#yes that is the stab wound from mag 200

[st7arlight]

hai :3 jarchivist religious symbolism moment

(click to see details)

[selkiesongss]

listen. mag 200 was awful and hurts me in such tremendous ways, but i cant stop thinking about what it must have been like to be martin in mag 160, seconds away from the cabin door, when suddenly the sun grows until it covers the sky, and then it blinks.

and suddenly martin is staring directly into the blood red gaze of The Eye. and so he rushes into the cabin, praying to the god he knows doesnt exist that jon is okay, that it was elias's hubris at work or some poor soul's tough luck, but he knows that he wont like what he finds anyway. he walks in. and jon is curled up beneath the window sill. and martin is freaking the fuck out but he cant, he has to stay strong, because now, it clicks in his brain.

it was always coming to this.

martin touches jon's shoulder, and he jerks up like he's been stabbed - eyes crazed, hair knotted and wild - but then his vision clears, and he can See martin. and the first thing he says is, i'm so sorry. and then he dissolves into sobs; not loud, not violent, but so painfully quiet it's almost like he's trying to shrink in on himself until he implodes.

and he is bleeding from wounds that martin knows he had to have made himself. and there is so much red everywhere - on the floor, the walls, the ceiling, in jon's eyes for fuck's sake - and yes, some of it is pooling around jon's fingertips, but the rest of it is that ungodly scarlet light that martin knows is alive and only wants to watch him and his loved ones suffer. and it is taking everything he has in him, every fucking thing that has ever been stolen from him by this.. this thing, this monster, not to have a breakdown of his own.

but he has to be strong for jon. so he picks jon up, gently, more tenderly than he could ever express through his shoddy poems, and walks to the bedroom, the groceries long forgotten, spilled across the welcome mat. he shuts the blinds, pulls jon into bed, and waits for the moment that he can feel his love's breathing slow to an even rhythm.

and then, finally, martin blackwood lets himself mourn a world he knows he will never see again.

[ieattaperecorders]

May as well do just one more of these "general reactions" to the Magnus Archives (which was and is a podcast:)

Me, the second the episode starts and I realize we're hearing Jonah: Oh, Jon. Jon. You're going to do it, aren't you.

That whole first scene I was half like "Jon, oh Jon, I wish you weren't doing this : (" and half like "YES FUCKING YES KILL HIM KILL HIM MAKE HIM KNOW HE'S GOING TO DIE, STAB HIM SO FUCKING GOOD!!!"

FOR SASHA, FOR TIM, FOR GERTRUDE AND ALL THE OTHERS! aaaaaaaa fuck!! yes!! fucking good!!!

hhhhh listen. Listen. I knew after MAG 199 this was how it was going to go. It wouldn't have felt right character arc wise for Jon to go along with the plan. It was the right choice narratively for him to do this exact thing, and even if it was sad in a way it was deeply satisfying.

Jon letting Rosie go was. Just. Nice. Sad. Nice. Hnmmhh.

The statement didn't really tell me much I wasn't already pretty clear on worldbuilding-wise and wasn't the most interesting, but there was something nice about it anyway. It was like, after the intense, emotional, no-turning-back moment, with the intense future still ahead, there's a moment to breathe where we sit down and Jon just tells us one last story. Kind of liked that.

hmmm have I thought about this exact scenario, where Jon is the Pupil and Martin sees him and they talk? where they talk about what happens now and the limited options and it's painful and intense?? absolutely. I didn't think I wanted to actually hear it play out but dammit if I didn't like it, it hurt SO good.

Jon being like "It can't be undone. But listen. We can still hang out until the End consumes everything. That's something, right?" hhhhh god.

JON STILL NOT BEING ABLE TO THINK ABOUT HIS LIGHTER BEING THE THING THAT FUCKS HIM!!! GOD THAT WAS GOOD. FUCK!! THE WEB GOT US ALL AGAIN!!

I. Love. LOVE that Jon was like "I'm sorry but I'm not doing the plan, I refuse, I can't, I'm mercy killing the world and destroying the fears and nothing, NOTHING will convince me to let them escape." AND THEN he turned around on that so that there would be a hope of saving Martin, and so that he wouldn't have to outlive him even if he did die. FUCK!! YES!!!

Martin in 199: It hurts that you could make a choice that involves losing me. Jon in 200: YOU THINK I COULD? YOU THINK I COULD? YOU FOOL, YOU HAVE NO IDEA, I LOVE YOU SO MUCH.

THEY BROKE EACH OTHERS' PROMISES. Martin refused to run from the exploding Panopticon and live. And Jon doomed the world(s) to save him. They broke each others' promises but kept the promise to stay together. FUCK!!!

Either they died together or wound up in another world together which is absolutely the happiest ending they could have had. Don't think for a second I'm not going to imagine them as dimensional travelers that herald the coming of the Fears and try to warn/help people (probably without much success because giant inescapable forces but they can try and have hope and be together.) You just try and STOP me from headcanoning that you cannot!!!

I really liked the bit at the end, too. I'm glad the others get to live. I'm glad Georgie gets her cat back. I'm glad they get to help try and rebuild everything together.

I'm also really glad the world didn't just revert, there's still consequences -- everyone's still traumatized, probably a lot of people are dead, who knows what the world looks like but probably a lot of change there if they're scavenging batteries in the ruins of the Institute. They can rebuild and be free, but there's still consequences.

And the "I'm sorry. And good luck." Just in case you were so invested in the characters you forgot the bad guys won, the evil system continues, Jon never escaped the fate the Web had for him and neither did anyone else. It's grim and dark and yet I am smiling so hard.

also sfklgsh;dkl; Simon Fairchild coming in at the 11th hour to get torn apart by an angry mob who saw THAT coming. He died the way he lived: making me laugh.