#thinking about how elias looked at jon as a blessing from the web about his plan and how. I think it was ofc meant to look like that

[ashes-in-a-jar]

Tma relisten Episodes 16-20

Things are picking up! Martin is gone, we meet some Flesh statements with all of their disgusting glory, finally find a skeptic (pretending more like) Jon in Vittery's case and then the story of father Edwin...

A warning, the last two episodes here are a confusing mess of thoughts that I have no energy to orginized so you're welcome to read but beware to remain confused. And add your feedback if you want. I'd love to understand what the hell father Edwin was going through.

16 Arachnophobia

Things are picking up. Oh boy vittery is here!

His description of his fear of spiders kind of reminds me of my experience as an emetophobic. I can read about it, watch it on camera (cringing but still can) but near me? Nope.

Major Tom! Love the pet naming system Jonny came up with.

"Our building had acquired something of an infestation of some sort of insect I didn’t recognise - small, silvery worms, almost like maggots, but slightly longer -" uh oh Jon. Jane is already there. I stand by my theory that the web set up vittery's case where Jane was because they wanted the institute to eventually come in contact with her. Specifically the Archivist. Another way the Web helped mark Jon to help bring the apocalypse.

Pfft his whole interaction with major Tom in this story is sending. "go get that spider" Major Tom "no I don't think I will" and saunters off never to be seen again.

Why are his descriptions of spiders so graphic my god. He likes to dwell on his phobia way too much for his own well-being.

Nice aim with the coffee mug. Especially while panicking.

Don't you just hate that you get used to your phobia because a worse version of it comes up? He managed to kill little spiders no problem from then on and I just... Feel for him so much.

"Can you be haunted by the ghost of a spider that destroyed your childhood?" oh. That one must have hit Jon hard right where it hurt.

"I officially gave Major Tom’s paperwork to the family on the ground floor he decided to move in with" lol cat live be that simple.

Commenting on Jon's hard denial specifically of this case and even thought there is so much obvious evidence supporting the supernatural. Just alot of suppressing fear on Jon's part. I feel so bad for him.

"But as I told Martin earlier, he was there for over a week, so there is very likely a perfectly natural explanation for the fact that his body was completely encased in web" sure. Told Martin. Betting it was a full blown argument from which Martin stormed off to prove him wrong. Jon please get your act together.

17 the boneturners tale

Ah Jared my man making his appearance. The bully next door who picks up and becomes a victim (in a way) of a Lietner instead of the statement giver. Where have I heard that one before...

Michael crew checked out the bone book huh. Saw the Flesh and was like mmm nope not this one either.

Archivist interrupted! We don't get much of these later on, when statements become way more compelling and can't be stopped in the middle.

Ewww and the first other institute staff we get is Elias. The sound mixing is really weird he sounds so strange lol. He hasn't polished his 'I'm an even more posh version of Jon' voice yet.

He takes live statements when Rosie's equipment doesn't work? So basically all of the supernatural ones that want to talk and not write. Those are always more special than the ones written. The statement giver felt the need to talk to someone not just write impersonally.

Elias asks about Martin. Once again fuck you Jonah.

Also Martin is missing the story is picking up! I saw at the end that he was in charge of follow up for this, a library statement. Was probably fun for him seeing he's an ex library worker.

"Blessed relief" no Martin he doesn't really mean that.

Jared experimenting on everything including small animals and his own family is all sorts of bad.

"All I remember clearly is the line “and from his rib a flute to play that merry tune of marrow took”." he took a rib and used it to whistle. Jared took Jon's rib and in 171 he whistles. Hmmmmm

So either reading the book did end up killing the guy or Jared eventually caught up with him. Either way poor soul.

18 the man upstairs

Not alot to say about this one except I oddly really like it, my first listen and now. Something about how gross it was really fascinated me. And boy it's super gross.

The meat creature in the end has eyes! Is it eye aligned in a way? Interesting...

Was this an attempted mini ritual of a sort to bring a meat creature into the world? Did it work? Perhaps that creature housed whet used to be Toby Carlisle who left his original body to become this thing.

Btw Archivist has lunches confirmed!

19+20 confession + desecrated host

The only double statement we have ever. A very unusual thing but also Jon explains it that the second half was misfiled nearby and perhaps was taken out and put back haphazardly. By who? Gertrude looking up. Rituals? Jonah looking up multiple entity rituals? Very ominous.

I feel so bad for father Edwin he really didn't deserve what happened to him.

I'll be honest i wasn't really listening to this one the first time. I was busy doing something else and always tended to half listen to exorcism horror. This is facinating to me as if I'm first hearing it.

Its interesting how Jon records his inability to utter words of belief. Also was this an interview? If so, where is the recording. He couldn't have written like how Jon was stuttering at those words. I need a clarifying answer about these and why Jon needed to record an audio of it when clearly there should be a recording of an old live statement.

It wasn't about God the fact that he couldn't say it anymore. It was about his comfort and denying it.

I think the first thing that marked him was the Slaughter. But now listening to it, it seems like what possessed Bethany moved into his mind because it want to suck out and replace faith and father Edwin had much more of it. How does one replace faith? Introducing the faithful to all the fears. It didn't really work tho since he stubbornly remained faithful.

This nurse Annie figure sent him in the direction of both Bethany and Hilltop Road which makes me very suspicious of her.

“I am not for you. I am marked.” oooh first time hearing those words. Perhaps the entity or what wanted to bring them about refusing to give him to the Desolation?

“Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.” the entities talking? Or warning father Edwin of his fate? Still sound alot like the Slaughter.

So when he leaves to walk the streets to the place he performs the religious service after being told all of his sins by something pretending to be father Singh, I count the Distortion, the Lonely, Stranger, Corruption? And flesh.

This one is still confusing as hell, I was surprised by breekon and hope's appearance in the end, having been the ones who delivered the stole.

Maybe the entities were trying to collaborate to create a religion of their own? Trying not to enter the world separately as a whole being but living in it as worshipped gods?

Whatever they were they decided to exclude the Desolation and the web from the project since they definitely didn't like Hilltop Road.

#tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #jared hopworth #tma the flesh #Tma hiatus liveblog #Im sorry for the mess

[indebetou-ghost]

I don’t know how I feel about this, but it’s my first attempt at anything involving actual TMA characters, so we all have to start somewhere. (That Lonely Eyes is coming soon)

          86 – Jonmartin – I’ll Walk You Home

       The Institute was quiet, save for the soft squishing noises that accompanied Jon’s every step. It sounded like his shoes were full of water, like he was stepping in mud, but no; that wet noise came from the hundreds of dead worms littering the floor of the institute- the rooms and the halls alike- that Jon was trying very hard to avoid stepping in, but one simply can’t accommodate for the worm-to-floor ratio when moving. It would involve copious amounts of tiptoeing, and though the Institute was mostly empty, he didn’t quite want to lower himself to that.

       It was definitely past closing hours, and Jon told Elias that he would go home just to get the man off his back, but in reality he didn’t really want to leave. The Institute felt like it was in safety limbo, as it were. It shouldn’t have felt safe, given that at any moment, any worm could slither back to life and deign to embed itself into Jon’s flesh like the rest of its kin seemed to enjoy doing. The Institute was full of worm corpses. It shouldn’t be safe, and yet-

       Yet it felt like the only safe place in the world, purely on virtue of surviving the whole ordeal. If the Institute could fortify itself against an eldritch horror of worm-like proportions than surely it could hold its own against any threat. Jon felt like his home just didn’t have that same quality. Sure, it was worm-free, always had been, but… it didn’t have the same warding atmosphere the Institute had. The Institute felt ominous on the best of days, but it also felt enveloping, beckoning. Nowhere else in the world felt like that right now.

       Still. Elias would have his head if he stayed in the Archives, so Jon made to leave.

       And on a stairwell that was remarkably free from worms, he saw Martin Blackwood.

       He looked about as tired as Jon felt, and the effect of exhaustion seemed to make the man physically droop. Shoulders slouched, slightly curled in on himself, even his hair, which was generally comprised of bouncy golden curls, was almost wilting. The day had taken a toll on everyone, after all. Jon was sure he looked a lot worse.

       “Hi, Jon,” Martin said, a few steps up. Jon had to crane his neck to look him in the face. “You heading home too?”

       “I… suppose I am, yes.” He replied. He climbed a few steps, and when he was level with Martin, the two of them wordlessly began walking together. It was more a solidarity thing than anything else, Jon reasoned. The loyalty of co-workers, monster-based trauma notwithstanding. Corridors passed, and the worms gradually started becoming more and more scarce. The silence became the air, and the air became silent, until Martin Blackwood seized the opportunity to break it.

       “This’ll be the first time I’ll be in my flat again since the whole Prentiss thing started.” He mused, voice rising above the silence. Jon probably should have spent less time thinking about the fact that words had been said, and more time thinking about the words, because by the time he responded, it was a beat too late for it to feel natural.

       “Oh, I suppose that’ll be… nice.” Oh, very eloquent. It was the exhaustion, and the will to be polite. He didn’t think either of them had the energy to be anything but civil right now, anyway, but Martin continued talking as if Jon had said something worth responding to.

       “I guess. It’s been more than a month. It’ll probably be dusty. God know what state my houseplants’ll be in.”

       “Better dusty than wormy.” Jon said, mostly without thinking. Martin actually huffed out a chuckle at that.

       “I’m pretty sure I’d prefer anything to the worms right now. I’d take spiders any day of the week.”

       “I think I’d settle for the worms out of those two options, actually.”

       “Spiders aren’t everyone’s cup of tea,” Martin smiled. The smile was quickly followed by a sigh, and the Institute door was in view. “Sometimes I think I see worms out of the corner of my eyes, you know? Even when it’s just light moving, or a cigarette butt on the footpath, or… just a bit of dust on the wind. At least now we know they’re all gone. Well, most of them are gone. Some could still be wriggling around, heaven forbid.”

       Jon hummed in affirmation, a quiet yes, and they were out into the night air. A far different chill to the bone-deep cold of the institute. At the end of their walk side by side, Martin turned to face Jon.

       “Right, well, safe home, Jon. Have a good night.”

       “Wait, Martin,” Jon found himself saying, and Martin took an aborted step forward before turning back to Jon.

       “What is it?”

       God, this was stupid.

       “Would you- that is, if you don’t mind, ah- can I walk you home?”

       Jon could feel the surprise radiating off Martin, and quickly backpedalled. “I-if you don’t want me to that’s fine, but, see, the thing is, after the worms I don’t think I-” Jon sighed and restarted mentally, went back, rewrote the sentence in his head. “I’d prefer not to walk alone, for a while. Just until I’m… far enough away from the institute. Is that alright?”

       Jon really didn’t expect Martin’s look of surprise to change into something more pleased, but he smiled something far too warm and happy to have come from today, and he nodded. “That’s- It’d be more than alright. I’d be glad for the company.”

       They walked.

       It was mostly companionable silence for the first few minutes, while Jon was trying to get his bearings on how, exactly, to actually start a conversation with Martin. They walked between lampposts, the sections of dark between the radius of light the zones of slight tension, the place where the hairs on the back of Jon’s neck stood up, but then Martin would smile at him, and the sudden surge of fear would dissipate.

       “So,” Martin eventually said, “How’re, the, uh, worm wounds? I mean, I assume they’re bad but… are you alright, is what I’m trying to say.”

       Jon could snap back at him, tell him that of course he wasn’t alright, that it was an idiotic question to ask, but… he doesn’t. He bites back a cruel comment, because Martin means well. He’s trying. It’s just conversation.

       “They hurt. But I’ll be fine. I’ll survive.” His answer is succinct and maybe a little sharp (he’ll blame that on the exhaustion) but Martin seems satisfied with it. After a beat, he adds to it. “I’m glad you’re mostly unscathed.”

       “So am I,” Martin says, and then his step falters for a second before he falls back into the same rhythm as Jon.” “Sorry, thought I saw something… moving. Probably nothing.”

       “Probably just a stray piece of string.” Jon says. “Or some particularly mobile dirt.”

       Martin chuckles at that. “Is it a worm, or is it some volatile debris? Place your bets!”

       Jon huffs amusedly in place of laughter, and shoots back, “That piece of plastic looks very like a worm, I think we’d better investigate to be sure.”

       “Be careful, that empty can could be full of them, lurking, waiting.”

       They laugh as they go on, and Jon finds it completely surreal. The sheer amount of stress he’s been through today seems to have come full circle, as now it feels just completely foreign. Hours ago, he decided that he couldn’t trust a soul in the Institute, but here he is now, not twenty four hours after being ravaged by flesh-eating worms, laughing with his equally traumatised co-worker about said worms. He thinks, if you don’t laugh you’ll cry, and that’s exactly the philosophy his tired mind latches onto, because every second spent with Martin is a second he doesn’t need to think about how he could have died today, or about the murder of Gertrude Robinson, or about the hold, the pressure he can feel exerted upon him by the Institute at large. He knows there’s something larger at play, some greater web he’s in the centre of, but at this very moment there is only him, Martin, and the ever-living traffic of London. It’s almost enough to forget about the holes in his skin and the gaps in his knowledge.

       Almost.

       “Watch out, that one looks very worm-like,” Martin starts, jovial, until he squints at the creature and stops. “Actually, I think that is a worm.”

       Jon stops too, and Martin’s right: it is a worm. A normal, pink worm, twisting and writhing on the footpath. “It is most definitely a worm.”

       They exchange glances, and look at the worm, and at each other.

       They cross the road just in case.

       The conversation fades after that, but the night is so filled with the sounds of London that Jon doesn’t really mind. There’s never a silent note to coax unpleasant thoughts from his head and that’s all he could ask for. Walking with Martin is… nice. It’s nice.

       They’re at Martin’s flat too soon, and suddenly there’s distance between them, and Martin’s walking up the stairs and Jon has to crane his neck to see his face again. He’s smiling, and looking so fondly that Jon can’t help but wonder if it’s actually directed at him.

       “Well, this is me. Thanks for walking with me, Jon. I think it did a lot of good.”

       “I… think so too. Thank you, Martin.”

       Before he finished his ascent to his building, Martin stopped and looked pensive for a second before descending the stairs again, and standing level with Jon once more. Quickly, and a little hesitantly, unsure, Martin pulled Jon into a hug, and Jon barely got to register the sensation before it was gone again. Martin was warm. He smelled faintly of lavender, and a little bit like tea bags.

       “Stay safe, Jon. Be careful on your way home.”

       “I will. Thank you.”

       Martin Blackwood disappeared into the darkness of the apartment building, and Jon made his way home. His mind was more at ease, and as he walked alone, the ghost of warmth around his body, he found that he wasn’t plagued by the worries of the past and the future. They were kept at bay for one blessed evening, and Jon thought that was enough.

It was more than enough.

#the magnus archives #tma #jonmartin #well here you go here's the preslashiest thing to ever preslash #it is. mediocre

[backofthebookshelf]

MAG138 - The Architecture of Fear

(when I said there’d be a Smirke statement that was the ONE I wasn’t confident we’d get eventually, and it’s the very first! I’m so pleased.)

There is a lot going on in this episode, and I’ve just listened to it for the third time and I still don’t have coherent thoughts, so here are some incoherent ones.

Martin and Elias: 

I’m absolutely screaming, this is everything I ever wanted. Martin being sarcastic at Elias! Elias being sarcastic right back! Look, I don’t ship it, I’m just very invested in their dynamic and it’s very good this episode. (I love how Martin doesn’t even pretend to not care about Jon to Elias. He really isn’t worried about Jon hearing this conversation; he wants it.)

“You like manipulating people.” “That makes two of us.” I really want this to mean that Martin has a plan for dealing with Peter that we don’t know about (and Elias presumably does), and the whole Extinction deal is interfering with that. Martin’s never sounded less vulnerable to the Lonely than he does in this episode. I really hope this means the Web still has a good hold on him.

I have to wonder: has Elias always talked with his hands this much, or is he doing it now to emphasize the shackles? 

The Elias-as-Jonah theory is strong with this episode. But then there’s that bit about manipulation. What if Smirke was right, and Magnus never did align himself with a Power, and Elias can be Jonah Magnus and affiliated with the Web at the same time???

Elias calling Peter by his first name, admitting he’d given Martin to Peter as a gift, cracking a Lonely joke at the end of the conversation...my lonely eyes shipper heart is full <3

Robert Smirke:

What the actual fuck, omg

Okay, so the little occult society going on here included: Jonah Magnus, a Lukas (presumably Mordecai), Maxwell Ranyor, and George Gilbert Scott, at the very least. “Foundations” mentions a Roberts, another architect, who seems to know something about Smirke’s occult hobbies, but who probably didn’t wind up too involved as Smirke says everyone but he and Magnus wound up tied to a patron and Roberts doesn’t seem to have done anything important. I wonder if the Fieldings come into this at all? Simon Fairchild? 

"In my excited conversations with Mr Raynor I perhaps extrapolated too much from his talk of a ‘grand ritual of darkness.’ The Dark, I thought, was simply one of the Powers, so it stands to reason that each of them should have its own ritual.” WHAT THE HELL DOES THIS MEAN. Is the Dark not just like all the other Powers? (It would make a certain amount of sense, really.) Did Raynor come up with or discover a ritual? Was Raynor just always a religious freak? (What is Raynor’s obsession with the Franklin Expedition about anyway??)

“Perhaps they already did, even before I put pen to paper. They certainly do now, and I shudder to think how Lukas, Scott, and the others may use this conception.” So the Watcher’s Crown is absolutely a Victorian occult ritual, good to know, I’m pretty sure this means there are robes and gaudy jewelry and way too much chanting in Latin, I can’t wait

(look I have a minor obsession with Victorian occultists, they’re hilarious, can you imagine how angry Aleister Crowley was that there was this whole thing going on and he couldn’t be involved, they didn’t care about him, how dare they. I guarantee you there are at least a dozen statements from Uncle A. in the Archives, they’re all bullshit that have nothing to do with the Powers, he just kept coming back and trying, hoping eventually he’d land on something that would make him interesting enough to Jonah Magnus that he could get involved in whatever was going on, this would have killed him and I’m living for it)

I’m gonna gloat very briefly here about having been ranting for weeks now about how Smirke’s taxonomy changed the way the Powers manifest in the world and HAH, TOLD YOU. Okay, that’s enough. 

I am deeply intrigued by Smirke’s belief that the purest form of the Powers are their places. He describes that lost graveyard Naomi Hearne wound up in almost exactly, and the abattoir. And then there’s the coffin and the Buried. But what would a place for the Eye look like, or the Web? Are they also somewhat different from the other Powers?

Also I want to hear all of Smirke and Magnus’s nerdy intellectual arguments over what the Powers are and if there are sub-Powers (the little rant about the Corruption sounds like an old argument) and what, if anything, they ought to do about it, bless

Smirke says he’s trying to build churches on top his old experiments but in “Old Passages” Jon says Smirke offered to build churches but no one ever took him up on it. :(

Speaking of “Old Passages,” that episode gets more interesting and relevant all the time. So presumably Leitner wanted someone to dig him a passageway into those tunnels, and presumably he wanted that because he was after whatever books were down there. What books were down there, and why? What is up with that little book that drops bones? Mary Keay calls it “just a bit of viscera,” but she’s too dismissive and it’s come up too many times. 

Also, A+ terrifying Beholding going on in this episode, yikes. No wonder the logo for the Magnus Institute is an owl.

#the magnus archives #tma spoilers #there is so much going on in this episode #i need to sit down and listen to it and take notes #a lot of notes #so many notes #then i need to go stare at a timeline for a while #then i need to scream a lot #SO MUCH #original content

[arealexpression]

Every time Jon mentions Martin before the latter’s debut

Launch Trailer

Jon: [After hearing a thump] Martin? Martin, is that you? … I swear, if he’s brought another dog in here, I am going to—peel him.

Anglerfish

I’ve managed to secure the services of two researchers to assist me—well, technically three, but I don’t count Martin as he’s unlikely to contribute anything but delays. I plan to digitize the files as much as possible and record audio versions, though some will have to be on tape recorder, as my attempts to get them on my laptop have met with... “significant audio distortions.” Alongside this, Tim, Sasha, and, yes, I suppose Martin, will be doing some supplementary investigation to see what details may be missing from what we have.

Page Turner

Martin couldn’t find any records of Ex Altiora as a title in existent catalogues of esoteric or similar literature, so I assigned Sasha to doublecheck.

Thrown Away

I had Martin conduct a follow-up interview with Mr. Woodward last week, but it was unenlightening. Apparently there have been no further bags at number ninety-three, and in the intervening years he has largely discounted many of the stranger aspects of his experience. I wasn’t expecting much as time generally makes people inclined to forget what they would rather not believe, but at least it got Martin out of the Institute for an afternoon, which is always a welcome relief.

Burned Out

Martin was [pause in which Jon is clearly restraining himself] unable to find the exact date the original house was built...

Vampire Killer

According to Martin, who was here when they took this statement, it was at this point in writing that Mr. Herbert announced he needed some sleep before continuing. He was shown to the break room where he went to sleep on the couch. He did not awaken, unfortunately succumbing to the lung cancer right there. Martin says the staff had been aware of how serious Mr. Herbert’s condition was and had advised him to seek medical aid prior to giving his statement, but were told rather bluntly by the old man that he would not wait another second to state his case.

First Aid

“Veepalach” might also be a mishearing of the Polish word “wypalać,” according to Martin, which means to cauterize or brand. Admittedly, if Martin speaks Polish in the same way he “speaks Latin,” then he might be talking nonsense again, but I’ve looked it up, and it appears to check out.

Lost Johns’ Cave

…Martin declined to help with this investigation as he’s a bit claustrophobic...

Piecemeal

I sent Martin to look into this—“Angela” character. [With a smug smile you can practically hear] Not that I want him to get chopped up of course, but someone had to. Apparently, he spent three days looking into every woman named Angela in Bexley over the age of fifty. He could not find anyone that matches the admittedly vague description given here, though he informs me that he had some very pleasant chats about jigsaws. [Pause] Useless ass.

Arachnophobia

If I were of a more alarmist nature, I might think the appearance of Mr. Vittery’s corpse lent some credibility to his tale, but as I told Martin earlier, he was there for over a week, so there is very likely a perfectly natural explanation for the fact that his body was completely encased in web.

The Boneturner’s Tale

Elias: By the way, have you seen Martin? Jon: Oh, he’s... off sick this week. Stomach problems, I think.

[Seconds later, when Elias has left] Blessed relief if you ask me.

The Man Upstairs

There are no records of transactions at any supermarkets or online delivery firms, and Tim asked round some of the local butchers, as Martin is still off sick.

Desecrated Host

As it turns out the second part of this statement was simply misfiled in the next folder, which was useful, although it does beg the question of who was reading it last. Martin is still absent, but Tim and Sasha both swear they haven’t seen it before.

Freefall

Jon: [Suddenly] My God! Martin? What... What the hell is— What are these things?

#the magnus archives #jon sims #martin blackwood #jon was gonna send martin on another wild goose chase but had to give it to tim instead #total dick move lol