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aster-aspera · 3 years

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It’s just my skin

@badthingshappenbingo

Prompt: loss of hearing

Pairings: (platonic) jonmartim

Warnings: claustrophobia, hospitals, hearing loss

Masterlist

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The aftermath isn’t as quiet as Tim thought it would be.

Maybe it’s the fact that he isn’t dead even though he should be, maybe it’s the dreadful ringing in his ear, maybe it’s the way his chest is heaving in gasping breaths he can’t hear.

There’s a thousand pounds of stone pressing down on his back and somewhere far above him he can feel the ground rumble and shift. He can’t even find it in himself to worry about the whole place coming down. He wasn't planning on making it out alive either way.

He thinks he floats in and out of consciousness for a bit. Time seems to wind and stretch and loop back, only the rubble on his back and the incessant ringing to keep him company.

Something shifts eventually, a change in the air at first, the darkness becoming just a bit softer, a bit less cloying.

And then there are hands and stretchers and needles and people pulling and prodding him and over it all is still that high pitched ringing, rising higher and higher into an impossible crescendo. He thinks they ask him things, he is sure he sees their lips moving and their expectant gazes. He thinks he tries to say something, but his lips feel awkward and unwieldy.

Everything goes dark after that. A cool blessed darkness where he just floats, no stone, no rubble, no dust, just peace.

He thinks about Danny for a while, and the ritual and the burning collapse of it all and the way Sasha smiled at him every morning when he came into the archives. Then he just sleeps.

He wakes up a bit more coherent the next time. The ringing isn’t gone yet, but at least his brain doesn’t feel like it’s through different planes of dimensions at a hundred kilometres per hour anymore. At least now he can breathe without the dust clogging his lungs.

He looks around the overbright hospital room, the disconnected monitor and the IV dripping a clear fluid into his veins. There’s a bouquet of orange flowers on the bedside table. Probably from Martin, he thinks bitterly. There’s no one else who would go through the trouble.

Martin walks into his room at some point and Tim wonders why he’s here and not hovering around Jon like some lost puppy. Maybe Jon didn’t make it out of the explosion.

Something sharp and painful shoots through Tim’s chest at the thought and he does his best not to examine it too closely.

He looks up at Martin, whose lips are moving as he fusses with the flowers on the little table. Tim stares up at him uncomprehendingly, waiting for sound to come through, waiting for that unbearable ringing to resolve itself into something he can understand.

It doesn’t.

“I can’t hear,” He says, his lips forming the words, his vocal cords vibrating, but no sound comes out, not to him at least. Martin looks up at him with concern, his mouth moving in shapes that should have been familiar, had they been accompanied by the right noises.

“I can’t hear,” Tim says again. And this time, it doesn’t come out half as controlled. He can feel something very close to panic crawling it’s way up his throat and he doesn’t quite manage to swallow it down.

Martin presumably says something else, before giving up and typing something on his phone, shoving it into Tim’s hands before stalking out of the room.

Getting a doctor, stay here

Well of course he’s going to stay here, does Martin really think he’s going to wander around London when he’s just survived an explosion? He isn’t Jon.

He waits impatiently in his bed, rubbing the uncomfortably thin hospital sheets between his fingers and trying to adjust the flat pillows so he can sit up.

Eventually the doctors come in and once again, it’s back to being poked and prodded. Doctors examining his ears and brain and all the million scans they take, with Martin occasionally coming in to hover over him, bringing along coffee from the cafeteria.

In the end, the verdict is predictable. Permanent damage from his proximity to the explosion. Figures he couldn’t just walk out of that unscathed.

And most people would probably consider being permanently deaf better than being dead. Tim wasn’t too sure he agreed with them yet.

They let him go home eventually, with a whole laundry list of instructions on how to care for himself. Tim throws the papers into a corner as soon as he gets home. He’ll be fine, he’s survived Jane Prentiss, he can survive this. And it isn’t like it matters much.

His phone buzzes to life when he sticks it into the socket, all the messages he missed streaming in at once, a tidal wave of promotional mails and push notifications. He’s half tempted to just shut it off again when he notices one text notification between all the others.

Jon

Martin had told him he was alive, of course. But something about seeing his name displayed black on white on his phone screen drives the point home in a way Martin’s scribbled notes hadn’t done. Something sharp and hot shoots through his chest and he wants desperately for it to be that familiar anger that carried him through the last few months.

But as he lets his head fall back onto the couch, he can’t quite feel it burn the same, and without its familiar warmth, he feels hollow in a way he hasn’t since Danny died.

He swipes away the message without reading it and curls up on the couch, pulling an old, dusty blanket over himself and shutting his eyes. He tries not to think too much of the darkness after the explosion, of the plaster dust swirling through the air and settling in his lungs, of the stone crushing his limbs at awkward angles.

A dark apartment isn’t much like a collapsed building but his brain doesn’t care when it brings up vivid images of his time under the rubble. Despite it all, he does eventually drift into the comforting darkness of sleep, his slumber taking the pain and weariness out of his bones for just a moment.

It’s peaceful, till he wakes up gasping from a nightmare.

His desk rattles slightly when a heavy book is dropped on it and Tim looks up in annoyance, ignoring the painful squeezing in his chest when he meets Jon’s tired, regretful eyes.

‘Learning sign’ The book proclaims and Tim feels irritation bubbling up.

“Fuck off,” He says, focusing his attention once again on his desk.

‘I know sign, I can help, or at least recommend you some classes/books’ Jon informs him through the notes app on his phone.

“I don’t need your help.”

‘I know you don’t, but I’d like to'

“Why? So you can feel better about everything that happened? You think this is going to fix it?”

‘I’m sorry Tim’

“Sorry is too late,” he bites out, shoving out of his chair roughly. He tries to move past Jon, make it out of this stifling, dusty room, get somewhere it doesn’t feel like the walls are watching him.

A rough, calloused hand shoots out, wraps around his wrist like a vice. Jon’s eyes are dark with concern and Tim feels an odd anger at the expression. How can he show so much empathy after everything that happened?

He looks at the hand wrapped around his wrist and suddenly, it’s all just too much.

The deafening ringing in his ears, this wretched place that trapped him and choked him and took his best friend from him. And Jon, eyes still hopeful, still compassionate, after Tim had blamed him and hurt him for months on end.

“Go away,” He tries to say and he doesn’t even make it to the first syllable before his voice betrays him with a choked sob. A shudder runs through him and he looks down at the wooden floor, trying to compose himself.

The grief has never felt as all consuming as it does in this moment and it chokes and burns and pulls him under all at once.

And then, there are arms around him. A familiar touch, a familiar weight, from days so long ago Tim can barely remember them. The first touch that isn’t hostile, the first comfort he has felt in so long.

And it’s all from the man he’s tried to hate for months.

His hands curl themselves tightly into Jon’s cardigan and he buries his face in his shoulder, biting back tears with all his might. It doesn’t do much good against the tidal wave of emotions sweeping through him and soon he’s shaking all over with the sobs that wrack through his body.

Jon’s hand comes up in a familiar movement, brushing through Tim’s messed up curls. It’s hesitant at first, as if Tim will yell at him again, but when he makes no motion to do so, only melting deeper into the hold, the fingers carding through his hair become surer.

There’s a rumble against his cheek as Jon says something and Tim wishes desperately he could still hear it, hear Jon’s sure and steadying voice.

He remembers when, near the beginning of it all, he would stand in the corridor outside of Jon’s office and listen as his voice drifted through the halls, all the pain and fear and emotions painted so clearly on it. He’d always thought Jon a bit ridiculous for the way he read those statements. Now he just wished he could hear it one more time.

He closes his eyes as the loss of his family and his friend and even his hearing tear through his chest, leaving him shattered and shaking.

Jon’s chest rumbles again and Tim presses his cheek into it, pretending for just a moment he can hear a sound that isn’t the awful ringing.

Another pair of hands close around him, softer ones, broader ones. They pull him up gently and he’s not entirely sure how they both ended up on the floor, it probably has something to do with how broad he is and how skinny Jon is.

He’s pulled close against a soft, broad chest and relaxes into it almost immediately. Martin’s safe, he always has been.

He’s deposited gently on the cot, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and a warm mug of tea pressed into his hands. He feels a bit like a child, being coddled and carted around. But right now, he can’t find it in himself to care.

He thinks Jon and Martin are saying stuff. Martin’s chest is rumbling against his back and he tilts his face so he can feel it better. Martin runs a comforting hand along his face, brushing away the tears that stick to it.

A hand settles on his knee, comforting and grounding and he’s sure it’s Jon’s. Both of Martin’s hands are occupied holding him together after all.

He closes his eyes. He can deal with the mess of it all tomorrow.

Right now, he just feels safe. His friends are here and that’s enough.

#tma #the magnus archives #magnuspod #tim stoker #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jontim #jonmartim #martim #jonmartin #i do not know how to tag for this fandom yet #anyway tell me if i missed any warnings #bad things happen bingo #my writing

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its-your-mind · 3 years

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Some Thoughts™️ re: Jon and Martin’s character set-ups going into MAG200

I was relistening to MAG191: “What We Lose” and thinking about what actually might be about to happen in MAG200. Specifically, this part:

At this point, Jon believes there’s a binary - either:

They turn the world back and everything goes back to how it was before, or

They destroy or “eliminate” the powers, and then Something Bad happens to Jon - he’s not sure what.

But see, Martin had established his own binary of what is and isn’t allowed to happen to Jon.

Jon can:

do something that will cause the Something Bad to happen to him if there is no other choice.

Jon cannot:

sacrifice himself at the first opportunity.

Then, Annabelle Cane made her pitch.

Martin heard:

“send the Powers to another dimension”

and thought:

“this falls into category 1: everything will go back to how it was before.”

Jon heard the same thing and thought

“this falls into category 2: the Powers will be eliminated and Something Bad will happen to me.”

Jon knows now that there’s no way he gets out of this unscathed.

Now, they have two new choices - new binary.

Jon really, honestly, doesn’t think becoming the Pupil would be breaking his promise. He knows he’s not making it through this. Something Bad is going to happen to him either way. But Martin...

All Martin hears is Jon’s guilt, and all he sees is the love of his life sacrificing himself to maybe prevent the apocalypse from happening in other theoretical realities.

And that breaks his heart.

#the magnus archives #tma #tma spoilers #jonmartin #tma thoughts #long post #no thoughts head empty only podcast rot #apologies to the students whose tests I was supposed to grade tonight instead of dragging myself into a character writing rabbit hole #maybe once this podcast is over I will actually write lesson plans a few days in advance #one can dream #Jonny is so talented #he has set up SO MANY DOMINOS #THAT WILL FORM A SHAPE #DO I KNOW WHAT THE SHAPE IS EXACTLY #NO #DO I SEE IT BEING FORMED #YES #AHH very excited for Thursday

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ghostbustermelanieking · 3 years

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reunions

post mag 196 spec/au fic: jon and martin emotionally reunite and hug: the fic

this is entirely self indulgent and not at all meant to speculate canon. playing into my trend of writing the season 5 scenarios i want to see in the world, i wanted to write a fic that's entirely just martin and jon reuniting and hugging, just in case this never happens in canon. this assumes things go relatively all right after jon and basira arrive at htr and everyone gets a chance to talk things out. also can be found here at ao3!

The moment that Annabelle's explanation ends, when she steps away from the spot where Martin is held down, Jon lurches forward to free him. The web stretched over the abyss wobbles precariously at his sharp movements, and the way Martin's eyes widen with panic makes Jon's chest ache. "Careful," says Annabelle, voice thick with amusement, "or you'll bring the whole thing down."

" Martin, " says Jon, clutching at Martin's hand from where it sticks out of the strands of web. Martin clutches back, his grip desperate around Jon's hand.

The sick feeling that had emerged in Jon's stomach when he and Basira arrived to see Martin stuck in a precarious web (that almost resembles the ribbons of a tape recorder) hasn't subsided yet; it sharpens, actually, seeing how far the fall is. He hasn't taken his eyes off Martin since he got here, hasn't been able to stop staring at the web and the strands around Martin and the whole of it, his relief at Martin being alive coupled with his panic over where he is. His voice is still raw from where he'd shouted at Annabelle to let Martin go.

Jon grips Martin's hand tighter, and fumbles at the places where the web is holding Martin down. He wants to believe Annabelle when she says that she won't hurt them, that her plan will actually help them, but it's hard, considering all of it—especially with Martin suspended thousands of feet above a chasm to nowhere. "Martin," he says, voice strangled, "hold on, just… it'll be all right, j-just..."

" Jon, " Martin chokes out, his fingernails digging into Jon's wrist.

Jon finds a knife, somewhere in his pocket, and snaps through the strands around Martin, hands shaking with the effort of trying not to cut through the web that's actually keeping them from falling. The whole thing is shaking, suddenly, as Martin is freed—either because Jon has cut too deeply or from the exertion of their movements—and Jon's hands close in a frantic motion around Martin's wrists, as if he can actually pull Martin back when they're both balanced on the same precarious ledge.

For a moment, it feels like it's just the two of them, clutching at each other's wrists, staring desperately at each other as they tremble on the edge of a cliff, and Jon can only think, panicked, that if Martin goes down he is going with him. But then he feels a hand close around the back of his jacket and yank backwards—Basira, from her spot on the edge of solid ground, hauling them towards solid ground. They both scramble back with the motion, Martin's feet scrabbling uselessly against the strands of web, Jon yanking upwards so hard that his muscles ache with the strain of Martin's weight. But something gives way, and they manage to land on solid ground just as the strands of web keeping them up snap free.

" Christ, the two of you," Basira snaps, wearily, her hand landing reassuringly on Jon's shoulder for a moment. "Can't stage a rescue mission without both of you almost collapsing into some… s-some other dimension. "

"I wouldn't have expected anything less," Annabelle says pleasantly, still sounding like she might be laughing at them.

Jon rolls onto his side, panting, and wrenches himself into a sitting position. His eyes yank immediately to Martin, picking himself up, pulling strands of web away from his wrists and ankles ringed in red from the restraints. Martin's head swivels towards Jon; his own eyes are wide, nearly brimming with tears.

Jon isn't sure which of them moves first. Maybe it is both of them at the same time. All he knows is that a moment later they are colliding together, on their knees, embracing. Martin's arms are so tight around him that Jon's ribs ache, but he doesn't care. Jon's clutching at the back of Martin's jacket, his face pressed into Martin's neck—Martin's pulse, Martin's heart beating because he is alive —and he's mumbling frantic apologies: I'm sorry, Martin, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. It takes a few moments to register Martin's voice, warm and cramped and frantic in Jon's ear, murmuring apologies of his own.

"We'll give these two a moment," says Annabelle to Basira.

Jon barely registers this, either, or the sound of their retreating footsteps. All that matters is that Martin is here, here and whole and warm in his arms. Jon shuts his eyes, feels the warm slide of tears down his cheeks. Tugs Martin a little closer, somehow, holding onto him tighter. A part of him had really thought he might never see Martin again.

He says this—voice breaking, fumbling upwards to press a hand against Martin's cheek, he says, "I-I… thought I might never see you again. Martin, I was so scared. "

Martin makes a choking sound. He leans into Jon's hand, covers it with his own shaking one. "Jon… Jon, I'm so sorry. I… I didn't mean it, I… I was afraid I'd lose you, a-and I overreacted, but I… I didn't… and then I left, and I-I-I didn't mean to…"

"Martin, n-no, Martin, I…" Jon jerks back a little, looks up at Martin. Wipes a tear from Martin's cheek with his thumb. "Martin, I'm sorry. I… You were right. I w-wanted to tell you that, you… I shouldn't have… I-I came too late, I never should've left, but I wanted to tell you…"

"No, Jon, you don't understand, I…" Martin shakes his head. Links his fingers with Jon's, squeezes his hand and kisses the palm gently. "I left on purpose. W-well, not really, Annabelle, she… bl-blackmailed me, or something, she said she'd leave if I tried to find you, she… but I left willingly. I-I tried to hang behind, sl-slow us down so you'd be able to catch up but I, we, we were too fast and I… I'm so sorry , Jon. I wasn't thinking. I didn't know what else to do, b-but I never should have…"

"Martin, don't… it doesn't matter, all right? I-it doesn't matter, it… you're here, you're all right." Jon wraps his arms hard around Martin again, turns his head to kiss Martin's cheek. He'd thought he might never see Martin again, he really had, but here he is. Here he is, alive, and the rest of it doesn't seem to matter somehow. Martin's here now.

Martin seems to soften in Jon's grasp; he kisses Jon's fingers again before hugging him back just as tightly. "She… she said she had a way out," he says softly. "Annabelle. One where we don't… die, o-or take Jonah's place, or… T-that was why I went. I… If there's any other way, I…"

"I know," Jon says quietly.

Martin's fingers tangle gently in Jon's hair. "Do you… can you… See? Is she telling the truth?"

"No. No, it's too muddled, the Web is clouding my vision. But…" Jon shudders a little, presses his face hard against Martin's shoulder. "I-it's not good, I don't think. Not entirely. I… I-I don't know what… maybe we'll both make it through, maybe… b-but I don't think it'll be something we… want to do."

Martin sighs, his eyes sliding shut. "Of… of course it isn't. Of course it isn't."

Jon sighs, too, pulls back a little to look Martin in the eye again. "But… if there's any chance…"

Martin nods. "I… I meant it, Jon, when I said I wouldn't doom the world for you. Or I… I wanted to, I thought I did, but I… I didn't think…" He swallows hard, sniffles a little and seems to compose himself a little. "B-but, yeah, if there's any chance of… of you, o-of both of us…"

"Y-yes, yes," says Jon. "Anything. Any chance at all. W-we'll hear her out, we… m-maybe it really can fix things."

Martin laughs a little, softly, and Jon can't help but laugh, too, the stunned, awed sort of laugh. They're here, they're both here, and maybe they have a chance. They press their foreheads together, breathing in time; Jon squeezes Martin's hand again. "I love you," he whispers. "A—and I won't leave you again. I promise."

Martin squeezes back before letting go. "Wh-whatever happens?"

"I promise," Jon repeats. "Whatever happens, w-we'll be together." For a moment—here, back with Martin again—he allows himself to hope that things might end all right for them. Maybe.

Martin pushes hair away from Jon's face, brushes his fingertips over Jon's jaw. Smiles just a little, wobbly, and Jon smiles back. "I… I can live with that. I—I love you, too. I love you, and I promise I won't leave you, either. Not again."

"Guys." Jon turns to see Basira, standing a few feet away, the expression on her face somewhere similar to what it was in the Wonderland Hospital, after the Hunt domain, when they'd taken a moment. She shrugs at them, a bit sharply. "Annabelle says it's time."

Jon sighs again; a large part of him is unwilling to step away from this, this brief peace they've created at the edge of a chasm at the end of the world. "All right. We're… we're coming," he calls. He slides his hand down to take Martin's again and holds on tight, like the webs are going to snap up and pull Martin away again. He isn't sure how much time they have left, but he knows he doesn't want to lose track of Martin again in the process of it. Not that, never again. He won't let it take him away again.

Martin leans into him, just a little, before they get to their feet. "Together?" he whispers into Jon's hair.

Jon nods, presses a kiss to the soft crest of Martin's shoulder. "Together," he says.

They get to their feet, still clasping hands, and follow Basira across the sharp landscape of the cavern at Hill Top Road, to where Annabelle Cane is waiting.

#tma fic #jonmartin #mag 196 #the magnus archives #tma #tma spoilers #i wrote this #cant decide if i like this or not but here it is!!

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ieattaperecorders · 3 years

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As TMA keeps bringing up possible ways the story could end and knocking them down, I thought - what the hell, I’m going to make a huge list of all the endings I can think of and how likely they seem at this point. I’m constantly doing this in my head anyway, might as well type it all out.

There’s two columns as far as I’m concerned. One is “fate of world,” the other is “fate of Jon and Martin.” So I’ve got a list for each.

(I am also interested in the fates of the other characters, but at this point I think Melanie and Georgie’s fate is likely to be whatever “fate of world” is, and that Basira is either going to be in the same boat or die as part of her character arc.)

Fate of the World:

Entities are destroyed/banished, world goes back to normal but without monsters anymore.

Not impossible, but I have doubts. If the world is truly fixed, it will probably mean the characters successfully and heroically sacrificed themselves to save everyone and . . . that just doesn’t feel like the story Jonny Sims is telling, not to me at least. But I could be wrong.

Entities are destroyed, world is scarred in some way. (i.e., torture stops but all the nightmare domains are still there, no one can feel fear anymore, mass trauma/death, etc.)

Interesting to think about, not sure where they’d go with this one. Entities are sent back to being “just outside our universe,” world becomes what it was before the apocalypse. Possible. A return to the status quo before the entire podcast started would hammer in the theme of “the evil system is overwhelming and can’t be easily changed.” Though I would wager that the events of the story are ultimately going to change something for the world, even if (probably) it’s for the worse. No change to the world at all, it stays exactly as it is. Seems unlikely purely because I think if Jonny Sims was going to do this he’d have ended the series on MAG 160. “The apocalyptic scenario that we doubted could change really won’t change” isn’t nearly as strong a blow as “the most terrifying apocalypse possible is happening” as an ending. The world is freed from the Entities, but at the cost of allowing them to spread to other worlds. I wouldn’t be surprised if this option is at least presented. The “save your world at the cost of others” scenario does sound like a choice that could be put in front of our characters. It’s hard to imagine them knowingly taking this option, but who knows? The world remains as it is, and the Entities spread to other worlds.

Honestly this feels like the most likely scenario to me now, probably a result of the main characters trying to do something good.

The world remains as it is, but Jon takes over and shifts the fear around.

Seriously doubt this one, they brought it up and dismissed it pretty hard. I can’t see Jon doing it if Martin is alive, and if he dies I think Jon would be more likely to do something self-obliterating. The only scenario where I could see this would be “Martin dies and Jon gives up on trying or caring about anything, resigns himself to accepting the evil system as inescapable.” Which would certainly be tragic, (and depressing!) but doesn’t seem likely to me.

Jon takes over and is able to meaningfully change the world from its current state.

Even less likely than the above scenario.

The world can’t be fixed, so it’s utterly destroyed/mercy killed.

It could be seen as a better option than the others that are available, but that assumes it’s even possible.

We get the time travel ending after all, but only as an endless inescapable cycle that the characters can’t change.

*throws up hands* I don’t know I’m just spitballing now.

Fate of Jon and Martin:

They die together or meet a fate worse than death together, saving the world.

Possible, but I already expressed my doubts about a successful “save everyone through self-sacrifice” ending.

Jon dies saving the world, Martin lives and is sad/Martin dies saving the world, Jon either dies without the Eye or lives on having lost his consciousness or memory or identity.

See above.

They save the world without dying. Without the Eye, Jon either dies and Martin mourns or he loses himself and Martin takes care of him.

See above, also they talked about this and accepted the possibility together so it ain’t gonna be that.

They die together or meet a fate worse than death together, making things worse in the process.

Seems more likely than them dying to make things better, honestly.

They die together or meet a fate worse than death together, making things slightly better or giving the world a minor reprieve, but ultimately not saving anyone, aka the Bifrost Incident ending. (Or they die together mercy killing the world.)

Honestly this has seemed like a significant possibility to me for a while, but who knows??

Martin dies or meets some horrific fate, pushing Jon to some extreme act (or just letting him crumble into despair.)

Seems way less likely now than it did before MAG 196! Feels like if this was the route Jonny Sims was going to go, he’d have done the Spiders Martin ending, but could still be possible.

The world stays the same and Martin asks Jon to kill him. Jon either agrees and falls into despair or refuses and we’re left with a big “now what”?

Depressing! I hate it!! :D But who knows!!?

The world stays the same, Martin and Jon both change their minds and decide to just rule their domains so that they can both live and be with each other on some level.

Very unlikely given their character arcs.

Jon dies/is irretrievably trapped without the world changing. Martin is alive, unable to die, and forced to resign himself to living off the suffering of those in his domain.

Certainly tragic and depressing, but feels extremely unlikely after Quiet.

Jon dies/is irretrievably trapped without the world changing. Martin somehow figures out a way to fix/improve things. He either dies/has a fate worse than death in the process, or lives and is sad.

Putting the fate of everything in Martin’s hands could pay off the “you have to make a proper choice” idea, but for now I have no idea what he could do.

The world stays fucked but they escape to another dimension where they can be happy but have to live with the guilt of abandoning everything.

Doubt they’d be this lucky, tbh.

#tma #tma meta #tma spoilers #why did i write this

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thehopefulsnowflake · 3 years

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And again here are more theories and opinions about the magnus archives from my brother

The corruption is one of the "four horsemen"

War and conquest are the military ghosts, and the desolation

Famine and pestilence is the buggy bois

Death is the end, duh

The corruption is colonisation basically

Elias is against having a cat, because they are too powerful, he was very serious about this

Centipedes have a masochistic foot fetish, millipedes have a normal one, don't ask

The woman in Dead Woman Walking is just a Zombie

Is the Woman a victim of the Book of Death from MAG 70

Georgie is a ghosty hunty person

Georgie and Melanie don't seem to be afraid of anything

The Italian mountain troops would have known they were being fucked with

More undead

Reminded him sort of the Meat Men

Also reminded him of the buried on the London underground

The mysterious firing squad intrigued him, did all the men that went up the mountain come back to kill him?

Basira is Drax from gotg

She'll randomly appear and no one will know she's there until she speaks

The chuckle brothers origin story, he means Breekon and Hope

Didn't think the circus had anything to do with the stranger

Breekon and Hope are taxidermy

So they're with the stranger

The Stranger is just everything that doesn't fall under something else

The circus was it's own thing

The cult of the lightless flame is it's own thing

The people's Church of the devine host is it's own thing

The circus is just full of people who you don't know, if you do know them that's sad... He was kinda rambling at this point

Is Sarah Baldwin capable of being bored

Why was she working with Melanie?

Do you just take a liking to ghost people

Did you take them over before of after they were eaten.

The Buried is called The London underground

Is it the Fairchild's? Thinks they're about isolation

Thinks it might be a book

The pit could be an Antlion

Thought that the young woman who was eaten by the pit turned into Gertrude

The young man could be, Gerry, Martin, Salesa, young Jon, Elias.

Thinks The stranger is vanilla in terms of gods and monsters.

The stranger is the least interesting.

Thinks all the Stranger wants to do is just summon a god

For some reason he thinks the Dark should be doing more to stop them, because Rayner wouldn't want that to happen

Martin will rap battle the archive to victory, via poetry from Leitners books

The stranger could just be Lego

He's horny for Rayner, his words not mine

Mr. Sandman brought him a dream

Thinks that the Dark at least can get to their gods dimension but choose not to.

If you make everywhere dark does their god appear?

He asked what would happen if two factions tried to summon their god at the same time what would happen

Thinks that all the Avatars /Entities do the same thing.

Breekon and hope have never killed anyone

Maxwell Rayner is a time travelling shadow demon

Mr sandman is like an angry sandy from Rotg

He made this episode unnecessarily kinky

They're just summoning gods

The stranger is remarkably being left alone

Thinks there is no fighting between factions

If anything they're aided

Is the Fairchild's entity already here

Are they working with the other factions

Says he knows whats going to happen because he "knows how these things go"

The Beholding is already on this side and if another God is summoned then it will be booted

Elias killed Gertrude because she was trying to defeat the Beholding and if it was defeated he would turn into the same thing as below the Library in Alexandria

There were three versions of the unknowing that he thought of

Destroying the concept of identity, the unknowing destroys the concept of personality, individuality, and identity. Turning them into Stranger worshipping entities

The angler fish was the thing in the basement at the Taxidermy shop

Stranger just means it couldn't get any stranger

Or it's deliberate parodies of humans

Breekon and Hope were normal people

Salesa, the chuckle brothers, the meat man, the skin walkers, the taxidermist, the manquien, Not-Sasha, the architects, the circus and to some extent the witches are part of the stranger

Magnus is a stranger that took over Elias

He also thinks Elias is just Magnus who found out how to stick around for a while

But Elias isn't the archive god like he first thought

The twisted detergent is Michael's new entity

Michael is like Loki if he didn't have a brother

The stranger is the big bad

Jon is an idiot, he's a bit slow

His second theory for the unknowing is that It's just going to destroy all knowledge revolving the Elder gods, hence the unknowing, the one he thought the least likely

And third, It somehow increases their powers so that the few people that would recognise them, no longer do. Levelling up in short. Thinks it would work for every entity

Doesn't think The Unknowing would be that big of a shift

The circus and the stranger were different because the Circus dealt with the "Freak show"

Thinks Rayner isn't dead

Dust devils

Dirt zombies

Has only made the connection between the Underground, the pit and the dust storm

Was the kid in the car Michael

Was Michael always the Spiral but just really liked working with Gertrude

Michael is the Spiral, he doesn't worship anything

Elias took Gertrude from him, now he's after revenge

Jon should go chill with everyone at the Archive

Jon should have a sword

While you were busy not having a paranoid breakdown I studied the blade

Michael has a crush on Gertrude

He has a granny kink, he is obsessed with making it all kink related

Michael originally gave his powers away to be with Gertrude

Michael took on this form because he could blend in or brag

He's a monster with a thing for Gertrude

Michael wasn't the same Michael as in the tape

Just trying to trick everyone

Lynne Hammond was lying, goes in line with the church of the lightless flame but it didn't happen

Maybe she heard something similar but it didn't actually happen to her, she was just trying to get some money

He actually feels bad for Tim

Tim should run

John Smith was half telling the truth.

People are in the tunnel's but it's not a government conspiracy

Tim doesn't deserve this

You can tell Basira is used to dealing with idiots

Liked that it cut out when Robin Lennox said let me start again, it's like the archive was trying to make it stop

Thinks the archive doesn't care what is being read to it, someone should read it the Lord of the Ringd

The archive is recording the tape recorders not Elias

Get the dog out

Michael was the crying man, he wanted the dog out

He doesn't want to hurt the dog

"Gertrude why did you leave me? I'll get you one day Elias" based on his Michael granny kink theory

Brian Finlinson was the most coherent in terms of links

Thinks that the spiders were actually there, hiding whenever anyone came around

Lynne is lying, John Smith is half telling the truth, Robin Lennox saw Michael having a breakdown, Brian Finlinson was telling the truth

He didn't remember Peter Lukas ever being mentioned before

Already shipping Peter and Elias

Michael is very sensitive

The Fairchild's and the Lukas' are working together

They don't seem to have an interest in the conflict going on between everyone else

The Fairchild's were in aerospace and Lukas was the ships

Still cthulhu

Even space had a cthulhu vibe

The depth of the ocean or the isolation of space

The Lukas and the archive are working together

There are some of these guys that don't want the entities on this side

Likes the power, doesn't want the full on entities here

The Lukas and the Fairchild's are the cthulhus

They're somewhat working with the archive/the beholding

Is Elias actually a Lukas? Decided yes because he and Peter are married

How much do the Lukas have to do with the Beholding

What sort of arrangement do they have?

Nikola was supposed to be part of the circus but there is a difference between the facimalies and the circus

Thinks that the archive burning down would have no downsides for the Beholding.

They'll summon a god and gazing upon it will kill everyone, everyone dies.

As he was now halfway through the series he explained who he thought was in each of these factions

The beholding, Elias, Martin, Tim, basira, daisy, sims, melanie, sasha, Rosie, Gertrude, leitner. Sasha is caught in a time loop...

The stranger, everyone, has no limits, The maniquein, the taxidermy, the circus, skin walkers, grifters bone, breekon and Hope, angler fish

The desolation, the cult of the lightless flame, Jims pims aka Jude Perry, Agnes,

People's Church of the divine host, Rayner, Rayner have something to do with the German crypt, Rayner Is also not dead

The diggy boys, the buried, Maggie and Gordon from the dump, dig dude from Dig, whatever was going on with the pit, and the dust storm.

Meat, no recurring. The haans that's it.

Buggy boys, spiders, Jane prentiss

Michael, the twisting deceit, the twisting deceit just is Michael, didn't exist before him

The leitners, the witches are using the books, Gérard, Mike crew,

Cthulhu collective, the lukas', the Fairchild's. Both are just isolation, the Fairchild's are all about being alone, the only time the Lukas have turned up are being alone either in space or at sea

The witches, Mary Keay, puzzle witch, have big crossover with the Leitners, they just have some of leitners books

Trevor is his own entity, is he part of the desease and corruption group

The architects, smirke, smirkes apprentice.

Jared is his own thing. Just found a self help book

It's a giant celestial orgy!

Also Came up with a random spinoff comedy again

Slowly the archive collects strange people

Michael, who is mourning Gertrude... Loudly

They found a worm in the tunnel left over from Prentiss

The worm loves gooseberries

That's Elias, we're not sure what he is

Thats the Admiral, it is a cat.... It runs the place

Rayner is sat in the corner giggling

Leitner started a microbrewery in the basement

Serves bud leitner, you can't get leitner than this

#He keeps coming up with sitcom ideas #the magnus archives #the magnus archives spoilers #tma #tma spoilers #The magnus archives theories

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radiojamming · 4 years

Note

This a weird prompt but would you write jonmichael? Asking solely because I want to read Elias and the archives staff dealing with that

good-ish AU where sasha’s still sasha and everyone’s cool with stuff, i guess? :DDD

- - -

The door-that-wasn’t-there-a-minute-ago slams open against the wall, shaking the shelves and knocking one cheap vase to the floor in a small explosion of sad porcelain shards and accumulated dust. Martin lets out a high-pitched, “Jesus Christ!” in surprise as much as raw shock when Jon Sims himself staggers out the door like a teenager doing the walk of shame. Granted, he’s bleeding from his hairline and one sleeve of his sweater appears to just be missing, but he looks more sheepish than injured.

Just as he makes the last step over the threshold-that-shouldn’t-be, Martin sees a vague person-ish shape wobble in the mysterious beyond. And it is, in fact, wobbling, like a bobblehead or one of those playground toys shaped like horses that waver on oversized springs until they fling some unfortunate child headfirst into sand. Extended metaphor it may be, but the wobbly thing gives a high, wavering giggle before cooing, “Don’t forget this, love!” in a voice tiered in multiple pitches like an eldritch wedding cake. Jon turns just in time for an arm-that-shouldn’t-be-that-long-oh-my-god-what-the-fuck to come shooting out of the door, an iPhone clutched pinched between its enormous fingers. Martin might be hallucinating, but he thinks the razor-sharp fingernails are lacquered in sparkly purple nail varnish.

He doesn’t have much time to dwell on it before Jon gingerly takes the phone with a mumbled, “Thanks,” and the hand recedes back into the hellish landscape beyond the door.

“Of course!” garbles the wobbly thing. Then, with a range of voices topped off with an impressive soprano flourish as light as meringue, it yodels, “Call me!”

As abruptly and shockingly as the door appeared, it disappears with a sharp crack, causing the shelves to slam back into place with a small cataract of old books falling into the pile of broken ceramic.

Jon and Martin stand in the stuffy office, each caught in the awkward position of how the hell do you talk about that?

Finally, Jon gives Martin the most soul-deep, weary look before quietly beseeching, “Please don’t tell anyone.”

All Martin can do is nod before Jon shuffles out to the hallway

- - -

Sasha sees him at the flower stall again.

Through the warped windowpane, she watches him scoop up a great, garish bouquet representing nearly every spectrum in the visible rainbow, and some colours that might not exist save for the eyes of the mantis shrimp. When she gets to ground level and sees him semi-properly, he’s just a blond man in a beanie, carefully regarding a sorry bunch of daffodils held together by what looks like clingfilm cinched shut with twine. Rather than being all spooky and mysterious, Sasha thinks he’s actually deliberating. There’s a pinch in his brow as he lowers the daffodils in favor of prodding the drooping lower lid of a sorry little orchid suffering in London’s less-than-tropical climes.

Sasha kind of feels… sorry for him?

Granted, he’s a monster with terrifying monster hands and monster tendencies and apparently a taste for caffeine, but he really looks caught on what to get. That in mind, she does remember that he bought lilies the last time he was around. Maybe that was less of a coincidence and this Michael creature really does like flowers; or he may have some fellow monster friend that he deems worthy of buying flowers for. Honestly, Sasha doesn’t want to think of what kind of friends Michael keeps.

Against her better judgement and sense of self-preservation, Sasha walks across the street to where Michael forlornly weighs his options. He looks up at her approach, and the first impression she gets is that his eyes are more like spinning tops prone to rotate anti-clockwise. She blinks and sees stationary blue eyes regarding her with confusion, and then… relief?

Huh.

“Sah-shah Jaaayymeeesss!” he almost sings, lifting up the dying daffodils like a salute. “What a pleasure to see your radiant face again!”

“Michael,” she replies, a little colder than she intends. Last time they met, there were far more meaty hands and worms involved, and she’d rather get to work unscathed.

If he thinks the reply is chilly, he makes no sign of it. Instead, he flops the tortured flowers around in his terrible hands. “Actually, I was hoping to see one of you lovely little Institute-dwellers around. I think I gave Martin a bit of a fright laaaaast time!”

Sasha frowns, but can definitely picture Martin having to be peeled off the ceiling after a Michael encounter. “Oh,” is all she says.

Michael goes on, gleefully undaunted. “You see, you and I have a mutual acquaintance! And I think he’s in need of a little—” He gives the daffodils a vigorous shake. “—cheering up these days! But I just don’t know what he’d like! Silly me for not being obseeeeervant!”

“I… A mutual acquaintance?”

“Yeeeessss! Your lovely boss!”

“Elias?”

Michael laughs. Well, more like he laughs in a way that sounds like he laughed ten minutes ago and ten minutes into the future, and then layered the sounds over one another like phyllo dough in a hellish baklava. It’s impossible, but Sasha hears it all the same. “Noooo!” he giggles. “Not in a million endless cycles of time or those dimensions yet unperceiveeeeeed!”

Sasha won’t even start on that statement, except that it isn’t Elias, which means it has to be—

Oh. Jesus.

Grubby, curmudgeonly, insomniac Jesus.

“Jon?” she gasps.

Michael laughs again, louder and higher so that a glass breaks somewhere in the distance. “Yeeeesssss! Poor Jonathan, always working so hard in that dismal cave you call an archive. I offered him office space that would appeal more to a sense of aestheticism, but he… Oh, what did he say? He thought it was a little heavy on the—” And here he speaks in an exact mimic of Jon’s dry voice when he says: “Impossible, improbable, and honest to God, Michael, my brain would shatter into a thousand pieces if I looked at that painting for another minute.” Michael dissolves into a fit of giggles before saying, “It’s just a lost Hieronymus Bosch painting, honestly.”

So Michael McMeatyhands is buying flowers for Jonathan Sims. Sasha’s having a hell of a time wrapping her head around that particular fact.

The infernal giggling stops and Michael seems to circle (spiral?) back to his previous predicament. Dying daffodils or suffering orchids?

For a lack of anything more to say, Sasha wordlessly points to a bouquet of slightly more enthusiastic-looking daisies, bobbing peacefully in a tin pail of water. “Those,” is all she can manage to say.

Michael looks thrilled. He actually hums some impossible tune (in full SATB with orchestral arrangement, all localised in his throat) as he puts the daffodils back, scoops up the daisies, and drops four quid into the stall owner’s hands with a wet, meaty thwap that the owner doesn’t seem to hear. Then, Michael swivels back toward Sasha and grins with the corners of his lips somehow curling up near his eyes like a particularly twisty Cheshire Cat.

“Thank you, Miss James!” he says. “You’re a lifesaver!”

“You’re… welcome? I think?”

But Michael’s already walking away, taking steps in a gait that doesn’t seem to match the rhythm of the rest of his body, like two halves of entirely different people drunkenly attempting synchronicity. Sasha half-expects his legs to walk away from his torso.

Toward Jon.

She sighs and rubs a hand over her face before heading in the direction of the Underground station.

- - -

The boss is dating someone. This, Tim is absolutely sure of. He’s watched Jon like a hawk for a week now, carefully comparing his moods in the morning with how early he left work the night before. Long work nights equal really bad mood. Long not work nights equal better mood with less shouting and calling people morons under his breath. This is good.

This is very good.

Tim is pleased with his enviable knowledge. Whoever somehow won the heart of the boss must be a pretty special person, or at least someone with an endless well of patience. Or maybe they’re Jon’s opposite? Either way, Tim’s got a hankering to send them a box of chocolate as a thank you for chilling the boss out and making him more tolerable to work with.

He tries to picture who this mystery person is, as Jon’s definitely not the type of person to take his personal life to work with him, inasmuch as he likes to take work home. Tim pictures someone easygoing, like a Margaritaville type. They balance Jon’s stick-up-assery out, maybe giving him massages over the back of the couch while Jon watches dry documentaries about the actual speed of drying paint. In his mind’s eye, Tim gives this person a hideously neon Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses, but a winning smile that melts Jon’s ice-locked heart and makes it so he can’t help but smile back.

Tim likes them, whoever they are.

And when he gives Jon a little wink after dropping off a follow-up report, says, “Had a good night?” in a way more than a tiny bit suggestive, he only relishes a teensy bit in how dark Jon’s cheek become and how he ducks his head down. He mumbles something before actually thanking Tim for the report.

Yeah, this is awesome. Tim owes Jon’s mystery partner a thank you card and maybe a cake.

- - -

“Eliaaaaas.”

“Michael.”

Staring. Lots of staring. Cold, unflinching irises to a set of psychedelic, rotating disco balls set in a grinning face. Behind Michael, blue and purple streaks like the top of a wildberry Pop-Tart flash about and dance madly as Michael gives him the strangest of staredowns. Occasionally, his head appears to flip upside-down a few times on his swirly straw of a neck, and half of his teeth try to glitch through his lips in a way that Elias thinks of as an attempt at a sneer.

Finally, Elias sighs and calmly folds his hands on the top of his desk, ignoring the waves of tangible static pouring out onto the floor and possibly leaving a stain on the carpet. That’s going to be difficult to explain to the janitorial staff. “We may have to set some ground rules,” he says.

“I’ll bring him home by eleven,” Michael cackles in reply.

Elias narrows his eyes just as he feels Beholding roll its great omnipresent gaze in irritation.

“I mean to say that you’re not to interfere in Institute business any further than you are right now,” Elias retorts. “I should completely ban all Spiral-related statements on grounds of personal involvement.”

Michael grins. His smile rises up to his forehead like a crescent moon before rolling down the side of his face and hooking back up into the empty space where a normal mouth should be. “I can make this weirder. I can spiral any statement in this place. Every little word can bend in and around on itself like a pipe cleaner.”

Elias glares. “You won’t.”

“You can’t stop me!” Michael sings. “But I’ll keep courting your Archivist nice and proper as long as I’d like, or he’d like.”

“If this is an attempt to draw him into the Spiral’s influence—”

When Michael laughs this time, it seems to be drawn from every laugh that was ever laughed in the history of the muscular and diaphragmatic spasms that caused them. It’s so charged, so loud and explosive that Elias nearly winces at it. And when it’s over, there’s a vacuum of sound in its wake, so it takes a full minute for Elias to hear anything properly again.

Then, Michael taps his horrible fingers on Elias’ desk, eliciting a sharp tak-tak-tak-tak-tak that repeats in on itself fifty times over. “Not everything is about influence,” Michael hisses through too many teeth. “Not every attempt on a person is to draw them in and mark them, unlike what you do. Maybe sometimes, one of us can authentically like one of them. Is that too hard for you to understand, Man-of-the-Eye?”

Beholding tries to truly See Michael, but something about the Spiral’s nature twists the image.

“No,” Michael goes on, followed by another round of tak-tak-tak-tak-tak. “I rather like the Archivist. And he likes me. Aaaand if you try to get in the way of us, I will peeeeerrrrsonallyyyyy claw your precious little eyes out of your sockets. Understand?”

Elias doesn’t have time to make a reply. Michael is gone in a gunpowder-bright flash of light and a shock of sound. If there was a door, it’s gone. So he sits alone in his office, staring at the space where the Spiral was, and he feels something terribly empty and terribly familiar.

- - -

Jon picks their next date and opts for something as normal as the last one was strange. He chooses a walk at St James Park, eating ice cream and admiring the pelicans while Michael regales him with some bizarre story that sounds more like a backwards recitation of the Jabberwocky poem. He pauses in between stanzas to eat more of his pistachio ice cream with a delighted gusto before he presses on in gibberish.

Something about it makes Jon feel oddly warm and content, even as the early spring wind chills him.

Their last date was to Annwn, which Jon had originally suspected was in Wales. He was half-right; it was Wales as much as it was also the traditional world of the afterlife in ancient Welsh rites. It was rather lovely and Jon thinks very highly of their honey cakes, although he suspects he probably wasn’t supposed to eat them.

But Michael looks just as pleased to be in this park as he was to be in ancient Welsh paradise. His Jabberwockish story comes to an end and he finishes the rest of his cone before throwing the little paper ring into a nearby litter bin. Then, he stretches his arms out to the side and sighs in contentment. “Just bonny, as they say!” he cheers before reaching down and taking Jon’s free hand in his. It’s got a mind-boggling weight and an odd texture, while appearing to be a normal hand. At first, it gave Jon such an acute sense of discomfort that he found himself involuntarily withdrawing. Now, it’s just another aspect of Michael that he’s learned to like.

Love, maybe. He hasn’t thought on that overmuch.

Yet here they are, holding hands like all the other couples in the park. It’s so simple, so normal. Jon’s life has been so ridiculous lately that the fact he’s holding a Spiral avatar’s nigh-impossible hand on a date in a park is just… maybe the most normal thing that’s happened so far. Michael’s not trying to kill him or throttle his mind to the point of madness.

They’re happy.

Jon’s happy.

He smiles, and so does Michael. Yes, Michael’s smile is making an attempt to summit his head like Everest before flickering back into place like he remembers where he is, but he does smile and it’s perfectly authentic.

It could be weirder, and for once, that thought delights Jon.

#prompt fill #tma #the magnus archives #jonmichael #THIS WAS RLY FUN ;w;#tried to fix the wonky mobile formatting!

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eldritchteaparty · 3 years

Link

Chapters: 4/? Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Characters: Martin Blackwood, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Sasha James, Rosie Zampano, Oliver Banks Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Fix-It, Post-Canon Fix-It, Scars, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, I'll add characters and tags as they come up, Reference to injuries and blood, Character Death In Dream, Nudity (not sexual or graphic), Nightmares

General summary: Following the events of MAG 200, Jon and Martin find themselves in a dimension very much like the one they came from--with second chances and more time.

Chapter summary: Jon and Martin head back to the Magnus Institute, where Martin goes on an interview outing with Tim and Jon starts to catch up with Sasha’s “statements.”

Chapter 4 of my post-canon fix-it is up! Read above at AO3 or here below.

Tumblr master post with links to earlier chapters

***

Shortly after Martin’s phone flickered to life, he found a lot of messages waiting for him—and they were almost all from the same person.

Are you ok?

Message soon please.

Do you need anything?

Answer when you can.

Still worried…

He glanced at Jon, sitting on the other side of the bed and looking through his own phone.

“Sasha been messaging you too?” Martin asked him.

“Yes. And I’ve got one from Tim.”

Martin had that one also. “Telling you to answer Sasha?”

“Yes—and calling me something I won’t repeat.”

Ok, so he didn’t have exactly that one.

“All right,” Martin said a few minutes later. “Let’s do this, then. I’ll message Sasha back.”

“Wait—what are we doing? What’s the plan?”

He typed out a simple message to Sasha telling her they were ok and he was sorry for not answering sooner. “We lie to them.”

“Hm.” Jon seemed uneasy.

“Did you… want to tell them the truth?”

“Well…” Jon thought. “Obviously, we can’t. I’m just concerned that—”

“Exactly. And even if we did tell it to them, they wouldn’t believe it.”

Jon still looked doubtful. “Martin, I’m not sure if I—”

“Look, sometimes there are good reasons to lie. We just need to keep it simple, make sure it doesn’t get out of hand.” He read the message one more time and hit send. “Anyway, don’t act like you don’t know how. You’re actually quite good at it when you want to be.”

He didn’t mean to add that last part; it just came out, and it came out bitter. He looked at Jon again and regretted it immediately. He had come to realize he much preferred Jon’s anger to his sadness, especially when he was the cause. He opened his mouth to apologize, but as he did his phone began to buzz. They stared at each other.

“Jon, I didn’t mean that. I’m—I’m sorry—forget it, ok? I have to—hang on.”

He answered Sasha’s call on speaker, turning away to concentrate.

“Hey, Sasha.”

“Martin? Are you all right?”

“Yes. I’m sorry I didn’t answer you sooner. It’s been—”

“How is Jon, do you know?”

“Yes, he’s—he’s with me. We’re both ok.”

“Oh, thank god.” Her relief was clear, even over the speaker, and Martin felt a pang of something in his gut. He hadn’t had a moment to consider how much he’d missed Sasha, how unfair it had all been, and how much it felt like she’d somehow come back. It would have been so easy to think that way—except their Sasha was still dead, and he may very well have been responsible for the death of the person she thought she was talking to.

“You do sound better,” she continued. “Look, I really didn’t want to tell you what to do, but—tell me you went to a doctor or something?”

Martin cleared his throat, aware Jon was listening to the conversation. “We did, actually. We did end up going to the hospital. I think we were maybe in a bit of shock after all.”

“No kidding. What happened? What did they say?”

“Physically, we’re—we’re all right.” He thought about all the blood again, and decided he should add a little more. “I mean, we were very dehydrated. They put us on a drip for a bit. And—and antibiotics, just in case. But they said we’re healing well, I guess?”

“That—that’s good. What else? What about—not physically?”

“Well, they did a lot of tests. The kind where they asked a bunch of questions. They didn’t want to call it amnesia, exactly, but we’ve—we’ve got some memory loss.” Experience told him the less specific the lie, the better. “Neither of us really remembers what happened. And it’s possible… we might have forgotten some stuff from before, too. We don’t really know how bad it is yet.”

“Oh. That’s terrible.”

Martin looked over his shoulder at Jon, who had crept closer to hear better. He nodded, and Martin turned back.

“It’s not great, but the good news is they don’t think there are any deeper issues. I mean, they’ve got us signed up for all kinds of therapy, but they don’t think there’s any—how did they say it—no lasting cognitive impairment.” Cognitive impairment was a phrase that maybe came to him too easily after caring for his mother; he felt like he was maybe pushing it a little.

“Well, that part’s good. How are you feeling, though?” Sasha asked.

“A lot better.”

“Did they feed you? Do you need anything? Can I bring you something?”

“No, that’s all right. We’re—actually, Sasha, we were wondering if we could… maybe come back. To work.”

There was a moment of silence on the other end, and Martin cringed and held his breath through it; he didn’t look at Jon. He might have gone for it too soon.

“You want to come back? Already?”

He exhaled quietly, away from the phone so Sasha couldn’t hear it. “They said the more we could normalize things, it might—help? I mean, I know there might be some issues rehiring us—but maybe if Elias hasn’t replaced us yet—"

“No, I mean—you know Elias, he hasn’t even taken you off payroll. It just seems… fast. Are you sure you want to?”

“Well, if you’re worried, we don’t have to come back right away.” Jon grabbed his arm and Martin frowned at him, shrugging him off. Wait, he mouthed. “I know we might not be up to our usual workload, and we’re going to have to take some time off for therapy and all… I’m really only bringing it up because they thought it would help, but it’s completely fair if you don’t want to take—”

“No! No, I don’t mind.” She sounded upset, and he felt bad. “That’s not it at all. And we could use your help, honestly, but I really don’t want to put pressure on you while you’re recovering. Do you promise you’ll let me know if it’s too much?”

“Yes,” Martin answered. “Yes, of course. Jon too.”

“Well…” said Sasha, “When are you thinking about coming in?”

Um… hang on.” He muted himself and turned to Jon.

“What do you think?” Then, before Jon answered, he added, “And do not say today. It’s already after 2 pm and that would just be weird.”

“Fine. Tomorrow, then.” Of course. He sighed.

“Sasha?” He said, unmuting the phone. “Jon says—Jon says tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? Really?”

“Yeah. Yeah, actually. If you’re all right with it.”

There was more silence.

“And I mean Sasha, I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t mind being around people. It would be nice.” That wasn’t even a lie.

“Ok. Sure, Martin.” It had done the trick. “Take your time getting in though, ok? And get some sleep tonight.”

“Will do. Thanks, Sasha.” He hung up, and turned his head slightly in Jon’s direction. “Happy?”

“Thank you,” Jon answered, putting an arm around Martin to press his mouth briefly to his cheek. Martin couldn’t help but smile.

“Yeah, all right. Just don’t exhaust yourself. Remember, you’ve got to eat real food and sleep real sleep now.”

“Mm.” Jon was already headed out to the sitting room where his desk was.

“What did I say, Jon?” he shouted.

“Eat and sleep,” Jon shouted back.

Martin grumbled to himself.

The rest of the day was spent washing the one set of clothes that he had, and going through the phone to learn what he could about his current situation. His passwords and fingerprints opened all the apps, but that didn’t faze him anymore. He was able to figure out from email and voicemails that the apartment building where this world’s Martin had been living had indeed kicked him out, but thankfully his belongings were being held in storage. He could pay two months of back rent and a late fee if he wanted to reclaim them, although it wouldn’t be until the following week.

Fortunately, Sasha had been correct that they hadn’t been taken off payroll—not only had they not been taken off, but Martin had been paid his full salary for the last two months. If he hadn’t already been convinced that Jonah Magnus was not running the institute, that certainly did it.

***

Although he didn’t successfully get Jon off the computer for it, he did manage to get him to eat most of a meal that evening at his desk. And while Jon didn’t get in bed at the same time he did, Martin was still up to hear him come in.

“Hey.”

“Sorry,” Jon said softly. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“No, that’s all right. You didn’t. I actually—something’s been bothering me. I wanted to apologize for what I said right before Sasha called today. About… you. Lying. I mean, we need to talk about it—what happened—but not like that.”

“Martin…” Jon shifted under the covers. “I want to talk about it. I do. You deserve that. I’m just…”

“You’re not ready yet.”

“Not yet.”

“I’ll—I’ll try not to push,” Martin answered, closing his eyes again. “I want to do this right. Or at least better than we’ve been doing things. Just… you try too, ok?”

There was a moment of quiet before Jon answered. “Ok.”

***

Going back to the Magnus Institute in the morning already felt much easier than it had the first time. It didn’t hold the same sense of discontinuity—it felt less like déjà vu and more like returning to a place he had genuinely spent a lot of time. Rosie was away from her desk when they arrived; Sasha and Tim were in Sasha’s office with the door closed, and they could hear muffled conversation through the door. Jon sat at his desk, but Martin decided he’d wait for Sasha before he even pretended to do something, and sat on the sofa instead.

“So,” he asked Jon, “how are you feeling, now that you’re here?”

“Good, I suppose,” he answered. “Well, not bad, anyway. I’ll feel better once I can start looking through some of Sasha’s statements.”

“They’re not statements, Jon. I expect you’re going to be disappointed if—”

“I just meant that I’ll feel better once I have some understanding of…” He trailed off. “Why do I need a pin?”

“Hm?”

“My laptop. I need a pin.”

“Wait, didn’t you have one before?”

“No. Sasha kept telling me to set one, but…” Jon sighed. “This would be a lot easier if we could remember things about this place when we wanted to.”

A thought occurred to Martin, something they hadn’t talked about yet. “Are you going to be all right, Jon? With Sasha being the archivist here?”

“She’s not the Archivist. There is no Archivist here. Not even me, right now.” Martin could hear him typing, trying different combinations of numbers, and could also hear his frustration growing.

“Hang on, let me try a couple things before you go getting all worked up.” He got up and went to join Jon at his desk. “And no, you’re right, of course—I just meant, are you ok with her being the head archivist here? At the Institute?”

“I don’t care.” Jon leaned back from his desk so Martin could reach the number keys. “Wait—is that the sofa that Tim brought in when—”

“Yes, it is. And it was a good idea.” The pin would have to be something Jon would easily remember, and knowing Jon, probably also too easy for someone else to guess. He tried Jon’s birthday; it didn’t work. He tried the street number of Jon’s flat, and that didn’t work either. “Hmm…”

“Well, I suppose professionalism isn’t as important when your entire area of research is—”

“Jon, hush.” Last four of Jon’s phone number?... Nope. He stared down at the keys and a wild thought entered his head. No reason he couldn’t try it, though. He typed the four-digit combination and was surprised to find that it worked.

“Oh.” Jon leaned forward. “What did you type?”

“I don’t know,” Martin lied. “I was just trying things. I don’t remember what I did.”

“Well, how am I supposed to get back in next time?”

“You’re going to have to change it.”

“I don’t want to change it.”

“Sasha’s going to make you change it.”

“How is Sasha going to know that—”

“Because I just saw Martin type it in for you,” Sasha said from the door of her office, smiling.

“Hey, Sasha.” Martin let himself smile in return—it was easy, if he forgot the last four years of his life. “Thanks again for letting us come in today.”

“Honestly, I’m already wondering if it was a mistake. I told you to take your time and really, it’s first thing in the morning.”

“Well, Jon just couldn’t wait to get back,” he said, reflexively rubbing the back of his neck. “He—hang on.”

He snatched the mouse away from Jon and clicked through to the screen where he could change his pin, while Jon did his best to appear extremely inconvenienced. “Oh, stop. Type the new one, I’m not looking.”

Jon grudgingly did as Martin instructed.

“So why were you so eager to come back, Jon?” Sasha asked.

“Oh.” Jon cleared his throat. “I, um…”

Martin interceded. “He’s actually been very concerned about—about the things you said have been happening here since we were gone.”

“I wondered if that was it. I’ve been thinking about that myself,” Sasha said. “I know you don’t remember anything, but the timing was just so… Jon, I know you’ve always been a skeptic—”

“And I still am. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for everything.” Martin thought maybe Jon would catch on after all. “But it would be quite the coincidence if it were unrelated. I was actually wondering if I might review some of the notes you took during your—interviews.”

“It’s not a bad idea,” Sasha replied. “To be honest, I haven’t the slightest idea what to do with them. They aren’t exactly typical archive material. Maybe you can help me—”

“Morning, everyone.” Tim cheerfully disrupted the conversation as he slipped into the room behind Sasha. “How are we all feeling?”

“All right,” Martin answered, when no one else did.

“Great. Especially coming from you, Martin, because we are going on an adventure today.” Tim made his way to his desk and picked through a few papers.

“Oh?” Martin looked at Sasha.

“What Tim means is that if you are up for it, there were a few people who contacted us but couldn’t come in, and we haven’t had a chance to get back to them. I haven’t felt comfortable sending Tim to interview people alone, and well—it’s not really our job, and I’ve got more than enough actual work to take care of since—well, we’ve gotten a bit backed up.”

“What do you think, Martin?” Tim asked, waving the papers toward him. “Up for it?”

“Oh, well, I—I guess I could, yeah.” He glanced at Jon, who was suddenly sitting up very straight in his chair.

“Martin, I—are you sure?”

“I think so,” Martin replied.

“I’m just thinking that if something were to happen…”

“What—what sort of thing?”

“Yeah Jon, what sort of thing?” Tim echoed. They both turned to look at him and found him with a curious look on his face. “Oh look, if you two need to consult about this, please go ahead. Don’t mind me.”

“Yes, thank you, Tim.” Jon spoke through gritted teeth, indicating the sarcasm hadn’t escaped him. “Martin, just—come talk to me.” He stood up and took Martin by the arm, leading him out into the reception area and closing the door—but not before Martin saw Tim bite back a grin.

“Jon, what—”

“Martin, we have no idea what’s going on, or who or what could be out there, or—”

“Do you want Tim to go by himself?”

“Well—no, but—”

“Look.” He took Jon by the arm now. “I know we haven’t been apart since—well, not for a long time. And I know every time we have been apart, it’s been bad. But things are different now. This is different. You’ll be all right here with Sasha, and I’ll be with Tim and—”

“And with anything else that’s shown up since we got here. And if something happened, I—” Jon stopped and looked toward the floor. “I wouldn’t know about it.”

“Yeah, well, welcome back to being a normal person.” He squeezed Jon’s arm. “Look, if you’re really worried, I’ll come up with some excuse. But Jon, we’ve got to—we’ve got to try and be functional here. Plus, if you really want to figure out where things are—if you’re here going through the interviews, doesn’t it help for me to be out there? Talking to people? You know—like I used to do for you by myself all the time?”

Jon pressed a hand to his own mouth, thinking.

“Jon, I’ve got my phone.”

“Technically you had your phone when you went to look for Jane Prentiss.”

“Ok, I see why that’s not that reassuring, but do you realize how long it took for Jane Prentiss to—become what she was? And I will be with Tim, and—”

“Yes, you’ll be with Tim. Great.”

“Jon.” Martin sighed. “He’s just concerned. Ok, what if I—what if I look through the contact forms before I leave? Make sure I don’t recognize any names on them? Like—no bad names?”

“We don’t even know if it works like that.” Jon thought for another minute, but Martin could see his resistance starting to come down. “Look, I don’t want to… maybe I am being overprotective.”

“You think?” It didn’t really bother him to hear Jon say it; in fact, he got a bit soft knowing Jon felt that way, but it wasn’t going to help the situation to admit it.

Jon finally gave in. “All right. Do look at the names though—and if anything happens—”

“I’ll let you know right away. I won’t do anything dumb.”

“I know. Martin, I—” Jon looked up at him again. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” He leaned down for a quick kiss, which Jon returned. “I’ll be fine, ok?”

Jon nodded, reluctant.

***

Despite another look from Tim, Martin did check the names as promised; there were only three for that day, and he didn’t recognize any of them. By the time they left, the thought of spending time alone with Tim made him more nervous than their actual task. He imagined that as soon as they were out the door, Tim would start peppering him with questions about where he and Jon had been, what had happened between them, or both.

As it turned out, though, their time together was quite enjoyable. Martin had forgotten how easy it was to be around Tim—that he had that thing he could do that just made everyone comfortable when he wanted to. They took the tube out to a suburb, and on the way, they talked about the weather a little bit. They talked about a new café that had moved in down the street a few weeks ago; Tim said it was all right for an occasional something different, but nothing special. They talked about what Tim had been up to in his free time. As it turned out, his brother Danny was getting married soon to a girl Tim absolutely adored. Martin suddenly remembered when Danny had come into town and visited Tim at work one day a few years ago, and he’d been amazed by how similar the two of them had been when they stood side by side.

I’ve met Danny Stoker. The urge to smile hitting alongside that awful catch in his throat was becoming a strangely familiar feeling.

Their first interview was with an older woman in her home. She had gotten in touch with the Institute after receiving their information through a friend of a friend, who’d heard a story from yet another friend. Martin really thought there wasn’t anything to it. Well, he supposed it was possible there was a ghost living in her television set that just happened to have moved in after her daughter had tried to help her set up a new voice assistant—but in all fairness, it seemed unlikely. The second interview was equally unimpressive.

Once they finished up, Tim made a phone call to their third interview subject, and announced they were headed back to central London. The man didn’t want to meet at home, but he was willing to meet them somewhere public; Tim arranged to meet him at a deli not far from the Institute. The ride back was pleasant enough, if a bit quieter.

“It’s getting late,” Tim said, after glancing at his phone. “We have time to eat first, if you’re up for it.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Martin was pretty hungry again by the time they sat down with their food. He supposed he’d missed being able to enjoy food, but having to eat multiple times a day was sort of annoying when it came down to it. He was just wondering if he should send Jon a reminder to eat, when he realized Tim was staring at him; he hadn’t touched his sandwich yet.

“Everything ok?” he asked.

“What happened?” Tim asked. “To you and Jon.”

“Oh, I—” Martin swallowed the bite in his mouth. “I assumed Sasha told you. We don’t—”

“Don’t remember.” Tim cut him off. “Really, though? Like—nothing?”

Well, here goes. “Really. Nothing.”

Tim regarded him thoughtfully. “We looked for you. Me and Sasha, we looked everywhere, for weeks. Well, everywhere we could think of.”

“Tim, I’m—I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” That was the truth. In fact, he was sorrier than he was going to be able to explain.

“Sasha took it really hard, you know?” Tim said. “I mean, you were at work when it happened. She felt responsible. Like it was her fault.”

That sounded familiar.

“It wasn’t,” Martin replied. “It wasn’t her fault. It had nothing to do with her.”

“I told her that. Every day. I don’t think it made any difference, though. And I’m sure it hasn’t really sunk in yet that you’re back.” Tim picked a small piece of crust from his sandwich bread and chewed it carefully before swallowing. “I mean, it almost seems impossible, doesn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You were gone for two months, you left no sign of what had happened or where you were—and then you just show up again one day, making out on the landscape, covered in your own blood.”

“We were not making out,” Martin snapped.

“You were too,” Tim answered. “What’s that about, anyway?”

Martin didn’t answer him.

“Look, I have no idea what happened, but… I’ll admit, I’ve always wondered if you maybe had a thing for him. I mean, the man’s always been a bit of a wreck, and I’ve watched you defend him and try to take care of him ever since we all started working together. And it’s not like you got along that well, but I know you and it just seems like the kind of thing you’d go for. But I never thought—”

“You really don’t like Jon, do you?”

“What? No, I like him just fine. You know that. But I like him for who he is, and this just seems like… it seems like a lot after two months.”

“Tim, it’s complicated, and I don’t know how to explain it. You don’t—you don’t know what we’ve been through. What he’s been through, or what he’s—”

“I thought you didn’t either.”

Martin’s heart skipped, and then beat double to make up for it. “I just meant—look, I don’t know what happened, but I—I feel things I can’t explain. And I can say that it feels like it’s been a lot longer than two months since—since we disappeared.”

“Is that so?” Tim asked. “Just tell me. Do you not remember, or do you actually not remember?”

“I—I really don’t remember.”

“Why did it sound like there were quotes around that?”

“There weren’t.”

“Right.” Tim said. “Well in that case, I ‘believe you’”—he paused to make large air quotes— “and I ‘definitely won’t keep asking.’”

“Tim—”

“It’s fine,” Tim said as he finally took a large bite of his sandwich, then continued with his mouth full. “Whatever happened, I am glad you’re back—and whenever you’re ready to talk about it, I’m here.”

As hungry as he was when he’d sat down, Martin couldn’t touch the rest of his sandwich. He kind of resented the way Tim was able to keep eating. Tim had always been that way though, hadn’t he? Able to say what he thought without worrying about the consequences. It had taken on a different flavor after he’d found himself trapped at the Institute, of course, but even then, he’d stood up to Elias without any fear of what might happen. Even when he’d died, he’d gone out the way he’d wanted too—no regrets.

Martin wanted so badly to tell him the truth in that moment. Instead, he sat in silence and watched him eat.

A short time later, Tim grabbed a napkin to wipe his mouth. “I think that’s him. Our interview. Yellow shirt, black jacket.” He raised a hand toward someone coming through the door behind Martin.

“What was the name again?” Martin asked as he turned around.

“Hang on—” Tim pulled out one of the contact forms. “Here we go. Antonio Blake.”

Wait. Wait, there was something familiar about that name—shit. He’d thought about it too quickly that morning. He’d completely forgotten about the alias.

Jon is going to lose it when I have to tell him this.

“You’re—you’re Oliver Banks,” he said to the man now standing directly in front of him.

Oliver looked suspiciously from him to Tim and back again. “I didn’t—how did you know that?”

“I—don’t know. It just came to me.” Given what Oliver had to be going through, maybe there was half a chance he would find that plausible.

Tim gave him a look. “You know him?”

“Not—not really. Please, sit.”

Oliver continued to hesitate. “I’m not sure I want to.”

“Look—I am sorry, I didn’t mean to—I’m Martin Blackwood, from the Magnus Institute. This is Tim Stoker.”

Tim stood up and offered his hand in that easy, open manner he had, and Oliver tenuously accepted it.

“Please,” Martin said. “Whatever you have to say—we’d like to hear it. It might be important. Maybe we could… help.”

He didn’t feel great about himself for adding that last part.

Oliver slowly pulled out the third chair at the table and sat down. Martin didn’t know what he’d expected him to be like, but somehow this wasn’t it. He felt sad for this man. He looked so tired, but at the same time so ready to run. He reminded Martin a bit of Jon, actually, during the year after Jane Prentiss had come to the institute and before they’d realized that Sasha had been murdered. He supposed that made a lot of sense, the more he thought about it.

Tim spoke again. “You didn’t leave a lot of detail in your message, so—do you want to just walk us through what happened to you?”

“Well…” Oliver looked from one to the other of them again. “I’m really not sure you’ll believe me. To tell the truth, I’m not sure anymore that I’m not going crazy. I’ve—I’ve not been sleeping much, and it’s…” he trailed off.

“You don’t want to sleep because you’re afraid you’ll dream again.”

Oliver re-focused on Martin. “How do you keep—”

“It’s all right.” Martin said. “I just want you to know that I’ll believe you. If you want to tell us.”

They sat in silence for several minutes. Martin didn’t want to say anything that might send Oliver back out the door, and Tim followed his lead. Finally, Oliver spoke, quietly enough that it took some effort to hear him.

“It was a dream. Or it started with a dream. The first time, I dreamed that I was walking near Canary Wharf—I used to have a job there years ago, and—well, I don’t need to get into that, do I… The point is, I know the area. There were people around me, people I don’t actually know, like happens in a dream, but they all had these—I don’t know—tendrils.” He paused and made a motion with his hands, like he was holding something heavy. “I don’t really have another word for it. Like snakes, almost, but not alive like snakes. Just tendrils, everywhere, and they went through these people—like their hearts, or their heads, or around them somewhere. I really didn’t like it, you know, but also I think I knew I was dreaming. Everything was sort of pulsing and—and I was trying to ignore all of it, but when I headed home in the dream… Well, it was my landlady. She had lots of them, like black veins, running into her chest, or her lungs, really, somehow I knew it was her lungs. I woke up not long after that.”

Martin tried to keep his expression neutral. This was so much like the statement Oliver had made years ago in their world, to Gertrude, but it was also so different. Most obviously, it wasn’t a statement at all, it was just Oliver talking. That made sense. There was no Archivist here, either with them or in general, which Jon had so intently pointed out that morning. The words weren’t just pulled out like Martin was used to, thank god. And certainly, the people Oliver had first dreamed of in their world would have passed years earlier. The basic story, though, was the same.

“OK.” Tim nodded, scratching down some notes. “But I assume there’s more?”

“Well, the thing is—not even two weeks later, she—she died. Lung cancer. It was sudden. Undiagnosed. I’d almost forgotten about the dream, to be honest, but that… it shook me.”

“Understandable.” Tim nodded again. “So you think your dream was a—a warning?”

“Well, I mean—of course I was sort of struck by it, that day, but after a little time, it didn’t seem like such a big thing. She smoked her whole life. I know sometimes people know things they aren’t really conscious of, and maybe I just—knew she was sick. But then… it happened again. A man at the bakery near the shop where I work now. I barely knew him. It was his heart. And I—I dreamed it again. The whole thing. A week before it happened. And I just started wondering if—if every person I see in that dream…”

Tim frowned and looked toward Martin, which prompted Oliver to do the same.

“What do I do?” Oliver asked, and Martin swore a shiver ran through him—maybe it was from nerves or too much coffee or not enough sleep, or maybe all three. “I thought maybe you would—know something about this. Maybe you’ve heard of it before. Do you think—do you think I could help them? If I found them, if I talked to them—”

“No,” Martin answered. “I mean, I have heard of it before, and… no. You can’t help them. I’m—I’m sorry.”

Oliver worried at his lip. “I’m not—I’m not causing it somehow, am I? I was thinking that maybe—if I keep trying to stay awake—”

“No.” Martin shook his head. “No, you’re not causing it. You—you should know it’s not your fault. And if you sleep, or if you don’t sleep—they’ll still… they’ll still die.”

Oliver nodded his head, digesting the information. “So I can’t do anything. I just get to know they’re going to die, and I can’t do anything about it.”

“I’m sorry.” Martin wondered what he would have said if he’d had time to think about it. Would it have been any different? Would he have thought of something better to say, something that didn’t fall so flat the moment it left his mouth, something that could have actually helped?

Would Jon have said something better?

“All right,” Oliver replied softly, bringing Martin back from his thoughts as he stood up from his chair. “Thank you for listening. I—I think I’m going to go.”

“If you need anything—if we can help—you know where to find us.”

Martin wasn’t sure if Oliver even heard him.

“What the hell was that?” Tim asked loudly, once Oliver was out of sight.

“Nothing,” Martin answered.

“That wasn’t nothing. You knew that man. You knew what he was going to say.” Tim pointed at the door, waving his finger for emphasis. “And then you…”

“Tim, I can’t explain it right now.”

He turned his finger on Martin. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t like this.”

“I’m sorry. I wish—” His phone, which he had set on the table, buzzed at him. It was a message from Jon, asking if everything was ok. “Let’s go back now, all right?”

Tim shook his head in disbelief. They didn’t speak on the walk back.

***

Jon jerked up from his desk when they walked in, which was now covered in numerous hand-written notes and manilla folders. Martin suspected he’d maybe been taking an unintentional nap. “How did it go?”

“Fine,” Martin answered. “Did you eat?”

“Not—not yet.”

“Here,” Martin said, tossing the rest of his sandwich onto Jon’s desk. “I didn’t finish it.”

“Oh.” Jon peeked under the wrapper. “You barely ate this at all. Are you sure you don’t—”

“Yes.”

“All right, well—thank you.” Jon took a quick bite and set it aside as he resumed reading.

“Well?” Tim said.

Martin ignored him.

“Are you going to tell him about your friend?”

“What friend?” Jon asked, eyes still on the paper in front of him.

“I didn’t catch his name, actually,” Tim replied. “But I do know it wasn’t”—he pulled out the now-crumpled contact form— “Antonio Blake.”

“What?” Jon immediately stopped what he was doing.

“Jon—”

“You saw Oliver Banks.”

“Oliver Banks.” Tim deliberately overpronounced the name. “That’s right. Thank you, Jon.”

“Tim—”

“How could you miss that?” Jon stood up.

“It was fine! Nothing happened. I would have—”

Jon didn’t even need to speak to cut him off; the look in his eyes was enough. “We need to talk.”

“Please,” Tim cut in. “One of you talk, at least.”

“In private. Come on,” Jon said, once again taking Martin by the arm. Rosie was back at her desk now, but Sasha had temporarily stepped out, and they spoke in her office with hushed voices, without bothering to turn the light on.

“Jon, it really was fine, I—”

“Stop.” Jon reached up to take Martin’s face in his hands. “It’s ok. I just want to know what happened.”

“Nothing, really. He—he’s had a couple dreams, that’s all. He wanted to talk about it. He wanted to know if there was anything he could do to—to help them. I told him he couldn’t. I felt bad for him.”

Jon closed his eyes and breathed out, then opened them to look at Martin again.

“Jon, I don’t see what the big deal is. I mean, what does he even do? He sees people’s deaths, and wakes up other people’s”—he paused— “Archivists.”

“It’s not funny. Or that simple.” Jon let go and turned to face the wall. “Martin what if—what if he had seen your death?”

“Well then—at least I’d know? I guess?”

“Or what if he’d seen Tim’s? Or—or mine?”

Martin could sort of see Jon’s point then—but only sort of. “Ok, but—I still think we weren’t really in any danger. Yes, I messed up, and I should have caught that, but—”

“It’s too dangerous,” Jon interrupted. “You can’t do this again without me. And—and neither can Tim.”

“Oh really,” Martin responded. “And why do you—”

“It’s not just Oliver,” Jon broke in again. “I found some things in the—in the interviews Sasha did. Do you remember the thing we called the Anglerfish?”

“Yes?”

“And do you remember Laura Popham?”

“Um—”

“She went caving with her sister and—”

“Oh, right. Lost John’s Cave.”

“They’ve… they were in there, in the interviews. Already. In just two months.”

Martin was starting to understand Jon’s reaction.

“And I was hoping it was just those sorts of things,” Jon continued, “and no… avatars, but if Oliver Banks is already connected to the End—”

“I see.” Martin stepped closer to Jon to put an arm over his shoulder. “All right, I get it. Things are happening fast.”

“Well… most things.” Jon sounded a little offput.

“Wait.” Martin almost laughed, but not because he found it funny. “Wait, are you upset because you aren’t connected to the Eye yet?”

“Upset isn’t the right—”

“Now who’s jealous of Oliver Banks?”

“Technically that would be envy, not jealousy—”

“Technically yes, but that isn’t the—”

“—and I’m not,” Jon finished. “I just—I feel like I know it’s coming, and I’d like to get it over with.”

“Right.” Martin rolled his eyes, but only because Jon couldn’t see it in the dim office. “So what do we do now?”

“First, if there are more interviews to be done, they could be important, but… we do them together. You and me.”

“There are. And… if Sasha is ok with it.”

“And then I keep going through Sasha’s notes. And then I go back before that, just to—”

“Jon, you’re going to exhaust yourself.”

“Then I do.”

“No. It doesn’t do anyone any good if you—”

They were interrupted by Sasha’s voice.

“Jon? Martin?”

“Yes,” Jon answered. “Sorry, I needed to speak with Martin, so we borrowed your office.”

“That’s fine, but you didn’t need to do it in the dark,” she said, switching on the light. “So I was just talking to Tim, and it sounds like today was… eventful?”

“That’s not exactly what I said, but I suppose that’s the polite version.” Tim followed her into the office.

“Well, I have something to report, too.” Sasha sat down behind her desk. “I know I said I was going to get back on regular archive things today, but… well, let’s just say I got curious, and may have found a back door on the web to access certain matters of official police business.”

“Really?” Tim’s grin was back. “That almost sounds like someone’s misbehaving.”

“I’d feel bad about it, but let’s also say I wasn’t too pleased with the way a certain missing persons case was handled.”

“Good for you.”

“Thank you, Tim.” Sasha did seem very pleased with herself. “But that brings me to my next point. Tim, I know you have some… contacts at some of the local police stations who might be able to—supplement the information I’m getting? I could use your help with that.”

“Sure, boss,” Tim said. “And that should work perfectly, actually, because I believe Jon was just getting ready to forbid Martin from going on any more interviews with me.”

“That is not—” Jon started over. “I would like to go with Martin on any further interviews, if that’s agreeable.”

“I mean—that’s fine, and I certainly don’t want anyone going out alone,” Sasha answered, “but what about catching up with everything here? It seemed like you felt that was pretty important.”

“I’d like to keep doing that too. I might need to put in a few extra hours.”

Sasha sighed. “I was afraid you’d say that. Maybe? Let’s see how you’re doing next week.”

“Sasha, I’m—”

“—already worn out, and a very bad judge of your own health.” Martin nodded in agreement, and shrugged without sympathy when Jon glared at him. “For the rest of this week, if you come in, you’ll both stay here. Jon, you can keep going through my notes, and Martin—would you mind helping me catch up on some of the filing and patron requests? I don’t even want to think about how far behind we are. Those other interviews have waited this long, they’ll wait a few more days. Especially if Tim is able to help follow up with the police angle.”

“Of course,” Martin answered. Even if Jon didn’t think he needed to take it a little bit easy, Martin was more than willing to acknowledge his own limitations—and sometimes Jon’s, even if it wasn’t appreciated. “Oh, and Sasha—we’ve got therapy tomorrow morning, so we’ll probably be a little bit late.”

“Good,” Sasha replied. “And for now, don’t take any of those notes home, Jon.”

Jon stared daggers at Martin, but he didn’t regret it—especially not after Jon fell asleep on him on the couch during dinner a few hours later.

#the magnus archives #tma #mag pod #tma spoilers #jonmartin #tma fanfic #my writing

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not-a-space-alien · 4 years

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[Best attempt at] A summary of The Magnus Archives. Contains major spoilers up through the most recent episode (168: Roots).

A kind soul wrote this out for me and put it in my submissions box to help me understand the Magnus Archives. THANK YOU SO MUCH and SORRY it took me so long to publish this Dx

Major spoilers ahead for anyone else who wants to read!! But this helped me a lot and I feel like I could keep listening now! Thanks again!!!

Basic worldbuilding details: There are 14 extra-dimensional Entities that feed on fear (Eye, Web, Corruption, Stranger, Spiral, Hunt, Slaughter, End, Vast, Buried, Desolation, Lonely, Dark, Flesh). Various people serve them, and are trying to bring about apocalypses by bringing them into our dimension.

A Victorian guy named Jonah Magnus thought serving the Eye and bringing about its apocalypse would make him immortal. Through trial and error he learned that an Entity cannot be brought through alone, and he needs to bring through all 14 at once. To accomplish this, he needs to take someone (The Archivist) and have them experience EVERY entity - "experience" in this case means "be afraid it's about to kill them."

Until he manages that, he's been possessing various people over the years by means of sticking his own eyeballs in their heads. When the show starts he's possessing Elias Bouchard, Head of the Magnus Institute.

SEASON ONE: Jonathan Sims becomes the Head Archivist after Gertrude Robinson dies. He's set out to make audio copies of all the statements in the Archives, and he uses a tape recorder for the ones we hear because they won't record digitally. He has three assistants, Tim, Sasha, and Martin. He trusts Tim and Sasha but thinks Martin is incompetent.

Martin gets attacked by Jane Prentiss, who is infested by parasitic worms. Jon lets him live in the Archives because it's safer than going home. The worms start showing up around the Institute, but don't attack anyone (yet).

Sasha meets a man(?) named Michael and learns that the worms can be killed with CO2 gas. They start stocking up on fire extinguishers.

Two deliverymen named Breekon and Hope deliver a spooky table and a cigarette lighter with a spiderweb design on it to the Archives.

Jon smashes a hole in the wall of his office trying to kill a spider, and finds a network of tunnels under the Institute. The tunnels are filled with worms, which attack. Over the course of the attack, Jon and Martin bond a bit, Jon and Tim get partially eaten by worms (mark 1: Corruption), Martin finds Gertrude Robinson's corpse in the tunnels (she was murdered), Sasha gets killed and replaced by a monster that was bound to the spooky table (Not!Sasha), and Elias triggers the Institute's CO2 fire represent system, killing Prentiss. Jon swears to find out who murdered Gertrude if it kills him.

SEASON TWO: Paranoia time. The whole season is basically one long "who killed Gertrude" murder mystery, in which Jon suspects literally all of his coworkers. He works with Basira and Daisy, the two police officers assigned to solve the case, and starts to realize that Gertrude was deeply embedded in the supernatural world (and had access to explosives).

Major events include: Jon investigates the tunnels and doesn't find much. Martin frets a LOT, Jon thinks it's suspicious, but it's pretty clear that he just cares about Jon. It's also revealed that he lied on his CV, and isn't actually qualified for this job, hence his incompetence. Tim becomes very bitter about Jon suspecting him of murder and basically stalking him. Michael shows up again, traps a woman named Helen in a maze of unending corridors, and stabs Jon (mark 2: Spiral). Basira quits the police near the end of the season.

In the season finale, Jon realizes Sasha has been replaced and smashes the spooky table with an axe. This does not kill the monster, instead setting it free to try and kill HIM (mark 3: Stranger). Michael appears and offers him a door into his corridor maze to escape the Not!Sasha, and drops him in the tunnels to fend for himself. Martin and Tim try to find out what Jon's doing, and end up trapped in Michael's corridors themselves.

Jon is saved from the Not!Sasha by a man named Jurgen Leitner, who has a book that can move the walls of the tunnels around (he basically traps it in a wall Cask of Amontillado style). Leitner collected tons of these supernatural books, which are now called Leitners, and has been living in the tunnels for decades. Jon is convinced he's evil, but he reveals that he was working with Gertrude before she died and that Elias killed her. He begins to explain about the Entities, and the fact that Jon works for one (mark 4: Eye), but Jon leaves the room because he needs a cigarette. Elias appears and murders Leitner. Jon returns, finds the body, and flees.

Tim and Martin find their way out of the corridors, find the body, and call the police.

SEASON THREE: Jon is on the run from the police because they think he killed Leitner. He gives a statement about why he always hated Leitner. When he was a child, he found one of Leitner's books, which nearly got him eaten by a giant spider (mark 5: Web). His childhood bully got eaten in his place. Jon is living with his ex-girlfriend, Georgie, while he's in hiding.

Back at the Archives, Daisy (police detective) is convinced Jon is guilty of killing Leitner and Sasha. She's not looking for evidence, she just wants to catch him. Tim is also pretty sure he did it. Martin thinks he's innocent. Elias shows his first hint of supernatural powers by giving a statement about Daisy's first murder, which he just knows without her telling him.

Melanie takes a job at the Archives. She previously appeared to give a few statements. She's the former star of a ghost hunting YouTube show, and now has lost everything due to the circumstances of a few genuine encounters. She recently came back from a trip to India, where (as is revealed later) she was shot by a ghost soldier. She is friends with Georgie.

Basira visits the Archives to try to find Daisy, and runs off again looking for her when she realizes Daisy wants to kill Jon. Martin starts recording statements to "pick up the slack" while Jon's away.

Elias sends Jon statements while he's staying with Georgie, and in a bid to learn more about the supernatural he seeks out various servants of the Entities. Jude Perry nearly burns his hand off (mark 6: Desolation), Mike Crew nearly suffocates him by simulating the feeling of falling off a building (mark 7: Vast), and then Daisy catches him. Daisy kills Crew, and threatens to kill Jon (mark 8: Hunt), but Basira shows up and stops her. They drag Jon back to the Archives.

Everyone confronts Elias. We get confirmation that Jon can "compel" people (force them to answer his questions) but it doesn't work on Elias. Elias confesses to killing both Gertrude and Leitner. Everyone finds out Sasha was replaced during the Prentiss attack. Elias blackmails Basira into joining the Archives under threat of getting Daisy arrested; then turns around and blackmails Daisy into doing his dirty work in exchange for Basira's safety. He reveals that if he dies, or if the Archives are destroyed, anyone who works for the Institute dies too. Elias tells Jon he needs to stop the "Unknowing," which is a ritual the Stranger's servants are trying to complete to bring about the apocalypse.

Jon goes back to Georgie's; we find out she had an encounter with the supernatural when she was in university and now she literally cannot feel fear. Jon is confronted by Orsinov, a living mannequin that works for the Stranger. Orsinov tells him to find a taxidermied gorilla skin she needs for the Unknowing otherwise she'll kill him. He decides to go back to the Archives to get help, but on the way is kidnapped by Orsinov's goons. Orsinov says she's decided to use HIS skin in place of the gorilla one.

He's trapped for a month, and is eventually rescued by Michael, who reveals that he was one of Gertrudes's assistants before she sacrificed him to stop the Spiral's ritual. He wants to kill Jon, but as they are going into his corridors he is replaced by Helen (the woman he trapped in season two) who decides to drop Jon at the Archives instead.

Jon decides to follow in Gertrudes's footsteps to try and find the gorilla skin (to destroy it). He visits an Archive in China, and several locations in America. He is kidnapped by Julia and Trevor (Hunters) and gets on their good side. They let him talk to Gerry Keay (goth ghost that the fandom goes wild over). Gerry gives Jon the rundown on all of the fears, and explains a bit more about Gertrude. Jon agrees to release him from this world by burning a page of the book he's trapped in (this angers Julia and Trevor, which is important later). Jon goes back to England.

They find the gorilla skin in Gertrudes's old storage unit (and explosives), but it has been destroyed. Orsinov exhumes the bodies of Gertrude and Leitner to use their skin instead. There's a stretch of waiting where not much happens.

Jon, Tim, Basira, and Daisy go to a wax museum with Gertrudes's explosives to blow it up in the middle of the Unknowing. Martin and Melanie stay in the Archives to steal the tape with Elias's confession on it and get him arrested for murder.

At the Unknowing, Basira makes it out alive. Daisy kills Hope (one of the deliverymen from season one) but Breekon traps her in The Coffin (this has shown up in several statements before; it's an artifact of the Buried and traps people underground forever). Tim sets off the explosives and dies, while Jon ALMOST does in the same explosion. He ends up in a coma instead.

At the Institute, Martin distracts Elias while Melanie steals the tape. Elias taunts him about his feelings for Jon, then forces knowledge on him about how much his mother hates him (his mother's in a nursing home: caring for her is why he couldn't go to university and had to lie on his CV). Melanie succeeds in stealing the tapes and Martin barely restrains her from killing Elias.

Elias reveals that Jon is trapped in a nightmare realm where he constantly relives the statements of the people who have told them to him directly (not the ones that are written down). He is arrested, and Peter Lukas (servant of the Lonely) becomes the Interim Head of the Institute.

SEASON BREAK: Six months pass. Three major events occur: Martin's mother dies, Jared Hopworth (servant of the Flesh) attacks the Institute and is trapped in Helen's (Micheal's replacement) corridors, and Peter tells Martin that he'll protect the Institute from further threats if Martin works for him and isolates himself from everyone else. Martin, more than a little suicidal due to his mother's death and the man he loves being in a coma, agrees.

SEASON FOUR: Martin's plotline is revealed in drips and drabs throughout the season, and is easier to tell all at once. Basically, Peter convinces him that there's a 15th Entity, Extinction, that is about to emerge into the world and kill everything. This is based on research done by Adelard Dekker, one of Gertrudes's allies. Peter says that Martin is the only one who can stop it, because he has been marked by the Beholding and he is getting closer and closer to the Lonely as he isolates himself. This is enough of a threat that Martin sticks with his plan despite several opportunities to leave.

Jon's plot starts with Oliver Banks giving a statement in his hospital room and telling him he's too human to live, too much of a monster to die (mark 9: End). If Jon decides to stay human he will die; if he gives into the Beholding he will live. Oliver leaves; Jon wakes up. Georgie is disappointed that he gave into the Beholding, and walks away. Basira is cold and practical, following in Gertrudes's 'ends justify the means' logic. She is watching Jon closely, and prepared to kill him if he becomes dangerous. Melanie is boiling with anger and tries to attack Jon whenever they're in a room together.

Jon reads a Slaughter statement and knows (by supernatural means) that Melanie is becoming a servant of the Slaughter because the bullet that the ghost shot her with is still in her leg. He and Basira perform amateur surgery to get it out. Melanie stabs him in the shoulder (mark 10: Slaughter). She is, understandably, furious, but she becomes calmer as she heals and she starts going to therapy.

Breekon (the surviving deliveryman) drops off the coffin. Jon displays a new power by extracting a statement from him. He learns that Daisy is still alive, but trapped in the coffin. Basira leaves the Archives based on information from a "source" (Elias, though Jon does not know this yet). Jon learns that he can go into the coffin and get out again if he has an anchor to the real world. He tries to cut off his own finger, fails, and under Melanie's advisement finds Jared Hopworth (Flesh servant who attacked when he was in a coma) in Helen's corridors. Jared removes two of Jon's ribs (one to keep and one for Jon) and gives a statement (mark 11: Flesh).

Jon goes into the coffin (mark 12: Buried) and finds Daisy. She is much more clear-headed than before, because she has been separated from the Hunt for so long. Jon cannot feel his anchor (rib) at first, but the signal is amplified when Martin places a bunch of tape recorders on top of the coffin. Jon leads Daisy out, and both are extremely confused by all the tape recorders.

Jon and Basira find out that the servants of the Dark might be trying a ritual in Norway, and head off to stop them. On the way, Jon forces a sailor on the boat they're on to give a statement. Basira is disturbed, but doesn't try to stop him. (Back in the Archives, Martin hears from another person who Jon took a statement from, and is rightfully horrified.) In Norway, Jon and Basira learn that the Dark's ritual failed the same week Gertrude died, though there's still an artifact - the Dark Star - left from it. Jon destroys the Dark Star by literally just looking at it, though it nearly kills him (mark 13: Dark). Helen gives them a shortcut home through her corridors.

Martin leaves a tape of his conversation with the person Jon took a statement from on Basira's desk. Jon confesses that he's done this to five people. He promises not to do it again (from this point on, both he and Daisy grow weaker as they try to resist the Beholding and Hunt, respectively).

Jon, Basira, Daisy, and Melanie visit Hill Top Road (I cannot even begin to explain Hill Top Road, there's so much going on and there's no answers yet. Best I can say is it's been strongly affected by both the Web and the Desolation, and there seems to be some warping of reality in the basement.) They find a statement from Annabelle Cain (main servant of the Web) that's basically one long taunt to Jon about how the Web may or may not be orchestrating everything. Main takeaway from this is that once he starts reading a statement, he cannot stop.

Jon finds out how to quit the Institute, via an old tape from Gertrude. Her assistant, Eric Delano (Gerry Keay's father) escaped the Institute by gouging out his own eyes. Jon runs to Martin with this information and begs him to run away together, but Martin refuses. Jon tells Melanie, Daisy, and Basira. Melanie decides to act on this information, and puts her eyes out with an awl. She goes to live with Georgie, who she is dating by this point. Daisy and Basira stay in the Archives.

Season finale, Peter launches his plan. He and Martin head into the tunnels under the Institute. While down there, Peter frees the Not!Sasha and sends it to attack the Institute. He brings Martin to the Panopticon of Milbank Prison, and explains that Jonah Magnus's original body is still in the center of the Panopticon watching EVERYTHING. Elias shows up (he escaped from jail) and reveals that he IS Jonah Magnus. Peter says that Martin needs to kill Jonah's original body and take his place. From the Panopticon, he will be able to learn how to stop the Extinction (it will also trap him there forever). Martin realizes he's been manipulated and refuses, because even though the Extinction is a threat he doesn't want to sacrifice himself just so Peter can win against Elias. It is revealed that Peter and Elias formed a bet: if Peter could get one of the Institute staff to willingly join the Lonely, he would be allowed to kill Elias and take over the Institute forever. Since he failed (Martin is close to the Lonely but doesn't entirely serve it) he instead traps Martin in the Lonely, and then goes in himself.

Meanwhile, Jon finds out that the Extinction isn't as immediate a threat as he thought, and that Martin has gone with Peter to complete his plan. Jon tries to get help from Georgie, Melanie, and Helen, but all refuse. Basira and Daisy inform him that Elias escaped from prison, and they find a tape revealing that he is Jonah Magnus. All hell breaks loose at this point. Julia and Trevor (the Hunters from season three who he stole Gerry's page from) show up to try to kill Jon, and they run into Not!Sasha, which has escaped from the tunnels. Basira and Daisy tell Jon to run and help Martin. He does. Daisy makes the decision to lean into the Hunt again, and makes Basira promise to find her and kill her once it's all over. Basira agrees (unwillingly) and runs. Daisy attacks the Hunters and Not!Sasha.

Jon finds Elias at the Panopticon. Elias explains where Martin has gone, and Jon dives into the Lonely after him (mark 14: Lonely). Jon meets Peter in the Lonely, takes his statement, and kills him. He finds Martin and manages to save him.

Jon and Martin flee to one of Daisy's old safehouses in Scotland. Twenty-two days after they arrive, they receive a package that they think is from Basira containing a bunch of statements and tapes for Jon. Martin leaves to take a walk, and Jon reads a statement. It turns out to be from Elias (Jonah) explaining his whole plan with marking Jon with the Entities and various ways he manipulated events so that that would happen. Jon is unable to stop reading, and at the end of the statement is an invocation that brings all fourteen Entities through into the world. Martin makes it back to the safehouse, and they watch the world end together.

SEASON FIVE: Jon and Martin are still in the safehouse. Martin wants to leave and kill Elias, Jon wants to stay at least a bit longer to grieve the world. They could stay forever: they no longer need food, water, or sleep to survive. Jon's been constantly relistening to the tapes from the package that was delivered, and there's some backstory revealed in them: Gertrude had planned on Sasha being her replacement once she died, and had made a tape with all the information she would have needed to stay alive. She suspected that if the Entities came through into the world, they would be here to stay, and that things like space, time, and the laws of physics would stop working. There's also some nostalgic stuff with Tim and Sasha.

Jon gets hit with the knowledge that the safehouse is not actually safe, and is feeding on Jon and Martin's fear of losing each other. He and Martin agree to leave, setting out on a quest to kill Elias and try to save the world.

The structure of this new world is revealed: each fear has taken up a domain in which it is the primary source of fear for the people trapped in it, and Jon and Martin need to pass through all of them before they can get to the Panopticon and Elias. So far they've been through the Slaughter, the Corruption, the Stranger, the Buried, and the End. People are only dying in the End; in the others, there is no escape from the horror. Any time Jon gets too close to one of these domains he is overwhelmed by the fear and needs to give a statement about it. The first time, Martin just stuck his fingers in his ears, but since then he's been going on walks so he doesn't have to hear.

Annabelle Cain (Web) tries to call Martin via a payphone; he doesn't pick up.

Jon realizes he can know basically anything he wants to, and Martin asks him a series of questions, learning that: Daisy is Hunting between the domains; Basira is chasing her, planning to kill her but starting to doubt that; Melanie and Georgie are in London but he can't see them clearly; Elias is in the Panopticon; Jon and Martin are safe, traveling like they are; Jon can't see Annabelle AT ALL; and the world can be turned back if the fears are removed, but the fears can't be destroyed as long as there are people left to fear them.

Helen shows up to "check up on the happy couple" and try to make friends. Martin asks if her corridors can give them a shortcut to London, but Jon's powerful enough that he would hurt her if he tried to do that. She leaves.

They run into the Not!Sasha in the Stranger's domain. It threatens them, but cannot actually hurt them. It taunts them about Sasha, and Jon kills it. Martin is very impressed.

Helen shows up again, and explains that there are two roles people can take in this new world: afraid or feared. Jon has the ability to make something that is feared afraid, and doing so destroys the feared things utterly (this is how he killed Not!Sasha). Martin wants to go on a murder spree killing any monsters they come across; Jon does not. Helen leaves again.

While Jon is giving a statement Annabelle calls Martin on a cellphone. He answers, and she offers him help. He refuses and hangs up.

Jon reads Martin's mind and learns about the conversation with Annabelle. Martin is annoyed, and Jon promises not to do it again. They stop for a rest. Martin starts wondering about Gertrudes's past, and Jon launches into a statement about it: one of her assistants fell to the Web and killed a bunch of her other assistants, and Gertrude never trusted anyone after that. It is also revealed that if an Archivist dies, their assistants are free to leave the Institute without gouging out their eyes.

Jon and Martin are both disturbed by the statement and by the fact that neither of them could stop it. Jon explains that Gertrude would have lost purpose in the apocalypse without anyone to trust, and that Martin is giving HIM purpose. He also explains that all servants of the Entities have a domain in this new world. His is the Panopticon, and Martin DOES NOT want to know what his own is.

The most recent episode was the End's domain, run by Oliver Banks (the guy who woke Jon from his coma). This statement explained that the End is still killing people permanently, and there is no new life coming into this world; therefore, the End will eventually start stealing victims from other fears. This will ultimately deplete all human and animal life which will kill the Entities themselves and leave an empty universe.

UNADDRESSED TOPICS:

What do the Spiders want? It's surprisingly easy to leave out any traces of the Web's influence from this summary, but Jon is still carrying the cigarette lighter with the web design from season one and he doesn't seem to notice it, several important tapes he's found have been covered in cobwebs, and Annabelle is clearly targeting Martin.

Random plots that have less impact on the main story! This completely skips over characters like Mikale Salesa and Maxwell Rayner, and other oft-appearing but easily missed background people. If there are any in particular you're curious about let me know, but I don't THINK any of them are going to show up again.

Random plots that I don't know if they're going to have an impact on the main story! Agnes Montague, Gertrudes's assistants, everything with Hill Top Road - I have no idea what about their stories is going to be important from this point forward. Maybe everything, maybe nothing.

My askbox is always open if you've got any questions (@cirrus-grey). This is a broad summary that misses out a LOT of details!

#tma #the magnus archives #long post #spoilers #tma spoilers #the magnus archives spoilers #cirrus-grey #submission

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backofthebookshelf · 5 years

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some vintage season two magnus archives theories

(this is 1000% self-indulgence, ignore me)

Dec. 11, 2016 - I will bet you anything that [Jonathan (we always called him Jonathan back then)] had a serious run-in with a supernatural something early in life, and he’s…avoiding becoming the vampire-hunter guy, but only because he’s squeamish.

Dec. 16, 2016 - if grbookworm1818 is not someone at the Institute then nothing means anything / What do we think: Did Gerard kill his mother, or was she turning herself into a book and he just cleaned up the mess?

Dec. 29, 2016 - I kind of wonder if our antiquarian friend has any relationship to the guy in Amsterdam with the coffin. It can’t have been the same person, obviously - if nothing else it’s strongly implied that whatever was in the coffin ate that guy - but for some reason I keep expecting that story to come back, and not just Breekon & Hope.

Jan. 9, 2017 - Can we think of The Archivist as a title with meaning? I know Rusty Quill uses it to refer to Jonathan Sims the character since the writer decided to use his own name. But does it have in universe meaning as well?(@fedorasandstuff)

Jan. 11, 2017 - But the real question is…Are the tunnels under the archives also Michael? [Can't get 'em all right.]

Jan. 12, 2017 - Also of concern: I’ve been assuming for a while that some of the factions in whatever supernatural chess game/cold war is going on were assuming that Jonathan as Archivist was roughly on a par with Gertrude as Archivist (actually, I’m pretty sure that some of them are not totally clear on the difference between one human and another, but it amounts to the same thing), and Jonathan has basically just admitted to Michael that he has no fucking clue what’s going on, and if Gertrude meant to leave him anything, he didn’t get it. (Except possibly some kind of protection on the Archive itself, which may or may not be directly her influence.) And we still don’t know if Michael is part of a faction or what any of the faction’s goals might be, except that Michael thinks that “this place” has an interesting impact on things and it doesn’t want that to stop just yet. Basically Jonathan’s just lost a card he didn’t know he could have played, which is almost definitely not good. [At least we know Jon isn't trying to manipulate anyone, he couldn't if he tried.]

Jan. 12, 2017 - And I’m kind of screaming internally? I have a few more headcanons now, I suppose? But mainly, the lightless flame/closed eye cult, seems to have it out for anyone associated with the seeing eye (and also Gertrude Robinson). Considering that Johann von Württembergs tomb and book collection also had the seeing eye as a symbol, I wonder if the Magnus Institute is somehow connected to the seeing eye as well. I have no idea where I’m going with this, or if there is some connection, but yeah. (@flammenkobold) [There are literally two notes on this post, my like and my reblog]

Jan. 12, 2017 - But my strong suspicion is that most creatures in this universe, and Michael especially, are not one of a type, they’re their own thing. But I do think that we’ve seen more of Michael than is immediately obvious. (More to come as I progress through the re-listen, but abandoned houses are…definitely a thing.)

Jan. 12, 2017 - It would amuse me tremendously if the whole of the Magnus Institute boils down to a grant-generating machine for the Archives.

Jan. 13, 2017 - But Gertrude died literally THE DAY AFTER “Antonio Blake” came in to give his statement about his dream about her death…so who filed that statement? Was someone just cleaning up in preparation for the new Archivist and stuck it in a box? Or was someone else moving files around for some other reason after Gertrude’s death? [This one still hasn't been answered, wahey!]

Jan. 14, 2017 - I don’t think Gertrude was… arrogant enough, if that’s the word I want, to believe she’d live forever… unless there’s more going on with her than I’ve even begun to suspect. But she may have had a beginning Archivist box ready. (@fedorasandstuff)

Jan. 15, 2017 - [in response to a question about your favorite one-off character]: Julia Montauk. I love that she’s not in denial but she’s coping pretty well – both about her father being a serial killer and about the supernatural. She’s pretty sure there’s something fucked up going on above and beyond the serial murder, but she’s happy leaving it alone, thank you very much, she just wants to get it out of her head so that she can move on with her life. I hope she’s still doing well.

Jan. 16, 2017 - [notes on re-listening] I’m torn on whether the apparition Lensik sees in the house causes burning because Raymond Fielding died in a fire, or because it’s somehow connected to the what I’m referring to as the Fire Nation faction (see also: First Aid, Burnt Offering). / Honestly, Trevor is so damn cool that I’m willing to bet he never crops up again. / Is Jonathan being watched by the Beholders? (I’m becoming more convinced that the closed eye/open eye isn’t two different factions but two levels of the same faction: the bronze versus silver pendant would seem to support that.) / “I believe every word. I’ve seen what Leitner’s work can do.” Which, all things considered, is pretty strong stuff coming from Jonathan Sims. I wonder if it was a run-in with a Leitner that got him working for the Institute in the first place?

Jan. 17, 2017 - I was just thinking about the last episode and making myself sad because John was ready to physically fight Michael over Helen doesn’t even KNOW Michael took Sasha (@regulusly) #shit is gonna go DOWN when he finds out

Jan. 18, 2017 - You know, I’m starting to think that I really like Gerard Keay.

Feb. 3, 2017 - Is Jonathan’s sarcasm his only defense against the creeping influence of The Archivist in his life?

Feb. 9, 2017 - new theory: everyone working at the Institute is a pod person. They hire potheads and dropouts and people with weird academic backgrounds and as soon as they get close to anything real they get replaced by beings from an alternate dimension, just like Not!Sasha. They missed Tim because he was out on medical leave after the attack; it’s just a matter of time now. Martin’s secret is that he’s been working there since 2002 and kind of knows everything and is not yet a pod person.

Feb. 15, 2017 - Although what do they both expect? To find a tape where Gertrude says “No! Elias, you Fiend! You’ll never get away with it!” (@fedorasandstuff)

Mar. 1, 2017 - The new episode has me thinking again about the Observer - the presence in the Archives that Jonathan thinks has an opinion about what his opinion about statements is, also probably connected to the panopticon prison, the nurse who felt the thing watching her when Gerard Kaey was in the hospital, the open eye and/or the closed eye motif that keeps recurring, and whatever it was that caused Gertrude to cut the eyes out of pictures of people on her books. Specifically, it has me thinking about the observer effect - that sometimes things change when they’re seen. This is a major horror trope, although it’s not usually called out so directly: monsters that move only when you’re not looking at them, things that lose their power when they’re seen and named directly, things that can exist only in the darkness. (There’s a nice resonance with the Montorks for you.) Is there something Gertrude was doing that she didn’t want the Observer to know about, or that could only be done unseen? What is the Observer - is it a direct relic of the panopticon (it would make sense as a genius loci kind of like Michael) or was the panopticon built in response to it, or to summon it? Whose purposes does the Observer serve - is it allied with the Institute on the whole, or with any particular faction? Or is it like Michael in that it has its own purposes that everyone else has relatively little to do with? (That seems unlikely to me at this point; I think the Observer is one of the core story points of this season.) Is it watching for a reason, or does it watch simply so that things are seen and known? #the magnus archives #yep it's meta time #i'm becoming attached to the idea that the observer is there for the protection of the archivist #somehow

May 17, 2017 - As to the Archives and the structures it imposes…I’m starting to wonder if it isn’t just that the Archives won’t let them go, but if there is a specific set of roles that it needs filled. We know Gertrude didn’t have assistants, and I’m starting to suspect that that was intentional on her part. But what if the Archives doesn’t just latch onto people and refuse to let go of them? What if it needs there to be a skeptic, and a caretaker, and the paranoid one, and - is not!Sasha part of the Archives’ structure, or is she a disruption of it? I feel like finding out more about where not!Sasha comes from and what her goals might be will be a key turning point in our understanding of this whole mess.

June 15, 2017 - Theory for the finale: Jonathan goes down into the tunnels, gets himself in hopelessly over his head, Tim and Martin come to the rescue, not!Sasha is revealed

June 28, 2017 - I’m starting to wonder if the real division in the supernatural ecosystem isn’t between things that use humans as vehicles and things that don’t? [Hey, uh, are there Powers that don't have human Avatars? This might still be a thing.]

June 29, 2017 - I do like the idea that there are people who basically cannot be fucked with, but then - why go to the Archives? She isn’t interested in a followup, she isn’t trying to process anything, she’s just sharing data. That screams pod person to me: something is trying to get Jonathan’s attention.

#the magnus archives #i'm not that good at theories #this show is just this good at foreshadowing #not posted: a number of confused theories about the tunnels under the archives being connected to michael #i was really invested in that one for a while

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efortmanteau · 5 years

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TMA Headcanons

I sort of spoiled myself in terms of headcanons for The Adventure Zone, so now I try to finish/get caught up on podcasts and form impressions entirely in my head before introducing visual ideas via fanart. And lately I've been focusing on The Magnus Archives SOOOO here we go:

My headcanons for The Magnus Archives. A few were originally written after listening through s2. I've added my s3 thoughts below characters or in a new section. I'm only 3 episodes in to s4 so no spoilers after the end of s3.

Jon (I only recently discovered that there's no H in his spelling, whoops) aka The Archivist - Obviously Jon doesn't really have fun ever, so the main word I think of is 'austere.' He's a pale white guy with dark hair and greyish or brownish eyes who basically always dresses formally--collared shirts, slacks, maybe even vests, usually neutral colors. He's thin, but not fit--just the type of guy who doesn't put on weight since he doesn't focus much on food. Rectangular face, maybe has facial hair… I haven't decided, but if he does, it's like a goatee/mustache scenario that's always well trimmed. In my mind, he's young to mid 30s, but could look older. When he's scared or disshevelled though, he looks a lot younger. I think he's also kind of short, maybe 5'8", so he keeps really good posture to make up for it. Ben Whishaw is almost right, but he'd have to be homelier. S3 updates: Not really any? Although apparently it's Jon without an H. I've confirmed that he looks older than he is since the spider picturebook episode (which I would love Don Hertzfeld to animate, perhaps with assistance from Jules Feiffer who is 90 gd years old… that episode is so vivid in my head). Also I forgot Jon has worm… scars? Pock-marks? Not sure how that works, but you probably don't see them much, given I can't imagine him in short sleeves or shorts, although maybe he has a few on his neck visible pretty frequently, above collars. I'm was pleased to learn he is canonically asexual, but not all that surprised. Something about the way he interacted with Georgie in her apartment had me wondering… maybe it reminds me of me and my ex (I'm the asexual one, my ex isn't, but we still get along).

Martin - I immediately imagined Marty (Terry Gross Waters-Waters SAT tutor in Gayle) when I learned more about soft, sweet lad Martin, so Matty Cardarople has always kind of been in my head. That is probably just a similar name situation, but it's kind of perfect. Since Martin said he wasn't the smallest of guys but still made it into a basement window, I imagine he's kind of tall and chubby, but doesn't seem tall, slouchy, not the most confident person. Sort of a Neville Longbottom situation (before the glow-up). I think somewhere between Matty and Nick Robinson is around the correct appearance: a little more clean shaven and formally dressed than Matty often is with shorter hair (but still flippy), but softer than Nick is. This guy wears sweaters a lot. I guess he's canonically 29 at the end of s1--I had imagined him in his mid 20s somewhere, but I guess he was pretending to be older since he claimed he had a master's degree. S3 updates: Martin is probably the one who was most easy for me to imagine. I never really thought of his fixation on Jon to be a crush, which I'm really intrigued by in terms of character development. I was parsing it more of Martin being a bit of a subservient character, that he was like that to everyone in the office, but we only saw it from Jon's POV as the primary narrator. If I do a re-listen, I'll be very interested to pick out some Martin/Jon moments now that I have a different context.

Sasha (or maybe Sascha) - I sort of had Sally Donovan from BBC's Sherlock in mind initially. I tried to stray away from that and looked up "half black actress." I picked out Zawe Ashton without even realizing that she had in fact played Sally (in one episode, so not her main actress) because of her hair and skin and the fact that her face is pleasant, but not the typical hyper-button baby doll face that some actresses have. Sasha has natural hair with light curls (sometimes straightened). I originally pictured a small afro, but I think in s2, they refer to her as having long hair, so I guess not? I'm also not clear if that was Not-Sasha imitating her, or just straight up not looking like real-Sasha at all. She's slim, pretty posh/minimalist in style--grey herringbone peacoat, umbrella, boots. I imagine she's half Russian heritage-wise, since is a common Russian diminutive for Aleksandra. I would put her in the 25-27 age range. S3 updates: I caught on to Not-Sasha (partially because I saw the name in the voice actor credits, whoops), but I think I also caught something in Lottie's flat affect that clued me in. I thought that the imposter was just good at disguise, not that people had been cursed to forget what real Sasha looked like, so Melanie's introduction and take on Sasha/Not-Sasha threw me off a bit. I don't remember if the "long hair" comment was for real- or Not-Sasha. But I don't have any headcanons about Not-Sasha… just that she looks nothing like the original.

Tim - In my head Tim is the tallest main character, maybe 6'2", and pretty fit. He's imposing at first glance, but since he's so congenial and laid back (at least in s1 before Jon totally pisses him off) everyone who knows him knows he's a nice, fun guy. He's black, with fairly dark complexion, short hair, clean shaven. He probably wears sweaters too, but like… the thinner kind. None of this bulky knit from grandma that Martin rocks. I first think of Alan from Russian Doll (Charlie Barnett), but darker, just black instead of more mixed. I'd say he's around Jon's age. S3 updates: RIP in pepperinos. I guess him being fit is not unreasonable since he is… canonically? (does Alex and Jonny joking about it make it canonical) an outdoorsy adventurer. I certainly missed his friendly nature, but my headcanons didn't really change. He just looked a lot more tired up until the end of s3.

Elias - He is older than the rest of them, I would guess in his 40s or 50s, but given that it's canon that he rose in the ranks kind of quickly, maybe he's not that old after all. I don't really have a good mental picture of him, maybe because I can't differentiate his voice from John's a lot of the time until I piece the context together. In my mind he has a beard and mustache though, kind of full, and maybe dirty blonde hair that's greying a bit. S3 updates: I wouldn't be surprised if he carried a cane that was actually a sword or a gun (I'm American, so having a gun seems very easy to me, so I'm not sure if that would be rare in England). Also, did I hear something about having a grey bun? Maybe I'm completely confusing it with something else, but I'm chuckling about man bun Elias.

Michael - Well, he isn't human… but he looks kind of like a really pale guy who is mishapen and thus wearing a lot of clothing at first glance? He probably wears a lot of clothes so you can't really make him out under the trench coat, scarf, hat, etc. (I might be confusing him with someone else). I think it's canon that his hands are large and maybe have too many bones. For some reason, Michael reminds me of tourmalinated quartz--black and white for the most part, striations cutting through the clearer crystal--sort of like a metaphor for how he kind of… dimension hops? Ends up where he isn't supposed to? I imagine striations of his appearance sort of blip in and out when you look at him based on the static he causes on recordings. S3 updates: I now know that he was an assistant to Gertrude. I guess my idea of his human form is basically the same color and demeanor, just not other-worldly in proportions and bone count. Probably the tall gangly type of white guy. ALSO I guess he's kind of Helen now…? I'll do a separate one for Helen.

---BREAK to add characters I didn't write about until the end of s3---

Basira - I assume she is a Muslim woman, based on her name. I imagine she wears a hijab. I picture her as Middle-Eastern, perhaps Iranian, but she could also be black (there are a fair amount of black Muslims in America, not sure if it's common in England). Other than the hijab, she's not very feminine in her styling. Being on the force probably means you want pretty functional, utilitarian garments. I don't remember if she talked in great detail about how she joined the police, whether it was straight from school, but in my mind she's late 30s.

Daisy - I think I recall she has a back tattoo? She's a murderer so she has a tough air about her, but she's also a subtle murderer, so nothing about her screams that she's dangerous… you just get that feeling, you know? I imagine a white lady, short blonde hair, blue eyes. Kind of like Brienne of Tarth, but more plain than ugly. She's maybe early to mid 40s. I'm not sure if her relationship with Basira is supposed to be romantic or not. I kind of prefer this weird closeness that doesn't always equate to trust given their specific experiences. Regardless, I imagine they are around the same age.

Melanie - Melanie is probably the youngest, early to mid 20s. Typical build and height, maybe a little chubby, but not unable to climb fences or anything (gotta hunt them ghosts). She has a short, asymmetrical bob, dark hair, but part is dyed a bright color of pink, purple, maybe green. I imagine she has a go-to windbreaker that has some neon colors.

Helen - I'm so sad that we had to lose Michael to gain Helen. I really love the Spiral and the characters we've met who are involved with them. Helen in my mind was a badass realtor, ready to close a deal, very driven… and that carried over into becoming SpiralHelen. She sort of outsmarted it with the locked door, didn't she? I can't imagine that's very common for humans/avatars to get the better of their entities. She seems really strong willed, so I'm excited to see where she goes as a human who is becoming an avatar. I think her personality translates into her being 40-something but like lowkey hot? She probably rocks a suit with a skirt in bold colors that men's wear usually doesn't offer (all over red suit, tailored to her, pumps, straight brown hair, nice makeup). I'm not sure how the Spiral would affect her… maybe her angles just get a little more pronounced? She's probably not yet to the point of disfiguration that Michael was anyway.

Georgie - She is like a terrier who will bark at a big dog because they don't know to be afraid of it (or… how to be afraid of it, in her case). She is short, 5'2" or less (I just remembered that a lot of the listeners probably use metric measurements, so sorry for that, but I'm not going to bother converting). I imagine she is cute--she dresses up for her dates to Hungarian restaurants (my favorite detail omg girl get it) and wants to look hot, but really she can't get away from cute. Brown curly hair, big brown eyes, button nose. But resting bitch face… gotta ward off those catcalls and get taken seriously somehow.

Jergen? I can’t spell, it’s Jurgen - Jowly white guy. Wispy caramelly colored hair that's going white. Probably pretty tall, which I'm sure what an annoyance in those tunnels.

Gertrude - At first glance, just some old white lady. But after you get to know her, you realize she can probably murder you and is nowhere near as frail as you think. Curly, wiry grey hair.

#tma #the magnus archives

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computerguideworld-blog · 5 years

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How Game Of Thrones Ends Based On Computer Simulations

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How Game Of Thrones Ends Based On Computer Simulations

We love Game Of Thrones, but it’s not without its flaws. So we ran a 100-percent accurate simulation to see how the story would have played out if the characters didn’t spend half their time sleeping around, torturing each other, and talking about their feelings. The highly advanced technology we used was Nintendo’s Advance Wars: Dual Strike, a 2005 video game about anime characters fighting with tanks.

No gratuitous boobs in this, but we’re sure somebody on the internet has fixed that by now.

We created a map, let the game’s artificial intelligence run amok, and watched as years of rambling storytelling were ruthlessly condensed into 38 minutes of all-out warfare. We also got drunk, watched porn, and grew beards, for maximum authenticity.

So here’s Westeros, which most of you know better than your own country:

And here’s our perfect 1:1 recreation:

*Play for full effect*

The Starks and their allies are red, the White Walkers are blue, and the Lannister-Tyrell alliance is green. Dorne and the Freys’ Twins start off neutral, while Stannis is cut because being overlooked is his lot in life. The Iron Islands are represented on the side, but the Greyjoys aren’t, because the only thing they’ve achieved in five seasons is one very uncomfortable fingering scene, and that can’t be recreated on a Nintendo console until Bayonetta 3 is released.

Across the ocean is Essos, where Daenerys (yellow) has spent five years yelling about slaves while acting entirely with her impressive eyebrows. Here’s her part of the world:

Mother of dragons, first of her name, breaker of chains, protector of pixels.

Now we need to create the Advanced Wars equivalent of 20,000 bearded men who want to kill each other. Game Of Thrones has more political factions than most real countries: Starks, Lannisters, Baratheons, Tyrells, Martells, the Night’s Watch, white walkers, wildlings, the Targaryens, the dozens of interchangeable one-dimensional villains Daenerys has butchered, rogue actors like Littlefinger, that kid who’s way too old to be breastfeeding, and on and on and on. But because most of them are ultimately irrelevant — just like in real life — so we’re chopping this story down to the essentials. First up are the Starks, whose 18,000 men were mostly peasants with pointy objects. So assuming each unit represents 2,000 men, here’s what Robb’s forces look like:

“Nine’s more than enough to invite to a wedding, right?”

The thing that looks like a duck with wheels represents his mounted units, while the soldiers carrying poster rolls / RPG launchers are his knights. And just to his north is a horde of white walkers, which we’ll assume have overrun the wildlings. As for Team Lannister, they start with 20,000 well-trained and equipped soldiers, as well as a small navy …

… while Daenerys has 8,000 Unsullied, 2,000 mercenaries, other miscellaneous soldiers, and three dragons represented by stealth bombers. See, our high-end simulation technology is flawless.

Right down to the dragons’ baffling decision to not simply eat every fleshy human and rule the planet their damn selves.

Snow falls as the war begins, and the very first thing the Starks do is march 2,000 men north to Castle Black and kill 1,000 white walkers.

“You know murder, Jon Snow.”

Fuck. Yes. The walkers were teased from the very first scene of the very first episode, only for 47 more hours to pass before Jon killed a single one. But there are no stories about incest and long shots of people walking endlessly through the wilderness here. The Starks get down to business, taking the walker threat seriously and acknowledging that having the realm’s only line of defense against a terrifying supernatural horde be a collection of poorly-trained rapists isn’t a great idea. While Jon immediately starts the war we’ve been waiting for since episode one, Robb marches the rest of his troops toward the Twins.

It’s amazing the progress you can make in a war when you don’t wait for all your soldiers to die first.

In the show, the Lannisters dealt with their enemies mostly via political machinations and cunning plots. But our Lannister AI said to hell with all that. They also march on the Twins, as well as sending Jaime and Bronn with 4,000 men to take Dorne by force …

… and two assassins equipped with wildfire (represented by remote bombs) straight at the heart of Dany’s forces.

Where, in keeping with the law of the land, they stop and wait while other people do shit.

Dany, meanwhile, sends one team to take Qarth while the rest of her troops march on Meereen, condensing four seasons of wandering and whining into one bold move.

Fire cannot kill a dragon, but boredom can.

So to recap, after a single day of combat, Jon is in charge of the Night’s Watch and leading the battle against the walkers (which, on the show, happened in season five), Robb is at the Twins (season two), Dany’s taking Qarth (season two) and Meereen (seasons three through five), while the Lannisters and Tyrells are actively engaging both of them with actual military tactics (season hasn’t-happened-yet). But while our simulation is cutting the show’s fat, it retains its flair for sudden and dramatic deaths. Sorry, Kit Harington groupies, but the light goes out of Jon’s beautiful doe eyes on Day Two.

“For the article.”

He exploded, and then his corpse vanished, so there’s no convenient resurrection or Jesus metaphors for him. But he takes thousands of walkers with him, and it fulfills something Jon predicted in the show — that the Night’s Watch could survive one night of attacks, but not two. Things go better for the Starks south of the Wall, as Robb, free from the sexy distractions of Charlie Chaplin’s granddaughter, begins his conquest of the Twins.

Amazing what you can get done when you keep your Little Tramp all zipped up.

No sooner do the Starks lay claim than the Lannisters massacre 2,000 of them in a single gruesome day. In no dimension is holing up with Walder Frey a good move.

“The Lannisters send their fuck yous.”

Meanwhile, their wildfire-armed assassins bring Dany’s dragons to the brink of death, and they wipe out three-quarters of her Unsullied in the process — a tactic that is shockingly more effective than one glass of bad wine and Jorah Mormont’s fickle boner.

The Unsullied’s nonexistent boners were simply no match.

Dany responds by merging her dragons into one three-headed terror with some horrible arcane magic and then, ugh, retreating to Meereen and Qarth to rebuild / sit around and grimace. So just like in the show, we get one awesome dragon moment, followed by a whole lot of nothing.

With pixels, it was too hard to tell if she shit herself this time.

On the third day of conflict, the Lannisters and the Starks start their epic battle …

… while the white walkers seize Castle Black. We’re three episodes into the Nintendo DS version of Game Of Thrones, and while there are no tits (a feature we are supplementing by browsing “Busty Asian Beauties” while the simulation runs), everything else is way more awesome.

Aside from Joffrey still running amok instead of choking on poison and vomit.

On the following day, Daenerys flies her hydra-dragon over Dorne, an important world event the Starks and Lannisters completely fail to take note of because they’re too busy massacring each other.

Had the real Daenerys thought of this, George R. R. Martin could’ve moved on to not finishing a whole other series years ago.

Jaime and Bronn’s troops capture Dorne by standing on it, which is slightly more realistic than the fights they got into there in the show:

“First take, nailed it. Cut!”

The Starks are forced to give up ground at the Twins to hold the Wall …

… while Dany’s King Ghidorah kills 200 of Jaime and Bronn’s men.

You make Jaime fight without Brienne constantly saving his ass, and look what happens.

Despite all the awesome action happening elsewhere — a three-headed dragon attacks a city held by two fan favorites — the camera decides to focus on Meereen, where absolutely nothing occurs. Huh, it’s weird that season five’s storylines play out exactly the same in both versions. It’s a great tactic, though — Dany announces her intimidating presence to Westeros with an attack on the one stronghold that resisted her distant ancestors. That will get her more support than five years of sitting around and grumbling ever could.

Over the next few days, the Starks hold Castle Black but lose the Twins to the superior numbers and resources of the Lannisters, Dany expands her holdings in the East, and Jaime and Bronn flee Dany’s dragon, which moves on to harassing Highgarden. The Starks are confined to the North, but there’s a glimmer of hope — the Lannisters land 4,000 men at the Wall, in an apparent sign that they’re willing to put aside their differences and battle the Walker horde …

… Kidding! The Lannisters immediately attack the Starks, right in front of the horde of ice monsters that want to kill them all and rule their corpses. Which is absolutely what a bitter, vengeful, and drunk Cersei would do. For her, it’s better to see the world destroyed than to see her enemies succeed. And all their attack does is benefit the walkers, as there are now even fewer good men standing between them and civilization.

If you can’t trust an incestuous, murdering wino, who can you trust?

With that incredibly destructive act, everyone in the Seven Kingdoms must be cheering for Daenerys’ dragon to slay the short-sighted Lannisters and save Westeros. So it’s a bit anti-climactic when the exhausted dragon runs out of energy, crashes, and dies. Maybe don’t take your storytelling cues from this particular event, George.

The dragon is exactly how Martin feels after writing more than ten words a day.

Still, Daenerys soldiers on, taking most of Essos with good old-fashioned soldiers alone.

No Unsullied victory teabaggings, cause, you know …

The Starks and the Watch successfully repel the Lannisters in the North, while in the South, Moat Cailin continues to hold out remarkably well (just like in the show). But their numbers are depleted, which means …

… the white walkers are south of the wall for the first time in 8,000 years, and we’re still in season one. The Lannisters are able to occupy Winterfell, the seat of their most hated enemy, but it’s a Pyrrhic victory. The walkers soon push them out and seize the North, and with the new resources available to them, they start fielding tanks. We shall assume these tanks are undead. Thanks a lot, Cersei.

Shame! Shame! Shame!

Arya may have escaped and Sansa is probably being sexually assaulted somewhere, but otherwise, the Starks are dead. The last hurrah by the North is a screaming kamikaze attack on the walkers led by Ramsay Bolton — an oddly heroic yet sufficiently crazy way for the show’s most hated character to make his exit. The Lannisters and walkers begin fighting, while Dany builds boats, lands her vanguard, and finds the southern half of Westeros almost completely undefended.

Everyone was distracted while mourning the tragic death of the guy who castrated dudes and raped girls.

She immediately marches on King’s Landing and defeats the remainder of Jaime and Bronn’s weary soldiers.

Sisters and prostitutes everywhere are inconsolable.

Jaime dies in the city he saved, at the hands of the daughter of the madman he saved it from. It’s a dramatically satisfying conclusion to his character, and it begins the great Targaryen-Lannister-Frost-Monster War. The Lannisters are able to rally their troops and defend King’s Landing, but at too much of a cost. The white walkers march to the Twins and start slaughtering them. It’s unclear if the dying soldiers are able to grasp the narrative irony and thematic significance of being massacred there.

“The Braaaaains Of Castamere.”

Dany lands additional troops and makes another attempt at King’s Landing, and the Lannisters are unable to fight off her naval assault — as they did Stannis’ on the show — because they blew their wildfire on their assassination attempt. On Day 22 of the conflict, Daenerys captures King’s Landing:

With the Mother of Ghidorah on the Iron Throne, the Lannister and Tyrell armies disband and their cities declare their loyalty to the new Queen. At this point, the walkers have overrun the North, but Daenerys has the heartland of Westeros and the combined might of Essos behind her. It’s numbers versus resources, with the only question being how efficiently those resources will be used. So it’s the fight the show has been hinting at for years, reached in under half an hour of simulation time.

The “Previously On Game Of Thrones” intro will be nothing but an ad for the one-disc complete series DVD.

To avoid being overrun, Dany immediately retreats to build her forces and otherwise sit around doing nothing, because while you can take the queen out of the shitty plotline, you can’t take the shitty plotline out of the queen. But Daenerys’ decision also highlights her ruthless side: She lets King’s Landing fall to the white walkers, the entire capital city slaughtered and zombified merely so she can rally her troops.

We’re starting to think she might hold a grudge.

But it works. The Queen gets her army, lines it up along the banks of the Trident — where the Targaryen dynasty fell in the first place after Daenerys’ older brother died in battle — and now she’s either going to restore her family’s name or doom the land to a reign of endless darkness.

Or spend three more seasons sitting around debating which is better.

It’s the final epic struggle, with every character who’s survived to this point putting aside their differences to battle a supernatural threat to their very species. Turns out they don’t need a dragon at their backs, because the true dragon … is teamwork.

The battle takes almost as long as the rest of the war combined, but Daenerys does it. They retake King’s Landing. Fictional humanity is saved!

“It’s Queen’s Landing now. Any objections? No, didn’t think so.”

From there, she drives the white walkers back beyond the Wall, then marches into the far North and topples their frozen stronghold. The Seven Kingdoms are reunited, and their greatest threat is destroyed.

Her traditional warrior garb of a red ball cap, power suit, and half-undershirt struck mortal fear into her enemies.

Oh, and Bran got eaten by zombies at the start of all this, because no one cares about him.

The end!

So there you have it. The dragons are a paper tiger, and Dany will become Queen not through their power, but by giving Westeros what it’s lacked for so long: a ruler willing to unite people against true evil. Jon will give his life fighting the white walkers. Jaime will die trying to redeem himself in the eyes of the people he loves. The Lannisters, in their arrogance, will fail to learn from the mistakes of the Starks. History repeats itself, as the final battle occurs on the same ground where this conflict began years ago. And, most importantly, a decade-old Nintendo game can tell an epic story more efficiently than a big-budget HBO series.

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