To start off this blog, we decided to submit ourselves to the mortifying ordeal of being known and show y’all our TMA top fic recs!
These are fics of very different premises and categories that stayed with us and soothed our souls. Feel free to ask for more recs (or more specific stuff) because we’re definitely not done. Enjoy!
Statement Ends by @martivist 4k words. Jonmartin. Angst. Post-canon AU. Ending Speculation. Lore speculation. S5 AU.
"Final statement of Jonathan Sims. The Archivist. Statement given… I think it’s June? We haven’t done very well counting time since the days stopped. Summer 2019, call it that. Statement begins.
We’ve found a way to send them back where they came from. All of them."
Forty-some years after the apocalypse abruptly ends, the final acts of Jonathan Sims and Martin Blackwood come to light.
Mod note: This fic... goddamit this fic. I read it halfway through s5 and I genuinely think this is one of the best endings the show could have had. It hit all the points Jonny made and then some. This fic is pain, yes, but the best kind.
Ninety Feet To Home by @judesstfrancis 33k words. Jonmartin. No Powers AU. Baseball Players AU. Fluff. Pining.
Jon isn’t really Martin Blackwood’s biggest fan. And he knows it’s a him problem, because it’s not like Blackwood is a terrible person or like he loses on purposes just to ruin Jon’s life, but he can’t help it. In his defense, if you were on a hot streak and the same person kept coming in and ruining it for you every single time, you'd harbor a bit of resentment towards them, too.
Mod note: I’m so obsessed with this AU that I broke my vow of not making fanart for TMA and made fanart of it. Yeah. Sue me. It’s the perfect levels of pining, ridiculousness and it brought me (an argentinian whose only baseball reference is the HSM musical number) tremendous joy. As the us-statians would say: home fucking run. ALSO, MARTIN BLACKWOOD IS LATINOOOOO.
Maybe not the stuff of legend by imperfectcircle. 14k words. Jonmartin. Post-canon AU. S5 AU. Ending Speculation. Lore speculation. Angst with a Happy Ending.
Martin forgets slowly at first, and then all at once. One moment he's grasping at memories, desperate without knowing why to retain even a single image of an angry, scarred stranger saying incomprehensible things about eyes, and the next, nothing. He can't even remember what had him so anxious just now. A car alarm, probably, or a dog barking in the distance. He's always startled easily.
Mod note: I still quote it to myself from time to time. ‘’Martin, you ate the megalodon’’ makes me giggle and also terribly sad. This is an excellent way of exploring entities lore, as well as grief and hope.
the garden of forking paths by @bibliocratic. 49k words. Jonmartin. Post-canon AU. Ending Speculation. Angst with a Happy Ending. Use of Spiral Doors.
Whatever he had predicted might happen, Jon wasn't expecting to survive upon demolishing the Panopticon. He certainly wasn't expecting to be rescued.
Instead, he wakes up in an alternative universe where he's never been the Archivist, and Martin Blackwood doesn't exist.
Martin Blackwood wakes up somewhere else entirely.
Mod note: I’m argentinian and the major element in this story is a Borgues book. OF COURSE IT’S HERE. This fic is an absolute ride and so so so beautiful - multiple universes and Jon and Martin doing the same thing over and over and over again, with hope of finding each other.
Family, Found by Dribbledscribbles. Gen fic. 9k words. S4 Divergent. Canon Divergence.
It’s Basira who catches onto it.
The collective shift that seems to come over them when heading in or out of the Institute. Not just the oppressive sensation of being observed, their every move catalogued for the voyeuristic cravings of some unseen Eye(s). That feeling remained with them even when they left the Institute these days, but it was always stronger inside its walls. That wasn’t the change. Nor was it the point.
The point was: making life worse for Jonathan Sims.
Mod note: Do you want to hit the Eye? Do you want all the Entities’s plans to be twarted by the power of found family? Do you want everyone who blamed Jon for everything in S4 to sit down and apologise? This is your fic.
the apple of the eye by gocrazygostupid. 2.8k words. Fluff. Lore speculation.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SONG?
i'm not sure. i don't really get the chance to listen to music
if i told you, what would you do with it?
Mod note: I am absolutely weak towards any fic that gives the Entities some form of sentience, no matter what canon said. Especially when these interactions are so surprisingly soft.
in the chillest land and on the strangest sea by imperfectcircle and raven (singlecrow). 19k words. S4 Divergent. Canon divergence, in the space between 159-160
Jon remembers a statement he read years ago given by a Jesuit priest, who said that the shortest prayer he knew was, just, fuck it, as in fuck it; it's in God's hands. He takes Daisy's hand and trails on after her.
or; hope is a thing with feathers.
Mod note: Everytime I read this fic, I end up at least a little teary eyed. It’s not exactly happy, more bittersweet, considering, but I still love it.
Come Love This World (Come Hate It, Too) by cedarbranch. 3.3k words. Character Study, fluff and angst, spans s1-5. Canon Compliant.
Jon never liked poetry, until Martin.
Mod note: Yes I am picking fics that personally came for my heart one way or another, not much else to say, besides that “it feels like loving you” haunts me still to this day, in a good way.
i love you, i'm glad i exist by kissyourlocalmoth. 1.7k words. Scottish safehouse period. Fluff. Established relationship.
Martin was thinking of a poem. It’s name sat on the tip of his tongue, aching to get out. It was a lovely one, too: something about how life felt easy now, at peace; how the small things felt like everything, a poem about… the importance of the little moments. These last few days had been like that, he thought. He couldn’t stop smiling to himself recently, and even Jon teased him about it sometimes, though he was hardly less giddy. He thought of the immense joy the little things brought him now, the mugs of tea they made for each other, how he would lay in their bed late at night staring at the ceiling, his love nestled against his chest, overflowing with so much contentment and fondness he did not know what to make of himself.
Mod note: Short and sweet, it was the first time I read that particular poem, and now it’s forever intertwined in my head with little scenes of jon and martin in the scottish safehouse before 160 happens.
exit wound by autoclaves. 3.1k words. Post-canon AU. Ending speculation.
Suppose there is a house on a hilltop. Suppose there is a story. There is always a story, and every universe is always expanding.
Mod note: I would’ve liked to tag this more, but it would probably spoil the twist it has. Reading back on it, the narration reminds me of the statement from 196, which I find fitting and a funny coincidence, considering.
