiences and perspective. but also opinion does not make fact. everything is relative, everything is subjective, everything everything everything. it’s an open discussion yada yada idk i’m just screaming into the wall about all the nonsense.

and beyond all of that, discourse is so useless. criticism and constructive conversations are really really important but discourse is pointless! oh you ship these people? well that inherently threatens my ship! oh you like this character that i hate? well that makes me feel invalid for hating them. like what you like, hate what you hate, have your feelings. but if you post shit on the internet you will get people who disagree, sorry, that’s how it is. partaking in little arguments over who is right or wrong when it doesn’t actually have to do with anything harmful or unhealthy makes no sense though. posting on the internet about all the hate you have in your heart when the world is already so full of it doesn’t actually do anything but add more bad to an already very large pile of bad.

things can be discussions not arguments sometimes, i promise. it’s not always tooth and nail, and let’s not forget, most of it is over things that never need to be fought over.

[cult-of-the-eye]

I had 4 nightmares in a row today and most of them were tma themed...I've never found it that scary but I guess now I am?? I'm gonna tell you them now:

(these are slightly unsettling btw so check the tags for trigger warnings)

You know desecrated host and confession? Yeah it's just that except I am experiencing what father burrows experienced. Except I kill and skin my little sister and I feel the absolute horror of waking up and realising what I'm doing and somehow it's worse when I realise that I've made my twin sister distraught. Cut to next dream where

I'm running from a burning hilltop house and through some sort of death trap maze thing made out of hedges and while I'm running for my life, terrified, it occurs to me that hey I think I might've listened to a tma episode about this, so I try to remember what happened so I can either avoid/follow that fate. I can't think of anything but for some reason I find a dragon shaped hole in the hedge so I run through that towards another house which is suspiciously similar to hilltop house. It's like a white clinical version and the family is smiling at me and they take me in and make me share a bed with their son. I am extremely uncomfortable and hyper vigilant so I just lie there awake and run away as soon as it starts to get a bit lighter. Cut to next dream where

I'm at home, it's like 9 pm and my dad has called me downstairs. Every day he checks everything is locked before going to bed after I've checked everything is locked cause hes kinda paranoid. Hes about to tell me off cause the front door is unlocked. The door slowly creaks open as we're standing there, showing a humid, dark street, backlit by an orange glow. It's very unsettling and I turn to my dad and shout SHUT THE DOOR SOMEONE MIGHT GET IN!! I then turn around into the house and it dawns on me that someone is already in the house. I know it's a man with a ratty top hat and an even rattier black billowing cloak, hiding in the shadows of our house and I know when I'll find him, he'll be pointing at me. Because of this knowledge, I tell my dad to stay put, because I'm gonna find him and potentially sacrifice myself. He lets me. I comb through the house, looking behind furniture and in every saturated, dark corner and I find him. Hes just as I imagined, pointing at me, with an open mouth, as if he's just about to scream. Cut to next dream where

I am still in my house. It's morning. I am entrusted with the care of a small child (around 7 or 8) and I am told that people are trying to kill her. People are baying at my open front door trying to see her and I tell her to run upstairs, while I block the staircase using my whole body. They're pushing against me and I see the girl peep down and I shout at her telling her to get away, they're gonna get you. The dream cuts away to the next morning. I wake up, feeling hollow. The girl is gone. I know in my heart that she's dead and probably has died a painful death and that I failed but instead all I feel is a sense of relief that I don't have to take care of her anymore.

Yeah so I'm gonna spend the rest of my life thinking about that.

[traitorousarsonistpartner]

DP X TMA Ficlet

Well this popped in my head and won't leave me alone so y'all get it now

This takes place Season 4 TMA and Post the end of DP series. I haven't read glitch through time yet

-----------------

Tape recorder clicks

Jon "Where's Martin when you need him? How do you work this bloody kettle?"

Pause of silence

Jon "Why are you here? What's going on?"

??? "Sorry to startle you. I was told to come talk to someone called Gertrude. Well I was told to do so a while ago but I procrastinated. Do you know where she is?"

Startled metal clattering

Jon "Oh wow. That doesn't happen much anymore... Why do you need to speak to her?"

??? "I'm supposed to tell her something. Something she needs to know as The Head Archavist apparently. My name is Phantom. She might be expecting me."

Jon "Oh... Well Danny she is... No longer The Archavist. That is my job now. Can you tell me."

Phantom "Sure."

Jon "Well?"

Phantom "I don't know what I'm meant to tell you. He said the Archavist would ask me a question and I would know what I'm supposed to say."

Jon "Oh. Well Statement of Phantom. January third twenty nineteen. Statement subject is..."

Phantom "The death of Danny Fenton and the Birth of Danny Phantom."

Jon "Statement Begins"

Danny "I would like to say I grew up normally. It's what I tell everyone who asks. But that would be a lie. My parents were just stupid and unstable enough that their genius was a danger to anyone around them. They were obsessed with death. Not just death but the dead and undead. Convinced that they could be reached and talked to... Well they were right."

"I'm getting ahead of myself. My childhood was full of undeath. My sister once had to save us from our Christmas Dinner. A reanimated turkey. It had no head but I can still hear it's screams if I try to remember..."

"When I was thirteen my parents started working on their magnum opus. A portal between life and death. So they could truly study the dead and undead and undying. It took them a year to construct the portal. It didn't work. So shortly after turning fourteen I put on my suit and out of curiosity and teenage carelessness went inside."

The tape starts to sound slightly distorted "My hand touched a wire. And somehow the portal turned on. Reality ripped apart on the spot I stood. For one moment. One eternity. I was being ripped apart by blistering radiation and electricity. Fenton's blood boiled and skin peeled and bones fried. Every nerve letting out an agonizing cry of pain before blinking out. Dying. And Fenton was gone. The blood boiling away to ectoplasm. Skin replaced by a ghostly pale copy. Hair now white and snow and blue eyes now a deep green."

"I can still look like Danny Fenton. The portal is open now. I still make myself look like him. But I am unsure whether I am truly still Fenton or if I am just a cheap copy."

"And I am far from the only thing to walk out of my parents' portal. But I am one of the few that is friendly towards humans."

The tape is no longer distorted. Danny "Wow that just like came out like verbal diarrhea. I could not control that at all. Anyway did you get what you needed out of that?"

Jon "I um... Statement ends" clattering and the tape shuts off.

[adorkablenerd]

A Poet’s Demise

Just some jonmartin fluff cus they’re nerds and I love them 🥰  As always, sfw, and I made sure not to include any spoilers.  Doesn’t really have any place in the series, but they’re already in a relationship 👍 ( Also omg I can’t believe how fast I finished this one, but I’m glad I did cus I wanted to write smth for tma so bad!  Hope y’all like it!!)

Ship: Jon Sims x Martin Blackwood

Words: 1,514

"Martin." Jon spoke from his spot in the doorway, admiring the slight blush that has spread across his lover's face. 

"No."  Martin covered his face with his hands, not able to look at the other without his face burning. 

"Maaartiiin~"  Jon made his way over to the bed, slowly inching closer. 

"I'm not talking to you anymore."  He kept his face covered, words slightly muffled by his palms.

"Oh, why not?"  He cocked his head to the side while Martin peaked to look at him through his fingers, though he immediately looked away, a new rush of embarrassment flowing through him as he saw his boyfriend’s smug smile.

"You know why."  It was a dumb reason, one Martin wasn't even actually mad over, just quite flustered about.  

"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."  Jon couldn’t help but tease the other a bit, he was just so cute like this.  Martin had been practicing his poetry again, and had been for about half an hour before realizing that Jon was standing in the doorway to their shared bedroom, and had been listening to him for a majority of the time, if not all of it.  

"You're a menace, truely an evil man."  Jon let out a small chuckle at that comment, and sat down in front of Martin, who had almost curled into a ball by now.

"Oh really?  I'm that cruel, am I?" Jon leaned down, giving him a peck on the forehead, which only served to make Martin's face turn even redder.

"Yes, you are."  He rolled over so that he was facing away from Jon, trying, and failing, to regain some composure. 

"Well, if that's how you feel I suppose there's no changing it. I'll just have to give in to my wicked nature."  Saying this, Jon began to trace around the back of the still heavily flustered man's neck, keeping his touch light and teasing.

"Ehehe t-thahat's nohot fahahahair!"  He fought the urge to push the hands away, wanting to keep his face covered, and not completely minding the sensation.

"And why would I play fair?  I'm evil, remember?"  Jon’s hands quickly moved to the other’s underarms, making Martin’s hands finally move away from his face.  Instead, shooting down, though they did nothing but trap Jon’s fingers where they were already wiggling.

“EEhehehe f-fuhuhuck ohohoff!” Jon’s hands froze for a moment, but Martin couldn’t stop the giggles that were spilling out, both from the tickly feeling that hadn’t quite gone away, and from the silliness of the situation.

“Well, I never!  I can’t believe you would ever tell me to do such a thing Martin, it’s truly quite rude.”  Even when not looking at him, Martin could hear the smile in Jon’s voice, though he was trying his best to sound somewhat serious.

“Oho, my ahapologies.  Did I offend the great and powerful archivist?  What a grave mihisTAHAEKEHE!”  Martin could barely finish what he was saying before Jon decided he’d heard enough, hands shooting to his ribs and sides, squeezing up and down them.  This time, Jon moved so that he was on top of the other, sitting on his thighs and not giving him the option of turning his body away from him. 

“Yes, yes it was.  Honestly, you should know by now not to push me, especially not when you’re in such a vulnerable position.  Though, I do suppose I can forgive you this time, but only because you’re quite adorable like this.”  A small whine could be heard through the loud giggling in response to Jon’s teasing.  

“Nohohot adorahAHAHA!”  This time, Martin couldn't even finish his sentence before Jon targeted his hips and the tops of his thighs, still squeezing rapidly.

“Hm, sorry, what was that?  Really you have to speak more clearly, how else am I supposed to understand you?”  Though he slowed his squeezing, he didn’t completely relent, mesmerized by Martin’s hiccupy laughter.

“Ihihi cahahahan’t!”  His hands had moved back over his face, unable to figure out what else to do with them.  

“Of course you can.  It’s quite easy, as you can see, I'm doing it right now.  Unless, there's something stopping you, though I'm not sure what that could be.”  Jon’s hands moved under Martin’s shirt, nails scribbling across his soft tummy.  

“Ihihihit tihicklehehes!”  He whined at Jon, who just laughed along with him, both enjoying this game they had started.

“Oh my, really?  Well that explains it then, I suppose it would be a bit hard to talk clearly with someone tickling you.  Especially if they were as ticklish as you are.  I’m sure you’ll learn to manage though, how about some more practice?”  Without waiting for an answer, Jon dug into his hips again, causing a new shriek of laughter from the man under him.

“AHAHAHA SHIHIT, JOHOHON YOHOU DIHIHICK!”  He couldn’t help himself, he knew the name calling would only make it worse, but god this was just so fun.  There were no worries left in his head, barely any thoughts at all other than fuck this tickles, and it was wonderful.

“Oh Martin, I really have tried to remain patient with you, but you still seem to have an attitude problem.  One that really needs fixing.”  His hands stopped, giving Martin a chance to breathe. The smirk that Jon had on his face would probably have been described as evil by those who didn’t know him well, but when Martin managed to open his eyes which had been squeezed shut from laughter, he recognized it immediately.  

“Johohon wahahait, Johon plehehease!”  Martin preemptively brought his shoulders up, trying to protect his worst spot without actually stopping Jon from being able to target the area.

“Wait for what, have you decided to have some manners and take back your oh so horrid words to me?”  Jon’s hands were at both sides of his head, not yet touching, giving him a chance to back out if he really didn’t want this.

“Ehehe, Ihi just wahanted to tehell yohou somehihing.”  He couldn’t stop the giggles from slipping out, both in anticipation and thinking about all the things he could say next.

“Yes?  I do hope it’s an apology, frankly I think I deserve one after all those rude remarks.  So, what is it?”  Jon was almost laughing as well, they both knew that whatever Martin was about to say, it wasn’t an apology.

“Fuhuhuhuck youhuhu!”  Before Jon could even do anything, Martin broke into giggles, brain fuzzy from the previous tickling and the anticipation of more.  Jon couldn’t help but laugh along with him, unable to keep up any sort of serious charade he had before,

“You really are asking for it today, aren’t you?  Well, who am I to deny you of something you so clearly want~”  The smirk he had prior had turned to a soft smile, unable to help himself when seeing Martin like this.  Leaning over him, Jon brought both hands up to Martin’s ears, one lightly tracing the shell of his right ear, while the other scribbled softly behind his left.  The result was immediate.  His breathy, light giggles turned into what at first sounded like a scream, but then turned into loud, high pitched cackles.

“EHEHE JOHOHON T-TIHIHICKLEHES!” He could barely form words anymore, the sensations taking over too much of his brain.

“Yes, that is rather the point, isn’t it?  It is very cute that you feel the need to point it out though.”  Jon leaned in close, making sure to whisper the last part into Martin’s ear, making him squeal through his laughter.  That sound only spurred Jon on more, blowing into his ear to hear it again.  Deciding to finish things before Martin got too overwhelmed or tired, Jon focused on the back of both of his ears, moving his head back down to blow a raspberry into his neck.  One last shriek made its way out before the cackling resumed, Martin shaking his head back and forth, unable to stay still.

“NAHAHA IHIHIHI YOHOHOU FUHUHUCK!”  He quickly ran out of energy to move, only able to laugh, mind no longer forming any words.  As soon as Martin’s laughter started sounding more tired, Jon stopped, moving off of him, instead laying next to the still slightly giggling man, running his fingers through his hair to help calm him down.

“It’s really nothing to be embarrassed about, you know?”  Jon spoke once Martin’s laughter had completely dissipated.

“Oh shush, you’re lucky I’m too tired to get you back right now, but I will be getting you for this.”  Martin smiled into Jon’s neck, feeling the shudder of anticipation that went through his body. 

“I suppose it is only fair you get your revenge, though not right now.  I think it’s best to stay like this for a bit.”  The promise of revenge would echo in the back of Jon’s head for a while, but now wasn’t the time.  For now they would relax, both tired out and at peace in each other's arms, falling asleep on their bed.  

[danthediamondminecart]

could you share some facts/headcanons about the clones of the hosts? :3 (or just recoded idc)

I can! But just note, I have less headcanons about these guys,,,though there is a certain thing I'm working on that once it's out I can talk more about these guys in that thing haha

Recoded (Russo)

Moreso a robot programmed to act like Russo than a flesh and blood clone. Hence, 'robot clones'. He was only successful compared to the Great Woman due to Mr B's assistance.

Loyal to JP to a fault. He's aware he's a robot and that's his creator, of course he's going to be loyal.

Probably wants to take over Russo's place permanently rather than temporarily. He'd absolutely adore the spotlight.

Recoded was supposed to be present in the final battle with the taxi, and then if/when the player destroyed the clone and the hosts got on it, Recoded would have turned on the hosts and JP could attack you with his assistance.

In the canon timeline, he isn't aware of the Great Woman's existence. He thinks he's the first clone that JP created and that JP has loyalty in return to him. He is wrong. JP would absolutely betray him if it meant getting ahead.

--> Russo makes this very clear to him during the final battle, when he stole the keys to the taxi and returned back to the hosts, by informing him about the Great Woman's existence. By force. Using the robotic resonators.

Due to his failure in the final battle, JP imprisoned him in the maze alongside the Great Woman. This is a perfect recipe to get an angry robot clone on their ass if he is ever freed, but JP is filled with hubris.

Guns Blazing is his theme tune.

If he's present in AUs, he's Russo's twin brother. He's present in the Superhero AU currently, I haven't figured out his place in the other AUs I have

The Great Woman (Sabrina)

I'm gonna refer to her as GW because I'm not writing out Great Woman multiple times

She was JP's first attempt at robot cloning a host, which failed miserably. This is why they kidnapped Mr B in the Hunt event (I HC that takes place between S2 and S3) to try to improve their programming for their attempt at a Russo clone.

She basically just,,,could not contain the sentience. I'm not perfectly sure what caused her to break, but she went crazy pretty quickly and is now a feral robot wandering the halls of that maze thing.

She's sentient enough to like...understand English and be able to write, just vaguely murderous. (See, that note that I can't find an image of and I don't want to go through the FB again to find it)

When Recoded gets stuck with her, she's actually rather nice to him - well, as nice as a murderous robot can be anyway. Kindred spirits and allat.

Even if she had worked as she should've initally, she would've failed and gone mad eventually.

She's not really present in many of my AUs, but she is present in the TMA AU (the revamp) as a Not-Sabrina. She's not alive anymore though. DJ made sure of that.

[ollieofthebeholder]

to find promise of peace (and the solace of rest): a TMA fanfic

Read from the beginning on Tumblr || AO3 || My Website

Chapter 114: May 2018

Martin knew it was going to be a rough day when he woke up to find Tim playing with a prism.

Not that it had been a particularly good week to begin with, or even a particularly good month. The dispassionate aloofness that protected Martin in his dreams had started seriously eroding, and while that was probably a good thing—he’d been really worried about what it meant that he could just watch people, especially people he cared about like Gerry and Naomi, go through the worst days of their lives like it was a television program—it did mean his sleep was a good deal more restless, and he always worried he was going to wake Jon, or hurt him by accident. The progression through the dreams was getting far less orderly, too, and he struggled to figure out what the pattern was, if there was a pattern. If it wasn’t just meant to disorientate him, keep him off balance, and make him just as afraid as the people begging him to help not knowing he was just as helpless as they were.

Besides his petty little personal problems…things were getting bad for everyone else, too. Maybe worse. Melanie and Sasha had turned up Monday morning with the cats and a lingering smell of smoke; they were all fine, and the house had mostly survived, but the interior was a mess and they were going to have to stay in the Archives until her landlord was finished the renovations. Melanie was already betting against him changing the leasehold to say that she couldn’t have pets anymore. Tim had left after work that day and come back with Gerry and Umberto; Martin had assumed he just felt guilty being the only one who got to leave until Gerry and Daisy came up from the tunnels, where they’d been looking for vermin of some kind to satisfy both their hungers, looking shaken and pissed respectively. Gerry had had one of his attacks when Daisy nearly pounced on a particularly juicy-looking spider (her words) and he’d seen the black marks of potential death bloom on her face and chest, and they still weren’t sure what that was all about. That night he’d had a nasty Web-related flashback that they’d spent all of Wednesday searching to see if there was a statement in the Archives that matched.

And every time any of them so much as set a toe outside the Archives, it seemed, there were cobwebs everywhere.

Martin hadn’t heard Gerry’s flashback the night before, since he and Jon had taken to sleeping in the Archivist’s office—Jon refused to let him sleep alone, no matter how bad the nightmares got—but seeing Tim sitting at his desk, shining a tiny pocket torch through a triangular crystal that he was twisting this way and that and watching the colors play across the desk, gave Martin a pretty good idea of what it might have been about. He hadn’t asked, though, not yet anyway. He’d just gone into the break room to make them both some tea.

As he went through the familiar motions, made slightly off by the necessity of avoiding the small brown spider that had apparently taken it into its head to redecorate the shelves for Halloween five months early, he tried to remember the conversation they’d had half a lifetime ago, literally. He’d been on the cusp of fifteen, the lines on his wrists only just beginning to fade into relative invisibility and the rebellion and desire to push back against his mother and Aunt Mary’s treatment and plans for him only just beginning to form, fresh off his first broken heart and ripe for what would turn out to be the best year in chorus he’d ever had. Melanie had just found her niche and started planting the seeds that would eventually lead to Ghost Hunt UK, which she’d once confided she hoped would satisfy the itch of curiosity that fueled the Eye without actually binding her closer to it. And Gerry had been on the verge of adulthood, primed to up stakes and flee to the continent the instant Melanie and Martin were well and truly out of it. They’d all been so…hopeful. It hadn’t been a serious conversation because it wasn’t going to matter much longer, even if they hadn’t started consciously thinking that way yet.

Except, obviously, none of them had made it out. Here he was on the cusp of thirty, and they’d all ended up falling deeper into it—only Melanie was at a point where she even could possibly still walk away, and she was so damn stubborn that she wouldn’t—and Martin vaguely remembered making a comment about how once people who didn’t work for the Institute started calling you Archivist, you were probably in it too deep to be saved. It was darkly funny now, because Martin, who’d never considered himself important for anything to bother with, had somehow become at least the second most powerful servant of the Ceaseless Watcher in existence. And he wasn’t entirely certain he wasn’t more powerful than Elias, although he wasn’t particularly keen to try it.

“Won’t have to, either, as long as the bastard stays put,” he muttered at the spider that was peeking out from between the sugar canister and the powdered milk Hannah and Gail were always arguing over. He didn’t know if it was the same one as before or a new one. “And don’t go getting any ideas. Get out of here while it’s still your choice.”

The spider didn’t move. Martin weighed up the merits of pulling out a bit of the Archivist power versus the possibility that this was just an ordinary spider, then reached for a paper towel to either humanely remove it from the break room or squish it without getting guts all over his fingers. When he looked back up, though, it was gone.

The kettle clicked off with a sound similar enough to the tape recorders that Martin found himself instinctively looking around for where it might be. Then he shook himself back to sense, checked the mugs to ensure they were unoccupied, and busied himself with the tea.

Tim was still playing with the prism, in combination with a crystal ashtray he’d found somewhere. He started in surprise when Martin slid the tea under his nose and looked up. “Martin? What are you doing up?”

“I could ask you the same. It’s two in the morning.” Martin sat down in the chair that had once been his and was now Jon’s. “Nightmares ran their course, and there’s not usually any point in sleeping further once they’re done, I guess. Came out and saw you messing with this.” He nodded at the prism. “Let me guess, Gerry had a flashback to the time we tried to improve on Smirke’s system?”

“Got it in one.” Tim clicked off the torch and set it aside. “I couldn’t stop thinking about what you said—well, what Gerry said you said—about shining light through a prism. I know there’s not a way to put them back together, but…I mean, if you move the torch, all the colors move. There’s no way to move just one. And, I mean, there are only so many colors you can break light into.” He ran his finger over the point of the prism. “You can’t make new colors.”

“You can if you shine light through another prism and combine them. Or look harder at the overlap between the colors.” Martin took a sip of his tea. “I know what you’re thinking, Tim, but…well, the Flesh and the Hunt were just emerging, or at least just emerging in humans, when Smirke started making his classifications. They can splinter off from existing Fears. There’s…Dekker probably isn’t wrong about the Extinction.”

“Do you think Basira is?”

Martin hesitated. “I think Basira has her reasons for trusting Peter Lukas. I just don’t know what they are.”

Tim glanced over his shoulder towards where the trapdoor was, and where he, Gerry, and Daisy tended to bunk down. “Did you tell her what we found out? About how to quit?”

“I told her,” Martin said quietly. “All she said was that if we were planning to go that route, to make sure we submitted a letter of resignation so she could process the severance package. I can’t tell if that was a joke or not. She’s hard to read sometimes.”

What had been obvious, though, was that she was definitely not going to be quitting. Assuming that was even how she had to quit, now that she wasn’t in the Archives, or if she even could; even if the Eye hadn’t been too big on seeing the future, it still wouldn’t give Martin that information. She was absolutely committed to her plan, whatever it was. He still wasn’t sure if she was actually on Peter Lukas’ side or if she was playing some kind of long con on him too, but whatever she was up to, she wouldn’t let anything deviate her from that path.

“Daisy was telling us the other day that she ran into her, too,” Tim said. “Didn’t ask her about quitting, so she said, but…she’s worried she might have lost her way. Basira’s not the kind to give away what she’s planning necessarily, but there were…little things they used to do to reassure one another or communicate when they worked on the force, and she didn’t get any of those. So either she was really paranoid about being overheard, or she’s doing exactly what she says she is—helping Peter Lukas.”

“We don’t…actually know that he’s wrong,” Martin said cautiously. “Or that he’s doing something evil.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“No, I don’t, but Basira might. Or she might believe she’s tempering whatever it is he’s doing. But if she won’t listen—or share—there’s only so much we can do.” Martin sighed. “And if she won’t tell Daisy, she definitely won’t tell the rest of us.”

“She might tell you. She likes you.”

“Liked, past tense. I’m pretty sure she still blames me for what happened to Daisy. And since she wouldn’t have gone over to work with him if Daisy had been here, I think she thinks that’s my fault too.”

Tim snorted and rubbed at his forehead. “You didn’t ask Daisy to sacrifice herself. From what she said, you tried to stop her. It’s why the two of you worked so well together on all that, because you both trusted the other to do what was necessary and keep the rest of them safe. The rest of us, really.”

“I know.” And Martin did know. He’d just expected to be the one doing the sacrificing. “Anyway, I didn’t say it was my fault, I just said Basira blames me. And there’s not really a way to convince her otherwise. She’s…”

“Stubborn? Hard-headed?”

“Tenacious.”

“Same thing.” Tim stifled a sneeze.

“Allergies?” Martin asked sympathetically.

Tim shrugged ruefully. “Stirred up a bit of dust digging out the prism, I guess. I knew I’d seen it around here somewhere, but it had been a while. And it was covered in cobwebs when I did.” He must have seen something in Martin’s expression, because he added, “I’m sure it was innocuous, Mart. I saw it ages ago, and I don’t think anyone has touched it since.”

“You’re probably right, but I’m still suspicious.” Martin nudged the prism lightly. “Although…why would the Web even care? How would it even know?”

“Spiders spinning daydreams in the copses.” The last word opened up into a yawn, which Tim tried to hide behind a hand.

It wasn’t even a good attempt, and Martin didn’t bother pretending he hadn’t seen it. “How much sleep did you actually get last night? Or at all this week?”

“I took a nap yesterday,” Tim said.

“At eleven in the morning. For thirty-seven minutes. And you weren’t so much asleep as sitting with your eyes closed petting the cat.” Martin raised an eyebrow at Tim’s sheepish look, while at the same time mentally tallying it up as a personal win as well as a point in favor of his argument that Tim didn’t call him out on Knowing that, since it was awfully specific and could only have come from the Beholding. “Go lie down, Tim. At least for an hour or two. You need the rest, and Umberto would probably like someone warm to cuddle with.”

“Last I saw he was curled up with Daisy. But okay.” Tim yawned and stood. “Thanks for the tea. Sorry I didn’t drink it.” With that, he lurched over to the trap door. Martin heard a faint mrrp as Umberto, or possibly one of Melanie’s cats, came over to seek the new cuddle buddy, and then all was silent again.

Alone in the dark, Martin stared at the prism. He understood the nature of light better than he had at fifteen, and he understood the Fears a bit better too, or at least he felt like he did. The Ceaseless Watcher was surprisingly reticent on the subject of itself and its fellows.

Or maybe not that surprising. Martin wouldn’t want to give the key to his potential undoing to anyone he didn’t trust not to use it either. Probably the only way to really Know the actual truth was to go through with the Watcher’s Crown, whatever that might have entailed. He was the Archivist, after all; if the ritual didn’t involve him being a…sacrificial lamb or whatever, he would probably be very important in whatever new world was created. There would be no hiding things from him, he thought. No secrets he would not know, no knowledge that could be withheld. All truths, any lies, secrets and strengths and weaknesses, all at his fingertips…

Wait. Those weren’t his thoughts.

Martin winced and drove the heel of his hand into his temple, gritting his teeth as he tried to force the Beholding back into submission. The trouble with getting more powerful, having more safeguards, is that the temptations got bigger and harder to resist, too. He wasn’t the megalomaniac type, he’d never wanted to rule the world or anything, but being in the dark—with a lowercase D, metaphorically speaking—got frustrating at times and it was difficult to resist the urge to just…have that information. The lure of a world where he could, and where he could control the ebb and flow of information, was pretty damn powerful. If Elias was the one trying to set it in motion—or had been, since he didn’t seem able to do much from in prison, even if he had managed to charm himself into a few privileges—then restricting Jon’s, and later Martin’s, access to information, constantly setting them up for situations where having that knowledge would have made all the difference in the world, was probably the most effective method in existence of getting them on his side. If Martin hadn’t had the Archives crew as anchors, it would have been far more difficult not to go to Elias and say look, fine, I know you want to bring the Ceaseless Watcher into this world, tell me what I need to do and I’ll do it.

But he did have the others, and the image of what Jon’s face, or Melanie’s, would look like if he did was enough to make him mentally flip off the Eye and stride off to Peter Lukas’ office to go find himself something for a midnight snack.

Elias’s office, now Peter’s, actually had two parts, the large room in the back Elias had primarily used for storage and the small front room where he’d done his work. Peter used the back room as his primary office, on the rare occasions he was in, and the outer office had been given to Basira. Not that Martin saw either of them very often, but it was easy to see…well, it was easy to tell someone was using it, even if it was completely impersonal, even more than Elias’s office had been. The ledgers and fountain pens were gone, replaced with a squat ivory computer tower and a CRT monitor. The wire cup on the desk was the sort that came in standard office supply kits and contained generic, mass-market pens. The mouse pad was square and blank white with a brand name screen printed on the bottom right corner that was so worn and faded Martin couldn’t read it anymore. There wasn’t even a coat or shawl draped over the back of the chair, and even if it wasn’t that bad up here, Martin knew it was cold in the Lonely. Unless she’d got used to that by now.

There was, however, a spider on the handle to the door to Peter’s office. It moved up the door when Martin looked at it, but he didn’t trust that, and he decided, fuck it, he’d kill this one. He was getting damned tired of the Web and its ilk. Slowly, keeping his eyes on the spider to make sure it didn’t get away before he could, he reached behind him, found the drawer of the desk, slid it open, and reached inside. His fingers found something smooth and solid and heavy-feeling, and as he tried to grip it, something moved.

Click.

The slightly muffled voice that came out of the drawer was Gertrude’s. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“Of course I do.” The voice that responded was wholly unfamiliar to Martin.

“Well, that’s a shame.” If Martin had been inclined to doubt Gerry’s memory and his mother’s statement, the tone of voice in which Gertrude delivered that would have left him in no doubt they were related.

Distracted from the spider, he turned, pulled the tape recorder out of the desk, and stopped playback, then rewound it and sat in Basira’s chair. It wasn’t something she was recording, and obviously if she meant for him to listen to it she’d have left it for him. Maybe she hadn’t listened to it herself yet. But, well, he was here, and she wouldn’t be in until the actual working hours started, and it was better to listen up here where he wouldn’t risk waking Jon anyway. He could rewind it when he was done and put it back and no one would be the wiser.

The recorder popped, indicating it had reached the start of the reel, and Martin pushed PLAY.

This time he listened much more carefully to the opening exchange. He heard himself in Gertrude’s words and tone—talking to Breekon, talking to Mustermann, hell, the way he’d spoken to his own mother on her deathbed—and wondered how much was being the Archivist and how much was being related and how much was just coincidence. The thoughts snapped out of his head, though, when she started talking about Agnes.

It wasn’t a proper statement. Not at first. That didn’t start for a bit, and he knew exactly when it did in the small part of him that held on when the Archivist swept over him, because the actual statement unfolded before him in grainy, sketchy black and white, like an animation pencil test being projected through an infrared camera thirty years out of date. But it was compelling in its own way, and in the way of most of Gertrude’s commentary, it answered a few questions and opened up so many more. The man who had once been the head of the Church of the Lightless Flame and later been Jane Prentiss’ landlord was jaded, bitter…and definitely scared. As defiant as he was at first, Martin could practically smell the fear the more Gertrude spoke, and something in him was almost disappointed that the man was dead and this wouldn’t be joining his dreams.

No. No, he definitely didn’t want to dream about this.

The tape clicked off, and Martin drew in a lungful of air, sitting back in Basira’s chair. His hand tightened around the recorder, and he felt the buzzing, at which point it occurred to him that he’d left the tape playing on the desk in front of him. He looked at his hand and, sure enough, there was a more retro recorder than the model that had been in Basira’s desk, recording away. When had he pulled that out?

“Gertrude didn’t mention what she did to Eugene Vanderstock,” he said slowly. “Neither did Arthur Nolan. And I sure as hell haven’t done any digging into it, since this literally just came to my attention. But the Knowledge…is there, whether I want it or not. I don’t want it. I wish I didn’t know what it felt like to be alive as your whole being is infused with grit, how painful that is, but I do. Good to know that works against the Fourteen, anyway. Or some of its agents. I’m not sure how high up in the Lightless Flame Eugene was, or how powerful. Not as powerful as Gertrude, that’s for damned sure, but…”

He stared vacantly at Basira’s recorder, then leaned forward to rewind it for her before sitting back with a sigh. “Hill Top Road,” he mused. “Everything keeps coming back to that. We’ve had so many little threads go towards it that never end up anywhere, so many stories that weave around it. And now this. I-I know it’s a story we knew, sort of, but at the same time…we didn’t know Agnes’ side of it. We still don’t, I guess. I wonder what she thought, growing up there. I wonder if she thought of it as home, or just a place to live. I wonder what made her decide to protect Ronald Sinclair, if it was the whim of a child who wanted to see what would happen or an attempt to prove she was capable of more than causing pain and destruction or just a desire to stop the Web from winning.” He sighed again. “I wonder if it was actually the Lightless Flame’s doing that kept Gertrude alive that long or if it was the bond with Agnes itself. I won’t let myself wonder if my bond with Jon and Gerry is strong enough to keep me safe like that.”

He shook his head and said again, “Hill Top Road. I can’t help but wonder how much centers around that. It’s not just the statements. The matron of the Sunnydene Children’s Home mentioned Mr. Fielding’s halfway house, Gerry and Melanie and I went to that Halloween party there…there have been so many things centered around it. The Web, the Desolation, the Spiral, the Lone—” He stopped and sat up straighter as the knowledge slammed into his head, for the first time in twenty years.

“No,” he breathed. “Not the Lonely. It wasn’t the Lonely that was after me then. It was the Dark. I just assumed it was the Lonely, but…fuck. No wonder those things at the swap meet were so interested in me.”

He sat in stunned silence for a few moments as the implications of that washed over him. He’d been wrong about that all these years. What else was he wrong about at Hill Top Road?

There was an analog clock on the wall, plain and austere. Martin glanced at it and calculated, then stood decisively. “Right. I think this is a thread I need to pull. I can make the next train to Oxford and probably be back before everyone wakes up properly. It’s time to finish this once and for all. I’m heading to Hill Top Road.”

Click. The recorder shut itself off, which Martin took as approval of his plan.

He wasn’t thoroughly stupid. He went back through the Archives and left a note, just in case someone—likely Gerry—woke up before he got back. For just a moment, he hesitated and stepped into his office. Jon was still curled up in their nest of blankets, breathing lightly, looking peaceful and somehow younger than his age in his sleep. The temptation to crawl back under the covers, curl around him, and sleep a little longer was definitely present. Only the certainty that if he didn’t go now Jon would insist on going with him kept him from doing that.

Instead, he knelt down, pressed a gentle, tender kiss to his boyfriend’s forehead, and quietly let himself out of the Archives.

It was early enough that the sun hadn’t come up yet, and the trip to Paddington station was thoroughly uneventful. There was a bit of chaos stemming from the newly set train schedules, but more people lived in Oxford and commuted to work in London than the other way around, so despite everything Martin ended up having the carriage largely to himself, which gave him plenty of space and time to think over his plan.

He didn’t have one.

The shortest route to Hill Top Road from the train station took him straight through the park. Childish superstition warred with stubborn defiance, and in the end, he decided to risk it. Unsurprisingly, nothing happened. It could have been that he was too powerful to interest whatever had been here before, it could be that it had long ago left, but more than likely it was just too close to sunrise to be prime hunting grounds for the Dark, despite the clouds and drizzle. Whatever the case, he made it to the other side unmolested.

The house Judith Bradford’s grandfather had owned was gone, which was something of a shock; it had been the largest and most impressive house on the block, and now there was nothing but a slight depression where the basement had once been. Martin stared at it for a moment, letting memory and knowledge mingle. It had burnt down not long after construction on the replacement for the Fielding house had concluded, probably retaliation from the Lightless Flame for the loss of Agnes Montague, possibly just bad luck. Either way, it wasn’t where he was heading and it wasn’t any of his concern.

Still…as he continued on up the road, getting progressively wetter and wishing like hell he’d brought an umbrella, he couldn’t help but think back to the party. He actually hadn’t had a very good time even before Gerry made them leave; he’d spent about half the time avoiding the food so that he didn’t get called names for being fat and the other half of the time avoiding Lizzie van Pelt and Helen—Helen—what was her last name? They’d both been dressed as Anastasia and spent an awful lot of time trying to flirt with him, and since even back then Martin had been quietly in love with one of the older boys in the group he’d been very uncomfortable with it. He’d never much enjoyed the ones from previous years, either, and he’d really only gone because Melanie wanted him to.

There weren’t any good memories on this street. Not his, not Ronald Sinclair’s, not Ivo Lensik’s, not Father Burroughs’, probably not even Agnes’. He wasn’t going to learn anything that didn’t hurt. Why was he doing this?

Because, he thought. Because he couldn’t leave the mystery alone, because it was important to so many Fears, because there was something he didn’t understand. Because he’d felt so strongly that he shouldn’t dig more into Hill Top Road. Because the Web hadn’t tried a ritual yet either, as far as he knew—unless that was what Raymond Fielding had been up to—and the risk of Jon or Sasha being made a keystone of one was too great for him to let things alone. Because—goddamn it, Helen’s last name was Richardson, the onetime real estate agent who’d been taken by the Spiral had been the same pretentious snob who’d decided he would make an ideal partner and had insulted his sister in the bargain. Nobody deserved what she’d got, he thought, but it couldn’t have happened to a nicer person.

Preoccupied with that, he walked up the front path of 105 Hill Top Road and reached for the door.

It wasn’t until he was actually inside the building, neat and well-appointed and sturdy and clean—apart from all the cobwebs—that it occurred to Martin that the door shouldn’t have been open. Nobody lived there—all their research had been very clear on that—and while it didn’t seem to be for sale, there was certainly no reason for it to be unlocked. And yet he’d just…walked in like he owned the place.

A feeling of foreboding crept up his spine. It was not helped by the soft click as the tape recorder he hadn’t realized he’d put back in his pocket clicked on.

Martin pulled it out and spoke into it as quietly as possible. “I’m…in the house. Not the house, of course, the one Raymond Fielding and Agnes Montague lived in burned down years ago, this is a rebuild. But this…this land, this spot, there’s something significant about it. And it invited me in. No…it led me in. I can’t help but recall that in Ronald Sinclair’s statement, he talked about being drawn back in by invisible threads, that he didn’t feel like he was making a choice but he knew it was a thing he was going to do. I’m in much the same boat. I can’t walk away now, but…why not? What’s keeping me here?” He took a deep breath. “I suppose there’s only one way to find out.”

Cautiously, he began moving through the ground floor. Like most fat people, Martin had always been very light on his feet, and like most children who’d grown up in abusive households he had long ago mastered the art of moving quietly without being heard. The building might be ten years old, but it had never been lived in, so the chances of creaky floorboards were slim, and there was every chance he could get through without disturbing…whoever had unlocked the door.

Christ, that was an unsettling thought.

“There’s no obvious basement,” he murmured. “I know that was in the old building, but Anya Villette’s statement suggested there was one in this building, too. I would have thought…” He trailed off, staring at what he’d at first assumed to be a closet. There was…something behind it. Something important.

Slowly, inexorably, both afraid to know what was there and afraid to walk away, Martin reached for the handle of the door. His fingers wrapped around it, and he began, with the same deliberate slowness, to turn it.

A hand clamped over his mouth, and another arm wrapped around his torso, restraining him with surprising strength. He let out a muffled curse and tried to poke his tongue through his lips and lick the hand to get whoever it belonged to to let go, but somehow, his lips wouldn’t part. The hand pressed over them seemed strangely…sticky.

“Sorry about this, Martin,” a voice, low and female and wholly unfamiliar, said directly into his ear. “Can I call you Martin? I’m going to call you Martin. Anyway, I am sorry, but I thought it was high time we had a little…chat. Face to face, as it were.” The person gave a low chuckle. It wasn’t especially sinister, but it nevertheless filled Martin’s entire being with dread. “Step into my parlor.”

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

Corrupted: TMA x Malevolent Crossover

Tim Stoker opened a book he shouldn't, and now he's got a new friend who calls himself John -

And is very much not a John.

Facing cultists, fear gods, and very little information, Tim is trying to handle it all -

But he's been marked by the Desolation, and little by little, finding it harder to say no to rage.

------------

Tim is so relieved the cultists are gone that he leans against the door. “Yellow. Yellow, what was that. Yellow. That was not cool, Yellow.”

Yellow is back to dark chortling.

“Ugh.” Tim grabs his wallet. 

And what do you plan to do now?

“Groceries. I gotta live, even with all this going on.”

Fair enough.

Tim holds his wallet. He can feel it with both hands. See it with one eye. “What do you think Kayne meant by a time limit?”

I… don’t know. Maybe losing your body parts. Maybe he’s set a spell to kill you. I honestly have no idea.

“Right. Okay. I need you thinking, Yellow. Our goal, first, is to get you unhooked from that damn book.”

Silence.

“You don’t like that, huh? Been your safe space for a long time. Well… Kayne has it now. It’s not safe for you anymore.”

Nowhere is.

“Maybe we can make a safe space. That’s just one of the things on the docket, anyway.”

Yellow sighs. And what else do you believe is on our docket?

“First, the book, so if something goes wrong, you don’t go zinging right to him - because I’m pretty sure you’d rather die quick than go hang out with Satan. Am I right?”

It sounds… difficult for Yellow to answer. You are right.

“Two: we need to figure out how to protect you from the god-eating thingummies.”

There is no way to protect me from the… thingummies.

“Bet you’ve never said that word in thousands of years, eh?”

Tim…

Tim puts in his earbuds and locks his door. “Third, we need to figure out this mark thing.”

Tim.

“Are you gonna try to tell me this docket isn’t applicable?”

Silence.

Tim takes the stairs. It’s been a few days since he had the chance to work out, and the last thing he needs to do now is lose any fitness.

He’s silent on the way to the store. Silent as he shops, choosing things that will hopefully not go bad too quickly. Silent as he carries it all back, eschewing public transport, because he needs to stay in shape.

He does a few bicep curls with the groceries on his way back up the stairs.

What are you planning to make?

“Curry.”

I’ve had curry. It’s lovely.

Right. During the times Yellow had stolen someone’s body. “Sorry I can’t share it with you. So, hey - can I use my mark to keep you safe?”

Excuse me?

“It’s rage and destruction, right? I’m assuming this doesn’t mean just… walking around, punching things. Does power come with it?”

Tim. I don’t know what this idea is you’ve concocted, but drop it.

“So it does, then.”

Tim.

And that’s less patient. That’s less amused. Tim must be toeing some line, but he doesn’t know enough to identify it yet. “Hear me out, okay?” He cracks open a package of tofu.

Go on.

That was condescending.

Tim doesn’t roll his eyes, but it’s close. “The Desolation is one of those god-eaters, right?”

Yes.

“So no one, logically, would be looking for you anywhere near something that felt like it.”

Or, conversely, by channeling its power, you could draw it to me.

“Well, do we know which?”

Tim… this is not a game.

“Says the guy who just threw cultists at me for a laugh.” Tim starts the tofu cooking.

We won’t get second chances. If you draw something to us, it’s over.

“You’re already drawing them, right? And the mark will inevitably turn me into a ball of rage anyway, right? So. How do we flip the narrative?”

Your hope is a fragile thing, says Yellow suddenly. Worrisome. It’s based on so little; it can’t possibly withstand a storm.

Tim sighs and stops slicing carrots. “Then I’d like to know what you want me to do.”

Study magic. Lay low.

“That won’t work, Yellow.” He resumes chopping.

The barest wave of irritation rises. It has worked so far.

“And the cat’s out of the bag now. Kayne has the book. Bouchard knows we’re here. Dagon just died really messily in a place that supposedly has no gods, and you can’t tell me nobody noticed. One of those fucking god-eaters has already found us and marked me. We can’t do it the way you’ve been doing it, Yellow.”

Cthulhu sighs. Am I going to have to break your mind, after all?

“Stop that,“ says Tim, lighter than he feels. "You’re not gonna.” It all goes in the wok with a sizzle and lovely smell.

Aren’t I.

Flat delivery. Unreadable.

Tim mostly believes Yellow won’t.

Tim has to believe Yellow won’t.

“No. You’d be bored to death, dealing with those three numb-nuts instead of my winning personality.”

So young. Yellow seems to say that to himself.

Tim sighs and settles in to eat his first real meal in days.

For a while, that’s all that matters.

“Fuck, that’s good,” he says, mouth-breathing because it’s too hot.

I’m sure.

“You thinking like I asked you to?”

Silence.

“Come on, Yellow, don’t give up yet. They don’t even have us yet. We’re still free. We could fly to Borneo, if we had to.”

They do have you. You are marked.

A tiny bit of irritation (except it’s too heated to be irritation) flares in Tim. He covers it by stabbing nothing with his fork, emphatic. “Still don’t really know what that means.”

This universe is… cancerous.

Tim stops chewing. “What, for real?”

Yes. It is inhabited by beings which should not exist - mutations, born of human and animal fear, somehow… given life. 

“You don’t know? Does anybody know?”

No. By the time we noticed this mess, it had been going on for some time. And we noticed, Tim, because the gods from this timeline were disappearing.

“Just not making phone calls, or what?”

Their domains were empty. Abandoned. Their followers suddenly bereft. Those things they controlled - if they did - went wildly out of control, or ceased to be entirely. Tim, there are so many things no longer existing in this timeline - from dragons to proper geological magics - that will never exist here again because they were tied to deific existence. 

“So I’m in the extinction timeline for more than just… spotted owls.”

It took a while to see what was happening because the Fears are not gods; even those with personalities - such as the Web - don’t truly have personality. They ape it. So… seeking for living things responsible for what happened did not work.

“And gods kept disappearing.” Tim gets seconds. The curry is good.

Yes. In the end, those gods who remained fled - merging with alternates of themselves in other universe, or taking up spaces left empty by their never-existence. 

“So Kayne was right, and you really are bugfuck crazy to be hiding out here.” Tim cracks open a beer.

It was… an unexpected choice. And it paid off.

“Until me.” 

Tim isn’t used to guilt. He tries to be a decent person; he volunteers in the community, he donates to charity. He knows he makes mistakes, which everyone does. He doesn’t live his life in shame or sorrow.

Guilt, he is discovering, is a really bad feeling.

He swallows into the silence. “I’m sorry.”

I admit, I briefly wondered if I’d misjudged you, seen you as better than you are, says Yellow. But now that I see the mark you bear, it makes sense. 

“Still. I’m the one who did it.” Tim has to change the subject. “Hey - is anything else hiding in that book?”

Who knows? I still am at a loss to explain Dagon .

“At least you two weren’t close?”

He snorts. No. 

“So if you’re at a loss there… then you admit you don’t know everything.”

Tim…

“I’m just saying. There really may be some avenue of help that you don’t know about because you never looked.”

Yellow sighs.

“And,” continues Tim, “if I really am Merlin, or whatever, I could help you find it.”

You would be at risk.

“I”m already at risk. Doomed, in fact, according to the narrative, apparently.”

More immediate. Not the same.

And Tim is surprised at how angry he is at the warmth in Yellow’s voice.

The affection, the fondness - they weren’t real at all, were they?

Not likely. 

Yellow had been briefly honest when upset: if he had a chance, he would take Tim’s body. Maybe he’d feel a little sad that Tim had to be put down like an unwanted mutt, but that was about it.

It shouldn’t matter. It should not.

It does.

“Let’s just get real here, shall we?” says Tim in a low voice he hardly recognizes. “You’re not worried for me. You’re worried for you. You’re worried I’m going to do something that triggers whatever clause it is that sends you to Kayne, or do something that draws those god-eating freaks to you which will eat you slowly. Stop pretending it’s my welfare that concerns you, and maybe we can actually make some fucking progress.”

He stops.

He stops breathing. 

Stops anything.

That was…

Horrible.

Except it wasn’t horrible.

But it wasn’t him. Tim swallows. His eyes are filling.

Yellow is quiet.

“Marked, huh?” Tim whispers, wiping tears.

Yes.

“Fuck,” says Tim, softly. "I didn’t even know it was happening.”

That’s the point. It’s in you. Part of you - and wouldn’t have ever been able to mark you if you didn’t have proclivities toward that rage, says Yellow, and it is gentle, and it feels real.

“But I’m not - ” He’s getting angry over that, and keeps his tone even. “I’m not an angry person. I’ve never been.”

You never had need to be. A man may have genius talent for sculpting clay, but unless he attempts to do so, will live and die without ever knowing the skill is there.

“Real pretty way of saying I’m gonna turn into a rage monster.” It comes out more bitter than expected.

There may be… something we can do. Unfortunately, I believe it requires returning to Bouchard.

“Ugh. Well. Needs must.” Tim blows his nose, then goes to wash his bowl and clean the wok.

He also notes that Yellow did not deny anything he said in his little rant.

It hurts.

Stupid, Tim tells himself, to get hurt over the fact that Cthulhu doesn’t really like him. What the hell, Stoker?

“Did you think maybe Bouchard is the reason the Desolation found us?” Tim says.

If so, then we will have some words to exchange, won’t we?

“What, am I gonna rough him up?”

Yellow laughs.

Fair. 

Yellow, however, never answers as to what Tim will do.

A tiny, disturbing part of him wants to be angry at that.

But Tim does not. Tim doesn’t.

He won’t let this thing win. This… weird, infectious rage.

There has to be a way.

Tim texts Happy and asks if there is any kind of an ETA for magical translations, then stares at what he just sent. 

“What even is my life?” Tim mumbles.

Precious. We will see it preserved.

"Sure.”

[thehellishtrinity]

I NEED TO KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THE TMA AU PLS AND THANK YOU

I got super into TMA just this year and this is a wild worlds collide moment

I’M SO GLAD YOU ASKED ANON! I got into TMA earlier this year too and was obsessed with it for a solid chunk of time. It’s so good FRFR

TMA AU lore under the cut!!!

Basically!! This is an AU where it’s like TMA right, The Magnus Institue is a thing that still exists with Jon and everything, but there is a rival institution called the Rex Institute in like. Wales. I think. I think it was in Wales but I also can’t quite remember.

This institute is run by a different set of people and Remy is the head archivist there! Unlike good ole Jon, Remy does not deny the existence of the supernatural and he knows all there is to know about the Entities. It’s just, well, you know. He’s Remy. He tends to think the people who come in to give statements are just wusses that make things seem way worse than they were and exaggerate the story. Basically he treats all statements and statement givers with the attitude of “🙄 it couldn’t have been that bad, jesus.”

The rest of the trinity are different people who’ve been touched by different Entities! They’ve all come in to give a statement to Remy before.

Maximus is Stranger aligned but not by his own volition. When he was in college he met a man named Vincent and they really hit it off! One night, after things got ✨romantic✨ and all, Vincent asks Max if he wanted to be with him and of course Max said yes! But the next day when he woke up, Vincent was gone. And soon Max discovered, well, Vincent is just always with him now ☺️

How Maximus and Vincent work is basically! If no one is looking directly at Max, he becomes Vincent. And Vincent likes to cause problems! He likes to knock things over, break things, and most of all kill people :). If you turn your back to him for too long he can and will kill you! If you turn your back to Max and stealthy watch his reflection then you’ll get to see Vincent move about. If you’re unlucky, Vincent will notice and greet you :).

When Vincent is out and about, Max’s entire existence is just paused. He doesn’t really experience what Vincent does because Vincent is a separate entity that does his own thing. When someone looks at Max and Max becomes himself again, it’s like no time passed at all for him he doesn’t even know that anything happened between the two glances. He can remember what Vincent did only as hazy dreams— nothing as concrete as an actual memory. Max only started to figure out something was wrong because he would literally be doing something and then all of the sudden he’d be surrounded by blood and dead bodies. Max is also chronically sleep derived because he only exists when people look at him and yknow, people aren’t really looking at him while he’s home alone so he never gets substantial sleep.

Other interesting people include: The Hierophant! She is called The Sheep here and she is an avatar of the Dark. She’s not quite human anymore… looks like a weird sheep human hybrid and all. She traps people in dreams and forces them through different death loops until they actually die!

Script and Page don’t quite have defined role yet but Script is aligned with the Spiral and Page is aligned with the Lonely!

[chaoticpinetree]

So I had a flight today, it was an hour late which was annoying because you know, well, over an hour more at the airport, but I listened to. So many TMA episodes before, during and after the flight. Except the start because I slept through that, like half an hour, then woke up in the air. And I had a brief moment of looking out of the window and gasping like wow... I can see the constellations... And then they turned the lights back on in the plane :C

Anyway so TMA!

So let me start by saying that the fact that Jon tried cutting his own finger off is absolutely deranged, so is the fact that he goes oh well Boneturner would be useful I guess and Melanie goes hah funny thing about that— And then it turns out that Helen is just hanging out around still. I still think that Jon is taking the whole 'being Helen except not' thing too personally.

"If I'm an it, Archivist, what does that make you?" exactly

So! Jon got Daisy out! And if Elias is to be believed (obviously he's a lying bastard who can't be trusted but you know, I guess sometimes he tells the truth) he's the first person ever to do so, which is... Quite impressive. What's slightly terrifying though is that The Buried is just absolutely filled with these tormented people who can just... Never die. Just... Jesus. Literally hell?

But Jon and Daisy are out! And Martin was the one who left the tapes! I wonder if they actually helped. They must've done something. But Jon's rib couldn't've been meaningless either, I think.

Well anyway they're out so that's good, Daisy is now traumatised which is slightly less good, but at least she doesn't want to kill Jon anymore and so Jon has someone around who doesn't want him dead, so that's something!

And Peter Lukas is being shady (or, hehe, foggy) and manipulating Martin while Martin knows... I wonder how that'll go. I mean probably pretty badly, the comics from the Lonely angst were some of the ones that convinced me to listen to TMA lmao

ALSO the fact that Daisy figured well, Basira is trapped here anyway, so she broke into Peter's office, stole an employment contract and signed one for herself queen

But yeah. Anyway and also this exchange?

Daisy: You need to stop moping. Jon: I what? Daisy: You need to stop swanning around, being all sad. Jon: I, I’m not swanning around Daisy: "Boo hoo I am so alone and a monster” Jon: I am alone. Martin is— Daisy: Busy doing paperwork. Not like he’s dead. Besides, he’s not the only other person here, you know. There’s me, Melanie, Basira— Jon: Traumatised, traumatised, and paranoid because of me.

10/10 brilliant lmao. There's so much here. The fact that Daisy can pinpoint Jon's issues and make fun of them in such a perfect and accurate way. The fact that Jon only focused on the fact that Martin is gone (well also Tim and Sasha) and Daisy's like dude we're still here. Well obviously a lot can be unpacked, one would argue that two traumatised people who also both tried to kill Jon in the past + one paranoid person who does not trust Jon at all, maaaaybe aren't the best company. But hey.

Anyway also this exchange between Elias and Martin: Martin: You love manipulating people. Elias: That makes two of us. Like bitch what? Martin? I mean sure he's got an inner bastard but come on, Elias. Come on. We all know you're a bigger one.

And I also listened to 141 which is pretty neat because Jon forces a statement out of someone and I'm just like *sees a monstrous trait out in the daylight* *screams from excitement* and I think the short argument between Jon and Basira after that was... Interesting.

Basira comes off as a hypocrite this season, because like, she wants Jon to be more cold and ruthless like Gertrude was, but whenever he displays any trait that could count as such, whenever he shows his inhuman side more, she's unhappy about that. Meanwhile Jon is indeed, as Daisy said, moping, and the thing is that he can't be like Gertrude. Because he does not see people as tools to be used and discarded, sacrificed to stop any apocalypse. He specifically said multiple times that he does not want to lose anyone else. That he went to the Buried himself because he didn't want to risk anybody else's life and he figured if he fails, worst case scenario is the world simply loses another monster. Which, like, damn, dark much, but well it kind of shows that Jon, if he was ever to become like Gertrude, would need a lot of character development—or, well, character corruption I guess—and I don't think that's going to happen because he's just so far from that kind of person that it wouldn't be feasible, especially since we've only got 1,5 season left now.

Well anyway so I don't get Basira because she's like 'yea ruthlessness to save the world' but when Jon forces a statement out of a random guy she's like 'oh :/ but he's gonna have nightmares until the end of his life now :/' like well yes but he's unharmed and alive?

EXCEPT I also agree with Basira on the detail that she thought Jon should care about this. Because he should. Except part of me is also not surprised that after not being trusted, after Basira wanting to use him, after she told him to be more like Gertrude and to be stronger because well she needs him to be, why should he be blamed for finally listening? But well.

Well it's all a very messy situation honestly and I understand why it's hard for everyone I'm just. Rambling a lot of my observations.

ALSO THIS

Basira: Have you got a pen? Jon: Uhh – Yeah, i-in the drawer. Basira: *opens the drawer* Ah, John. What’s this? Jon: Hm? Oh. That’s… I, th, uh – that’s my rib. Basira: *short silence* Right. Jon: Yep. Basira: And… the jar of ashes. Jon: Not – not, m,mine – I mean, it belongs to me, I, I, I guess, but it’s not – stationery is in the, uh, other drawer. PLEASE lmao 10/10 too

Anyway the description of the next episode left me SO excited so I'm gonna go listen to that now :3

[pluralismajestatis]

I would honestly love nothing more than to figure out what started this spiral. What could possibly have triggered us into this state. Like this is so bad. This is by far the worst it has been in years.

Is it just the overwhelm of everything going from shit to shitter and everything feeling so goddamn hopeless since a decade ago now? Slowly, and then very fast, watching modern world turn into such an inhospitable place, where there just isn't any hope at the horizon?

Is it actually because people are so fucking mean and there's nowhere to go from it? It starts from the above - society itself feels hostile to the point of it seeming like it's just a matter of time until they start hunting you down. But it continues down to the most basic level. Like I wrote in the post I'm reblogging from, I can't - I'm not allowed to - even express joy about the most mundane things anymore without someone coming in like fuck you and the horse you rode in go fucking die you piece of shit.

Me, talking about how much I love Subira, a fucking fictional character in the cosy game Palia, who is a mature woman struggling with her sense of self after being sold into the local magical Inquisition as a child and being forbidden her identity and any and all pursuits of the self in favour of serving the Order? ACSHULLY Subira ACAB fuck you you cop-loving bootlicker. Okay! Cool! You have no imagination and are incapable of separating your politics from a fantasy world where some "for the greater good" nations-suppressing entity modeling heavily from religious organisations is just "the cops", and now this is my fault and I'm actually the bad guy because I love a character who has identity issues and feels like her only purpose is to serve? Literally actually fucking go reflect on your stupid brain somewhere. Oh my fucking god are you literally 12 years old grow the fuck up.

Then like, the other day? This American guy on a TMA subreddit asks for places to visit when they're coming down to London for a trip. One of my sole remaining joys this year, including the main way I've coped with the loss of my dog who's been with me as long as I can literally remember (I got him at 20 and I remember nothing past my adulthood essentially, thank you severe dissociative disorder) by binging the stream services of the Royal Opera House and reading about Joseph Grimaldi, because I just happened to be on these subjects when everything went so far down to hell that I didn't have anythin else left to focus on that would have kept me sane.

So I'm like, yeah you could go see a ballet or an opera at ROH, they're kind of cool, it's made me happy to see them supporting the LGBT community the past few too given the overall climate -

some other dude, immediately: ACTUALLY CORPORATIONS AREN'T YOUR FRIENDS YOU SHOULD LITERALLY GO SEE A PLAY IN ANY OTHER PLACE BECAUSE FUCK CAPITALISM NOBODY ACTUALLY SUPPORTS YOU AND IF YOU PAY TO GO SEE SOMETHING THAT ISN'T A TRAVELLING TROUPEE OF GAY AMATEURS LIVING IN SEWERS IN HENFORD-BY-BAGLEY YOU'RE LITERALLY KILLING POOR ARTISTS

and I'm like okay, but theatre is known to attract LGBT people and also this is about places that are referred to in TMA -

and got downvoted to hell until I just fucking deleted the entire comments.

Like what do you fucking want me to do. Do you really want me to just not derive ANY joy from ANYTHING because NOTHING is uwuweuwuwu morally pure enough for you? What the fuck do you want from me? I'm covered from head to toe in cuts and I haven't been cutting in years. I've never cut this much in my whole life and I'm a lifelong cutter. I've gone through all of my limbs with blunt objects to make as many swollen bruises as possible. Are you happy now? Am I punished enough for daring to like the wrong things? Do you need to me to slit my throat as well? Will that satisfy you? Is that going to be enough, or should I go get raped and tortured first? Does that make you happy? How about I go ask my dad if he'll beat me some more? Would it make you feel better if I sought out and said yes please do rape me to the man who assaulted me in the city when I was 18? Do you need me to take more than double my allowed dose of sedatives? Would you like me to overdose on my beta blockers, since coming back from that even with hospitalisation is unlikely? Is that too kind of a death for someone who dares to suck cop dick and support rainbow capitalism? What is it you want from me? Should I cut up the soles of my feet next so I can't walk, or is it enough it's hard for me to move my legs right now with the amount of damage I've done to my thighs?

What will be a sufficient price for someone as worthless as myself enjoying anything whatsoever? How do you want me to kill myself? I'll be here waiting for your answer, I only wish to make you happy after all :)

"this thing that makes you happy is problematic actually"

cool I don't care as I have vastly bigger problems and I'm glad that you don't but stfu

[lemememeringue]

just woke from a quite frankly horrifying stress dream

[gammija]

How the Web helped Magnus mark his Archive

Have you ever seen people talk about how the Web was involved with getting Jon marked, but didn’t feel like going through every episode to find every little reference to spindly spidery legs? Well, worry no more! Because in this list I’m going to do just that. With quotes, ‘cause I never half-ass theories on tma

In chronological(ish) order, ranging from: - Undeniably Spider-involved - Suspiciously Web-adjacent - (and Web!Tapes propaganda) Let’s go!

- 22, 123: Prentiss being in Carlos Vittery’s basement

Martin may be the one who lead Prentiss to the Institute, but only because Prentiss was hanging out in Vittery’s cobwebbed basement, for an unknown reason: 

022 Colony Martin: “I turned on my torch and shone it around, but was disappointed to see that all those spider webs that I remembered seemed old and unremarkable. If there were spiders there, none were easily seen, and… for a second I thought that the only interesting part of my return trip was that it would land me in prison if I wasn’t careful. Then, I heard movement. From the other side of the basement.”

The same Vittery who had already told Annabelle about his experiences: 

123 Web Development Jon: “I-It’s apparently a list of people whose names appeared in the various pieces of text Mr. Cox was pasting into the code. It’s unclear if they were meant to be users or victims, but I cannot help but note that there seem to be the names of several statement givers who found their way to the Institute, including noted arachnophobe Carlos Vittery.”

Which might mean nothing if it weren’t for:

- 38, 40: A spider lets Prentiss be found

Not only does a spider cause Jon to knock down the wall to where Prentiss was hiding in the tunnels...

038 Lost and Found Sasha: “A spider?” Jon: “Yeah. I tried to kill it…. the shelf collapsed.”

...But according to Tim’s speculation:

040 Human Remains Tim: “I think they were almost all in the Archives. I have a theory, actually. I think they weren’t ready to attack when you found the tunnels.”

Which, if true, means that if the wall hadn’t been broken, Prentiss might’ve attacked with bigger force and killed Jon outright, instead of neatly marking him.

- 35, all of s2: A Web table lets a Stranger into the Institute

Although it’s never said who or what ordered the table to be delivered, the addition of the Web lighter with it makes it easy to guess. As Jonah says in 160:  the Not!Them mark turned out not to have been necessary because of the Unknowing, but this was certainly a nice back-up to have. 

- 80: Jon steps out for a smoke

Giving Jonah the opportunity to brutal pipe murder Jurgen.

080 The Librarian Jon: “I’m going to have a cigarette. Don’t… Don’t.” [...] [SOUNDS OF BRUTAL PIPE MURDER] [...] Jon: “Sorry, I’ve been quit for five years now, but th -”

While nothing in the actual text of the episode points to Web involvement, addictions like smoking fall under their domain. Add to that the recent gift of that lighter, and Jon saying he didn’t smoke anymore, it’s certainly suspicious.

- (91: Daisy only went to the Institute when she got the tapes

Okay, this one is mostly web!tapes propaganda, but I think it’s compelling web!tapes propaganda. I’d link the post I made about this earlier, but it has simply vanished from this universe, as far as tumblr is concerned... In any case: 

091 The Coming Storm Daisy: “You ask me to take a tape over to this murdering freak, and I’m all set to tear you a new one for it. But then I get the cassette in my hand, and suddenly all I want to do is deliver his tapes, and spill my guts.”

If it’s from Jon, not only would this be the furthest reaching compulsion by far, in only in season 2 no less, but it would also be the only one that is transmitted via the tapes/another person outside of the Institute(Basira) instead of just Jon speaking directly to the person. While, if it’s the Web’s doing, making someone want to do something they don’t realize is weird at the time, is totally in their wheelhouse! And it’d make them responsible for convincing Daisy that Jon’s a monster, ergo, his Hunt mark.)

- 121: Oliver was sent by the Web

121 Far Away Oliver Banks: “Honestly, I’m still not exactly sure why I’m here. But you know better than anyone how the spiders can get into your head. Easier to just do what she asks.” 

Aka, the man who told Jon what he needed to hear to wake up, nice and alive and marked by both the Stranger and the End, when he hadn’t been able to for 6 months.

- (130: The Web leads Jon to Jared)

130 Meat Jon: “I found this tape tucked in a corner of my desk drawer, covered in cobwebs. I suppose subtlety has gone out the window a bit, and the question is now simply… how much I trust the Spider to have my best interests at heart.”

Not only did this one tape lead Jon to get his Flesh mark, which Jonah had conked up by getting Jared to the Institute too soon, but arguably it also made Jon confident enough to go into the Buried. Which the rib didn’t even help with!  What did help though, was...

- (134: Tape recorders and Martin got Jon out of the Buried)

Even if you don’t believe that the tapes are from the Web, there’s still this conversation: 

134 Time of Revelation Peter: “What does – puzzle me though, and I mean that genuinely, is – why you were piling tape recorders onto the coffin while Jon was in there.” - Martin: “I don’t know. And I just – felt like it might help. He’s always recording, and I thought it – it might help him… find his way out.” Peter: “Interesting. Were you compelled?” - Martin: “I don’t know. Maybe? I-I, I definitely wanted to do it. [But] I’m not sure where the idea came from. Peter: “You should watch out for that. Could be something dangerous.”

Implanting ideas in someone’s mind, specifically making them want to do something, without them knowing that the idea is coming from outside, is something the Web isn’t a stranger to (056, 059). It might also be the Eye, but wouldn’t Martin know what an Eye compulsion would feel like, by now?  On a meta level, it’s a curious thing to point out. Would anyone have protested if Martin got the idea of the tapes on his own?

And there you have it! 8 instances of arachnid involvement.  There are more small mentions of Web-like interference with Jon here and there in other episodes, and of course his first Fear mark in 081, but these are the ones that seem to very clearly point towards the Mother of Puppets, or some of her avatars, having helped Jonah in bringing about the end of the world. There’s still the question of why, what their ‘plan’ is now, but I’m sure we’ll find out about that soon enough - Dare I say, March 25th or earlier, even

[haberdashing]

Supplemental

TMA episode 200 spoilers ahead, beware!

Jon and Martin talk it out, after everything.

on AO3

Jon doesn’t know--or Know--where he is, when he wakes up. It’s an unusual sensation for him. The last time he hadn’t Known everything about his current location was... was probably back in Upton House, wasn’t it?

Fitting, that, in a way.

Jon hadn’t even known--or Known--that he would wake up after that, though, so that comes as something of a pleasant surprise, and the details don’t matter quite so much beyond that.

He’s not even in pain. It almost feels wrong not to be, after all that. Like he’d earned the pain with what he’d done.

Even without Knowing, however, Jon can sense a few things about his surroundings. Something small and thin kept brushing against his face and tickling his sides--blades of grass, perhaps? He was warm, and even with his eyes closed tight he could see the light seeping through his eyelids, the light bright and strong and steady. The ground was soft, cool, forgiving.

Jon opened his eyes. It was a beautiful day, wherever it was he had ended up. He was surrounded by a field of grass, and even after sitting up (gingerly, despite the lack of pain, partly because Jon was suddenly aware of how fragile his body was and partly because he still half-expected the pain to come rushing back at any moment) there was no end to the grassy field in sight save for the horizon. The sun was shining, with only a few small clouds threatening to block it. The weather was warm but not hot, neither especially dry nor especially humid, with a soft but clear breeze passing through.

But none of that mattered, really.

What actually mattered was that not far off, a single figure broke up the monotonous scenery, a figure that was achingly familiar.

“Martin?”

“Jon!”

A breath, a heartbeat, and the two of them were side-by-side, face-to-face, but before anything else, Jon knew (lower-case) what he had to say.

“I’m sorry.”

Jon hadn’t expected Martin to say the words almost in time with him.

Both of them began babbling, as if on cue.

“I just, I wanted to make sure you-”

“I know, I know, it’s just, after-”

“It’s okay, I understand-”

“No, no, it’s my-”

Jon took a deep breath and let it out, a hint of laughter sneaking into his sigh, which made Martin stop talking and gaze his way with a peculiar look on his face.

“Look, if we’re going to do this properly... perhaps we should take turns. Each of us say our piece and let the other do the same, without interruption.”

“Sure.” Martin nodded, the action strangely solemn. “I’ll go first, then?”

“No, no, I should start-”

“I’d rather get it done with, it’s fine-”

Jon let out another exhale, more a laugh than a sigh this time. “I doomed the world. I was going to- to extinguish it. I think I need to make the first apology here.”

Martin put his hands on his hips and shot Jon a pout that made his heart ache. “Well, I doomed lots of worlds, didn’t I? Thousands of them, didn’t Annabelle say? Including, I’d imagine, the one we’re in right now.”

“I mean, those worlds aren’t exactly doomed, not like-”

The look on Martin’s face was enough to make Jon fall silent. “Jon. Don’t even start with that. Not now. Not after all this.”

“...alright.”

Jon wrapped his fingers around a few stray blades of grass, looked over at them rather than up at Martin.

“Jon.” Martin was looking straight at Jon as he spoke, the eye contact almost enough to make him uncomfortable. Almost. “I’m so sorry. I should have listened to you, stopped the others from talking over you, from making a plan you couldn’t live with. I was selfish, I just- I couldn’t bear to stand back and watch the world die, to stand back and watch you die.”

Martin’s eyes were watering, and Jon didn’t hesitate before placing one hand on Martin’s cheek, ready to catch any tears that were about to fall.

“Hey, I thought we said no interruptions?”

Jon couldn’t help the smile sneaking onto his face, despite everything. “Is this an interruption?”

“...fair point.” Martin made a noise while letting out his breath, one somewhere in between a huff and a laugh. “I just... I- I shouldn’t have interfered. I’ve caused so much hurt in so many worlds now, and... and you were right, we should have let it end with our own. Instead, thanks to me, we got the- the worst of both worlds, so to speak.”

A moment passed in which the only sound to be heard was the wind flowing through the grass.

“Are you done, then?”

“I...” Martin looked away. “I guess so. It- it feels like there should be more, but... yeah, you can go ahead.”

“Alright then. My turn.”

Jon gathered his thoughts for a moment, wiped a stray tear off Martin’s face before settling his gaze somewhere around Martin’s forehead. Not quite enough eye contact to be unsettling, to be reminiscent of the Eye, but not looking away, either, not avoiding Martin’s reaction.

“I’m so sorry. I should have listened to you, to the others. I had no right to make my own decision, not when we had a plan that we’d made together, just because I got outvoted. I thought it was for the best, but... well, obviously I was wrong, and it hurt you most of all, I’m sure. If it hadn’t been for me, we could be celebrating with our friends, instead of being... wherever this is. We could be building a life together, after the end.”

“We can still build a life together, Jon.” Martin said.

“Now who’s making the interruptions?” Jon tried to keep his voice light, make it clear that he was merely joking, but based on how Martin’s face fell as he spoke, he hadn’t quite hit the mark there.

Jon still wasn’t looking Martin quite in the eye, but moving his thumb brushed away more tears that had started to fall.

“You...” Jon’s voice was soft, now, barely above a whisper. “You would still...? You aren’t...?”

“Look, we’ve got a lot more to talk about, but... I still love you, Jon. I’ll always love you. What happened in the Panopticon doesn’t change that. Nothing will.”

“...I still love you, too.”

The two kiss, just for a moment, brief and simple and pure as anything.

“So you don’t know where we are, then?” Martin’s tone was light, but Jon wasn’t fooled by it, not when he could still taste Martin’s saltwater tears on his lips.

“Not a clue. The Eye, it’s... gone.” Jon paused for a moment, half-expecting the Eye to come roaring back upon being mentioned, but no. “I... I think there are fears here, but it’s not the same, they’re not the same.”

“That’s got to be an odd feeling, after all that.”

Jon snorted out a laugh, but Martin wasn’t the only one with tears falling anymore. “You’re telling me.”

Martin took Jon’s hand in his, brushed his thumb against Jon’s palm. “Well, then. Figuring that out can be the first order of business.”

“Right. And, and about the whole worlds being doomed thing-”

Martin’s eyes turned cold and distant, just for a split second, just for long enough to make Jon’s heart sink. “You don’t get to switch sides on that now, Jon.”

“No, that’s not... what I mean is, we’re in one of those worlds now. Whatever happens, let’s make sure this one doesn’t end up like the last one. alright?”

“As long as we’re working together on it.”

Martin squeezed Jon’s hand, and Jon squeezed his right back.

“Of course. Working with you, side by side, to stop the fears... I couldn’t imagine a better way to spend the rest of my life.”