#tmafantasyweek

[hello-archivist]

TMAFantasy Week Prompt: Wings,Moon,Spooky

My contribution for Fantasy Week 2!!

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@tmafantasyweek

[cinnamoniic-hibernation]

   Jon, as they introduced themselves, was rather cute when flustered, but it wouldn’t do to offend a being such as them. “What do you think you’re doing here? J-just strolling in like you own the place-”

   “I-I, uh, actually do own the place,” he interrupted, stammering. “I’m Martin Blackwood - y’know, the Black Woods? It’s, er, in my family. My inheritance.”

  The ghost - fairy? Spirit? He’d have to ask what they preferred - stared at him blankly, before their expression seemed to flatten. “...I see.” They paused, mist swirling at their feet. “Well, I can’t frighten you away and threaten you into leaving gifts, it seems.”

  Martin raised an eyebrow, tugging his cloak free from his neck. “Why would you need to?” He smiles gently and holds the cloak out to Jon, who stares at it like the idea’s utterly foreign. “All you need to do is ask.”

  They accept it with translucent, shaking hands, clutch it close to their chest. The small, soft smile that blooms across Jon’s face is a gift all its own.

My last contribution to fantasy week - here’s a jmart Tam Lin AU, in which Martin comes to own the Black Woods, and meets the formerly-human spirit haunting it.

ID in the replies!

[tmafantasyweek]

TMA Fantasy Week II!

What is Fantasy Week?

Fantasy Week is created by and for fans of The Magnus Archives as well as the fantasy genre. Magic, legends, creatures, and more. The event will run from October 18th to the 24th and feature both art and writing for your favorite characters and parings. Canon-compliant, canon-divergent, and alternate universes are welcome.Each day three different prompts will be provided for inspiration but don’t feel like you have to stick to them. If you have a fantasy idea you want to use, feel free to do so.

Event and Prompts

We will be using the tag #TMAFantasyWeek to collect all posts on Tumblr. Check out the about page for details and guidelines for the event.

We have also use one prompt from the first Fantasy Week for each of the days, so there will be four prompts total.

The prompts for the event are:

Monday October 18th: Lantern, Midnight, Bone, Familiar

Tuesday October 19th: Forest, Nightmare, Potion, Tail

Wednesday October 20th: Wings, Spooky, Book, Moon

Thursday October 21st: Spirit, Leaves, Relic, Fortune

Friday October 22nd: Castle, Memory, Blade, Shadow

Saturday October 23rd: Curse, Harvest, Ruins, Monster

Sunday October 24th: Legend, Graveyard, Mirror, Fangs

Feel free to contact us if you have questions and reblog to share the word!

[pitviperofdoom]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Hey it’s my longest fic for Fantasy Week! Based on the webcomic Skin Deep by Kory Bing! This one’s got Melanie in it.

Prompt: Monster

[dickwheelie]

a jonmartin ficlet for @tmafantasyweek, not for any particular prompt, just an idea that struck my fancy.

this was inspired very loosely by @gras-art’s lovely drawings of martin with stars. it’s not the kind of thing I usually write but I had a lot of fun with it so I hope y’all enjoy :)

______________

There was once a man whose job it was to hang the stars in the night sky. If you asked him, he would tell you that he didn’t believe himself to be very good at it, but it was all that he knew.

There was once another man whose job it was to map the constellations. Though it was a simple enough task, for the constellations never changed, the man prided himself on his impeccable work.

One night, the mapmaker awoke to find that the constellations were different from the night before. Irritated and confused, he stomped up to the moon and demanded to speak to the one in charge of the stars.

The starhanger was called, and soon he emerged timidly from his tiny workshop to confront the bristling mapmaker.

“What is the meaning of this?” the mapmaker said, gesturing up at the night sky, where the stars had once been so nicely aligned into neat little columns and rows, but were now scattered, seemingly at random, across the sky. “It’s a mess!”

“Well,” said the starhanger, gathering his courage, “I had thought perhaps it was time for a change. The stars have always been placed just so. But last night, I thought it might be nice to hang them differently.” He looked sidelong at the mapmaker. “You don’t like it?”

“Of course I don’t like it!” said the mapmaker. “You can’t just go around changing the constellations whenever you like. It’s chaos, and in my line of work, chaos is precisely what we are trying to avoid.”

“But doesn’t it get a bit dull, sometimes?” pressed the starhanger. “Mapping the same constellations every night? Look,” he said, pointing at the northwestern part of the sky, “last night I hung those stars in the shape of a dog. Have you ever had the chance to map a dog before?”

The mapmaker was silent. At length, he said, “Well . . . I suppose not . . .”

“It would be a challenge,” said the starhanger.

“I do like a challenge,” said the mapmaker. “The maps are always the same, night after night. It does wear at the skin a bit.”

“Well, that settles it,” said the starhanger, happily retreating back into his workshop. “I’ll keep changing the constellations, and you’ll get to make a brand new map every night.”

Before the mapmaker could say another word, the starhanger had swung the door of his workshop shut, and he was left alone under the suddenly unfamiliar tableau of the night sky.

The following night, the mapmaker awoke to find that once again, the night sky had changed. The dog the starhanger had pointed out was gone, and in its place was a teapot, surrounded by teacups and saucers. Despite himself, the mapmaker found himself eagerly laying out a brand new scroll and setting to work.

By the time the first rays of dawn began to peek over the horizon, the mapmaker had completed his map, and for the first time in a long, long while, went to bed utterly satisfied.

The following few nights were just the same. Every night, the starhanger would hang the stars in unexpected places, and make pictures when the fancy struck him. The teapot became a sailboat, which became a book, which became a cow. The mapmaker found himself waking up each night eagerly anticipating what new thing the starhanger had made, and setting about mapping it with gusto.

One night, the starhanger hung the stars in the shape of a cat. The following morning he was surprised by a knocking at his workshop door. When he peeked out, the mapmaker stood before him, in a much more enthused manner than last time, and said to him, “Cats are my favorite animals.”

“Are they?”

“Yes! I just wanted to thank you for making one. It was wonderful to map.”

The starhanger blinked owlishly at him. “You . . . came up to the moon just to tell me that?”

“Yes,” said the mapmaker, suddenly very self-conscious. “And to tell you . . . you were right. Making a new map every night, it’s been invigorating. I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed my job so much.”

“Oh,” said the starhanger, smiling shyly, “well, that’s very good to hear.”

“You won’t stop, will you?” said the mapmaker anxiously.

The starhanger bit back a wide smile. “No, I won’t.”

And indeed he did not. The starhanger, up until then, had been hesitantly experimenting, but now he decided to roll up his sleeves and give the mapmaker a real challenge.

The following night the mapmaker awoke and immediately dove for his workstation when he saw that the sky was patterned with stars in the shape of a massive spiderweb. From horizon to horizon, there was hardly a gap between the threads, and the mapmaker had to work tirelessly to map them all. At the end of the night he collapsed in his chair, utterly exhausted and happier than he had been in years.

The following few nights, the starhanger left off a bit, hanging less intricate but no less beautiful designs. One night the sky was full of swirls and eddies, as one would find in the ocean or perhaps the clouds on a windy day. Another time the starhanger gifted the mapmaker with more cats, slinking and winding their way across the sky.

Indeed, it had grown to be much like gift-giving. The starhanger was no longer thinking of his own satisfaction when he hung the stars, and similarly the mapmaker was no longer thinking of his impeccable record when he mapped them. Instead, they were both thinking of the other.

Then one night, for the first time, the mapmaker was surprised by something new in the night sky: words, spelled out in neat script. The first message, for there would be others, was brief and self-explanatory: Hello MM!

“Hello, Starhanger,” the mapmaker murmured back, as he rolled out a new scroll.

The messages quickly grew more elaborate as the starhanger grew used to writing with the stars.

Lovely night we’re having!

How was your morning?

I’m getting much better at drawing cats, look:

It’s cold on the moon. I hope it isn’t too cold where you are, MM.

Though everyone on earth puzzled over these messages, the mapmaker of course knew they were meant for him. He mapped the messages carefully and reverently, and spent all night imagining how he would reply to them.

One night, the sky read, I’d love to see one of your maps sometime.

The mapmaker wasted no time in taking a trip up to the moon, and showing the starhanger some of the maps he was most proud of.

“This is the one with all the cats,” said the mapmaker. “I really enjoyed making that one.”

“It’s lovely,” said the starhanger, and he meant it. “They all are.”

“You can keep them, if you want,” said the mapmaker.

“All of them?”

“You’ll appreciate them more than I do, I’m sure,” said the mapmaker. He glanced downwards. “And you’ve given me such beautiful things to look at every night. It only makes sense that you should keep the maps I make of them.”

“Oh,” said the starhanger, “thank you.”

“I should be thanking you,” said the mapmaker. “The past few months have been the happiest I’ve ever spent.”

“Really?” said the starhanger, warmth blooming in his chest. “Mine, too.”

The following night the sky blazed with hundreds of stars, clustered together to form the shape of a heart. The mapmaker hung that night’s map on the wall of his studio, and traced it with his finger often.

It was around that time that the mapmaker decided to do something utterly unorthodox and possibly terribly foolish, which would likely end in disaster: he decided to make his own map. A map not of the night sky, or of the stars therein, but from the mapmaker’s own imagination. A map without a guide. It was ludicrous, the mapmaker thought, but it was the only way he could think to show the starhanger what he wished to show him.

It took many weeks, as the mapmaker used his few spare hours of nighttime to work on his own map, careful not to let his official work drop in quality. It was not easy for him to map stars that were not really there, and many times he considered giving up, but then he reminded himself how beautiful the starhanger’s constellations were, and how hard he worked on them.

“If he can do that every night,” the mapmaker chided himself, “you can do this just this once.”

Finally, more than a month after he had begun his task, the mapmaker sat back and stared at the map he had invented, and found that he was satisfied. Eagerly, impatiently, he made his way back up to the moon, and knocked at the starhanger’s workshop door.

The starhanger’s face was like a star all on its own with how brightly he greeted him. “What brings you up here, unannounced?” he asked.

The mapmaker, who was holding the map behind his back, unrolled it with a flair and presented it to the starhanger. “This is for you,” he said.

The starhanger took it carefully. It was a map of the stars, yes, but not based on anything the starhanger had made. It was something new, with imaginary stars scrawled across an imaginary sky.

“I made it for you,” said the mapmaker, suddenly feeling self-conscious. “I didn’t know how else to explain.”

The stars on the map formed the shape of a heart, to match the one the starhanger had made for the mapmaker (though this one was a bit more wobbly). Inside the heart, the starhanger could make out many different constellations he had gifted the mapmaker, the dog and the cat and the sailboat, among others. And in the very center of the heart, in wobbly, uncertain script, the stars spelled out, Thank you, Starhanger.

A tear formed at the corner of the starhanger’s eye. “Oh, Mapmaker,” he said, and could think of no more words.

“Do you like it?” the mapmaker asked, wringing his hands.

“Of course I like it,” the starhanger laughed, wiping at his eye. “I love it. It’s your best work, by far, I think.”

“Oh,” said the mapmaker, visibly relaxing. “Well, that’s good then.” And he pulled the starhanger into a hug.

The following night, the mapmaker awoke, looked up at the night sky, laughed, and blushed all the way to his ears. Up in the sky was a single, simple message, of only three words, and though the mapmaker had no trouble mapping it out, he lingered on the constellation long after dawn.

[thidwicktails]

The Magnus Archives Fantasy Week @tmafantasyweek

Today’s prompt: lantern

Why is Jon a lantern? Why is it Jon and Basira? Where are they?? Does Jon always have to be so cryptic?? Will these questions get answered??

(Probably not)

(But yes he does)

[seachanqe]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

In time for @tmafantasyweek, this fic was inspired by @nubs-mbee‘s hilarious selkie Jon fanart. First chapter is posted with more on the way!

Jonathan Sims has a problem. He's convinced with how scattered and forgetful he's been lately (not to mention all the dangerous situations he's finding himself in) he's going to lose his selkie skin. But who better to help him take care of it than Martin? Which may mean they'd technically be married... but that's fine, this is all fine.

[kalgalen]

Day 3: wings, tower, secret

They half-run, half-glide toward the sunken city; the currents carry them forward, and if not for the sense of urgency Jon is getting from Martin, it would be the most free he's ever felt.

Fish swim around them, the wings of manta rays brushing against them as they race against each other. Jon vaguely recalls that those aren't supposed to live in the relatively cold waters of the British seaside; but then again, there's no recording of a large town there either. It's a strange world he found himself thrown into, one with impossible sea life and mysterious boys leading him through a deserted town. 

"Where are the people?" Jon asks.

Martin doesn't slow down. "My father doesn't like us talking to each other. He says silence is the only language that should be spoken in the depths."

"He sounds like a fun person," Jon grumbles, and Martin lets out a humourless laugh. 

"You have no idea. Here," he says, pulling Jon between two buildings and to a stop. "It should be safe now." 

"Safe from what?" Jon demands. He's never liked being kept in the dark, and the nebulousness of his situation is starting to get to him.

"The guards," Martin explains, sneaking a weary glance into the street they just left. "They'll be looking for me; my father knows I'll try to escape that marriage."

"Marriage?" Jon is getting tired of asking questions. "Martin, you're not making any sense."

Martin turns back to look at him, and his shoulders drop. "Sorry. I'm just - it's complicated. Or very simple, depending on how you see it. See - my father has promised my hand to the Lord of Many Eyes in order to join our two domains. But I know what happens to the people who leave for the bottom levels: they don't come back, and the rare ones that do are… changed. I don't want - I'm scared, Jon."

His voice breaks, and his eyes get glassy, as if he is about to cry. But no tear is shed; he takes in a shaky breath that makes his gills flutter, and sets his jaw. 

"This is why I'm going to run as far away as I can - to the surface." 

Jon eyes the other boy's more fishlike qualities. "I don't want to ruin your hopes, but can you even survive up there?"

Martin nods. "I have this cloak that used to belong to my mother. She was human, see. But when she fell in love with my father, she sought out an artifact that would allow her to join him, and she found that cloak. I'm convinced it could work the other way around."

"Okay," Jon says, because he is far past doubting fairytale logic at this point. "Where is it?" 

Martin looks discouraged. "In my bedroom." He points at a tower rising high above the other edifices. "On top of the highest tower of the castle." 

"Of course it is." Jon swears softly. "And I imagine it's guarded?" 

"It will be now. I don't think my father knows I found the cloak - it was a secret my mother told me about before she left - but his people will be looking for me. Going back won't be easy. Leaving again will be even harder."

"Right. On the other hand, he might not expect you to come back," Jon says pensively. "We should get going now, no sense in waiting much longer." 

A silence answers him. He looks at Martin to find the fae staring at him, his eyes wide as saucers. 

"... What?" 

"Nothing," Martin answers quickly. "I just wasn't expecting you to, uh, help. After all, you have your own problem to deal with."

Jon shrugs. "I feel like both our issues might have a common solution. We're going for the surface - together. Alright?" 

Martin still looks surprised, but he acquiesces. Jon nods, and barely thinks twice before taking his hand again. 

"Okay. Let's go."