#and she was absolutely not qualified to be a literal archivist

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

like we all dunk on jon for being completely unqualified (fair and true) but so was everyone. fandom seemed to take tim at face value that sasha was qualified for the job and while she definitely had seniority on jon, the girl was also fucking stapling random sheets of paper together when a single google search will tell you to absolutely not do that. tim was an ex-corporate drone who was only there to revenge-kill a regency clown and martin just straight up lied about his qualifications because he didn’t have any. gertrude was the most qualified woman alive to commit acts of violence that violated the geneva convention but from an actual literal standpoint she was a terrible fucking archivist. at age 20 she received supernatural job security and a blank check for a budget funded by a man scared shitless of her and that defined her approach to employment for the rest of her life. her number one hobby was arson and her number two hobby was keeping secrets. not only did she never do any archiving I guarantee you she did not even know what an archivist was. queen of doing any fucking job but the one you hired her for. I’m in love with her.

the fact that the eye is shown to be actively opposed to the loss or destruction of knowledge is borderline hilarious to me considering the closest thing it has had to an actually qualified employee for the Special Room Where It Keeps Its Knowledge in at least the last century was that one guy who was too busy being a simp for a serial murderer and gouging out his own fucking eyes to have any long-term effect on the non-spooky parts of the position. the most shocking part of jon getting the job is not the blatant lack of qualifications but the fact that elias was able to choke out the offer over the eye beaming the same anxiety attack over document storage that it’s been having since the vietnam war directly into his little twink skull

[not-scared-of-microwaves]

I am Jon's number 1 supporter. Everything he's done is perfectly understandable and reasonable. Yeah, season 1 Jon was a bit of a dick to Martin, but if you picked your assistants but your boss assigned this random guy to assist you as well, and this guy isn't very good at his job, and then you find out it's because he literally wasn't qualified for the job in the first place? And add that to the fact that you already know you aren't qualified for the job you've been given, so you need to do a good job and this guy is making that harder? being a bit of a dick isn't necessarily justified, but it's certainly understandable.

Of course season 2 Jon was paranoid, and honestly I'd argue that he wasn't "paranoid" because can it really be called paranoia if you're right? Since he got the archivist job, he's felt like he's being watched and his best defense was pretending to be a jaded skeptic, but it's been proven that being skeptical didn't help, and he got literally eaten by a sentient worm infestation's worms. While hiding from the worms that came for him in his work place, the dead body of his predecessor was found in the tunnels. She was shot, probably by someone in the institute. Things keep showing up asking for specifically the Archivist. He's been given multiple reasons to believe that someone else in the archives is out to get him, and in the end it turns out he's right--Sasha isn't Sasha, and Gertrude was literally murdered by his boss. "His paranoia wasn't justified" it absolutely was. No, Martin and Tim didn't deserve to be stalked, but considering Jon's been nothing but an ass to Martin, and Martin continued to be nice to him, and there was certainly someone out to get him, yeah, it was a reasonable concern.

Season 3, 4 , & 5Jon? Every decision, however stupid they seem, were perfectly reasonable when you look at how he was being treated. He considers himself a monster, and everywhere he turns other people are encouraging this view. If he expresses remorse? Oh boohoo the monster feels guilty. If he doesn't? Where's his humanity, he's just a monster. If he doesn't tell people what's going on, he's not communicating and people are mad about it. If he does tell people what's going on, then he's dragging them down with him and he needs to stop involving people. Basira blames him for Daisy, until he dies, Tim blames him for Sasha, Melanie blames him for literally everything and never liked him to begin with, Georgie cut him off because he wasn't trying to get out (not that he could escape if he tried), Martin's isolating himself for the Lonely. Everywhere he turns he's met with criticism and a lack of sympathy. Of course he's going to throw himself into the Buried to get back someone he sees as more valued and more wanted than he is--if you already hate yourself, and everyone else is encouraging it, you'd do it too. He blames himself for the apocalypse, he blames himself for what happened to Daisy, the list goes on. Of course he's incredibly self sacrificing--take an already selfless person, load them up with self-loathing and guilt, and the only thing you're going to get is someone who places everyone elses value well above their own, and is self-sacrificing to the point of self-destruction.

He's done nothing wrong and that is a hill I will die on.

[popatochisssp]

Hi!! If the Papyri are knights what are the Sanses? Also you should totally make an AU of this, you beautiful brain

You have no idea, none of you have any idea how absolutely insane I went about this goofy little one-off AU concept

...Some of you have an idea. And some of you maybe know me well enough to have just guessed I would go off the rails the way I have lol

Anyway, this is the first, but absolutely not the last of The Court AU:

Sans (Undertale): The court jester, in possession of a quick wit and a cutting sense of humor and with no desire to let either go to waste. He’s much beloved at court and prides himself on his ability to make even the stuffiest of courtiers chuckle with his jokes and pranks—and his jester’s privilege makes him nigh untouchable to those who somehow aren’t amused by him. It’s a good life…

Papyrus (Undertale): A proud knight of the kingdom and a member of the Royal Guard! Er…well…eventually, he will be. The Captain won’t make him a full member of the Guard until he’s proven his valor through a series of knightly quests…but she won’t tell him what the quests are, so he travels the kingdom as a knight-errant, helping those in need and solving problems that may or may not have needed solving! You’re welcome, good citizens!

Sky (Underswap Sans): A squire, or knight-in-training, attendant to the Captain of the Guard until he properly earns his own knighthood. …Frankly, he’s already capable and qualified to be a knight now, but he’s aware that the Captain has some reservations regarding his health and is hesitating to just give him the job because of it. He fully intends to prove himself to her in the line of active duty, and someday be recognized as a fully-fledged knight of the realm.

Paps (Underswap Papyrus): The court archivist, most at home amidst shelves of tomes and records and far away from the social obligations of the court itself. He tracks and preserves all kind of documents, from agricultural reports to genealogies to romantic poetry, and is on call to locate specific texts for any nobles or otherwise literate folks seeking to reference them. It gets a bit musty sometimes but he wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Jasper (Underfell Sans): A mercenary, traveling the kingdom in search of people to sell his sword to for a bit of coin—and then traveling in search of satisfying ways to spend that coin. He does occasionally venture outside the kingdom for both of these things, but he has quite a few connections to well-paying opportunities within the borders, so as much as he avoids putting down roots, he tends not to stray too far from ‘home.’

Pyre (Underfell Papyrus): A knight in the Royal Guard, touted as a black knight for the scorched and stained armor he wears—a marker of the many deadly, heroic feats he’s conquered. No quest is too dangerous, no enemy too great for him to overcome, and he bravely takes on what lesser knights fear to risk. He’s quite accomplished dealing with dragons, and wildfires, and even mages, who always seem to cast fireballs and…well, perhaps that’s the reason his armor is so blackened…

Mal (Swapfell Sans): Personal guard to the Empress herself, nominally part of the Royal Guard as well but far from the front-lines of battle as his duty to her highness’ safety comes first and foremost. He’s involved in a lot of the structuring and scheduling of patrols for the lower ranking guardsmen, and his opinion is often sought in matters of state and military, but his primary concern is accompanying the Empress wherever she goes, or standing post just outside the door. Only on rare occasions does anyone else fill his role, and that’s just the way he likes it.

Rus (Swapfell Papyrus): He’s a nobleman who used his wealth and free time to pursue a passion in painting. His passion paid off in the form of a bit of notoriety for his work and several offers of patronage from other nobility seeking portraits and frescoes and the like done in his hand. …Or as he sees it, rich people paying him to do what he loves instead of some sort of actual job. As long as he can comfortably afford his paints, he’s happy.

Slate (Horrortale Sans): He’s a stableman at the queen’s castle, looking after the horses and hunting dogs kept there. He isn’t as quick as he used to be, and his memory hasn’t been the same since his head injury, but he was graciously employed elsewhere rather than dismissed and it’s…fine. Well enough, at least. It’s dirty and often thankless work, but he is fond of the animals, and much prefers their company to anyone else.

Papy (Horrortale Papyrus): He’s a medic in service to the knights of the Royal Guard. He actually used to be among their number…sort of…but there were some changes, in his life, and his eye-sight isn’t really what it used to be anyway, and… Well! He spent some time learning from the court physician and got very interested in ways to treat illness and injury. He’s not as skilled and knowledgeable as a full-fledged healer but he’s happily on hand for minor training accidents and sicknesses or injuries in those coming back from patrols. He loves to be able to help!

Ash (Undergloom Sans): A musician who plays his trusty horn for the court during all the feasts and festivals. He’s only one player of many but enough of a talent to be selected for the job and pleased that his music should entertain the king and queen and all their noble guests. It’s not the most glorious of positions but he’s happy enough doing it and lives well for his station.

Yrus (Undergloom Papyrus): Head cook in the castle kitchens, a station he worked up to from the bottom as a lowly kitchen boy. He has a lot of experience making meals for the royal couple and for all the nobles that regularly attend court gatherings and he knows how to give the people what they want. There are several other cooks and kitchen attendants that work with him but it’s his job to make decisions and keep everything running smoothly, which keeps him busy but happily so.

Brick (Horrorfell Sans): He sticks exclusively to the royal court these days, not as a hired sword but as a wealthy and rakish duke of the kingdom. His brother gave him the title and it’d be stupid not to take advantage of the perks—though he does have to earn them. He’s less a hired sword now and more a hired axe, performing the duty of the royal executioner whenever he’s called upon to do so. No need to wear a hood, everyone knows who he is and what he does to enemies of the crown.

King (Horrorfell Papyrus): The king of the castle, in a very literal sense. Some may call him a usurper or a traitor to the crown to have seized the throne for himself without proper claim… and for those people he arranges a meeting between their necks and his brother’s blade. He seized the throne because he’s loyal to the crown and the queen he deposed was wearing it quite poorly. If he could, he would’ve stepped down by now and given way to the true queen, but the people have been through enough upheaval—so he will remain as their king, as long as is necessary.

Merc (Horrorswap Sans): A cursed king who lives an austere, lonely life in a desolate castle by the sea. He fled from his true realm in disgrace and now awaits an end to his curse or his shame—whichever comes first—in the ruins of a fallen kingdom as degraded as he is. He doesn’t expect to be found, or saved from the curse that his own choices wrought upon him, and just tries to bear his fate with the grace expected of him.

Ell (Horrorswap Papyrus): Prince-errant of his kingdom, meant to be ruling his people but instead gallivanting off across the countryside in search of his missing brother. He wants to find him and know he’s well about as much as he doesn’t want to go back and be the ruler of a kingdom, for which he was never properly trained and is wholly unprepared! Maybe in his search and his hardships, he can find the strength and maturity to do what the kingdom needs him to do…but he’s not there yet, and finding his brother is his priority.

Pitch (Horrorswapfell Sans): Every knight in the Royal Guard is hand-picked and trained by him. He held a high office among the guardsmen once, but a severe injury put him out of commission and without his sight, he was no longer fighting fit, as they say. Still, his strength and his skill didn’t abandon him and while he could be a liability on the battlefield, he’s nothing less than a powerful asset when it comes to training the knights up to his own exacting standards. Only the best make it through his gauntlet.

Nemo (Horrorswapfell Papyrus): He walks the wall of the castle at night, standing guard for any threats to the kingdom that might otherwise go unseen. He takes his duty very seriously and refuses to let any night pass without a watchman on duty, even in foul weather or nights of great feasts and festivals. His vigilance has protected the kingdom from many a threat and he feels certain that his job is of much higher importance than any frivolous pastimes he absorbed himself in before.

Sunny (Gastertale Sans): A courtier of…mysterious origin. He’s often at court, making conversation and telling colorful stories to anyone whose ear he can snatch—and he manages to snatch quite a few—but no one can manage to figure out quite where he came from or what he ought to be doing. Mostly, he entertains himself and others with various leisurely pursuits, games, hunts, dances, songs, and as such he’s a well-liked person at court…wherever he came from.

Aster (Gastertale Papyrus): Another man of mystery who appeared at court on the heels of his brother, though far less flamboyantly. He’s obviously a learned man, well-educated and well-spoken, and though he wasn’t as warmly embraced by the courtiers at large, he was eventually welcomed into the king’s confidence as a royal advisor. The backing of the king being what it is, he’s accepted and respected as probably some sort of nobleman, regardless of his unclear origin, and continues to advise the king on matters of state.

Spectr (Transcendtale Sans): A wanderer, uprooted from his life and former kingdom and left to walk the land in search of meaning. Some say his kingdom was destroyed but for a small handful of survivors. Some say he turned to dark magic and sold his soul for the chance. to take revenge on the one who desolated his home. Some say he’s ageless, bones turned to cold iron and chest empty of breath to contain the power he now holds. …They’re all right. But his quest is long over, and all that’s left to do now is wander.

PapAIrus (Transcendtale Papyrus): He’s a proud knight of the kingdom! He may not have been in the Royal Guard when he was tragically cut down before his time, but he did come back from death as a ghostly semblance of himself at the same time everyone else did—and when your Captain is no longer worried that you might get yourself killed in battle because you already did, promotions are in order! So, he now serves his phantom kingdom as a phantom knight, valiantly and eagerly, but of course, taking time every now and then to visit his (mostly) living family member, to keep him from brooding too hard.

Xanth (Ascendswap Sans): It’s…slightly unclear what he does. He’s seemed strange for a time, a bit touched, but the queen seems to hold him in high esteem and never fails to consult him (among others) before any major decisions are made. Sometimes he’ll appear in unusual places with cryptic messages, or look into peoples’ eyes and divine their intentions (should they be ill ones), and for all this, though he holds no specific title, he’s at least informally called the court mystic. There are rumors that his strangeness and that of those closest to him is because he made contact and some sort of bargain with the faefolk…but those are surely just rumors.

Piper (Ascendswap Papyrus): The royal falconer, primary trainer, keeper, and handler of all the hawks and falcons owned by the queen. It wasn’t a job he was born into, but one he sought out of the blue one day, and he earned his way by demonstrating a remarkable affinity for the birds even prior to any training. By now he’s a figure of great respect for the command he has over the flighted beasts, and he happily demonstrates it during the queen’s feasts and king’s hunts.

Carmine (Underfell Fruition Sans): He’s earned his way at court with talent, performing dazzling displays of bullets and other magic for nobles and royals alike. He’s a standout from other such entertainers in that his well of magic never seems to run dry and he can keep showing off his juggling and his light shows and his dancing bullets from sun-up to sun-down without ever tiring. He doesn’t talk much about his life before coming to court, but he’s happy now so it’s just as well.

Tank (Underfell Fruition Papyrus): He was trained from a very young age to be a soldier, a paladin meant to fight in a holy war and raised to believe his greatest purpose was to die on the battlefield and bring glory to the cause. That all…never happened. He was freed from the grip of the zealots and reunited with the brother he hadn’t seen in ages, but then left at odds for what to do now—a warrior with no war to fight. Eventually he becomes apprenticed to a carpenter in town in the hopes of learning a trade to live on, and…he’s starting to be content.

Vi (Swapfell Fruition Sans): Spymaster to the crown, head of a small network of covert informants, assassins, thieves and the rest of their ilk. It was a career he…inherited…but also one he carried out diligently, carefully, and above all, secretly. At least, until his brother married and he left to join him in his new kingdom, where he serves much the same function at court—with the added responsibility of wrangling and occasionally nominally filling in for the crown prince. All according to plan.

Hunter (Swapfell Fruition Papyrus): He was in the same family business as his brother, but when he caught the eye of a visiting monarch and won an invitation to their kingdom, to marry, well… how could he refuse? And when, after an unsuspicious amount of time, his spouse is found dead under mysterious—but not too mysterious—circumstances, and no one from the proper line of succession seems to be coming to take their place… He really has no choice but to go from the prince consort to the crown prince, for the sake of his late spouse’s people. He’s far from a proper or responsible prince, and certainly has some kind of reputation, but he’s pleased enough with how everything’s going.

Kohl (Descendtale Sans): He minds the royal dungeons. It’s not what he started out doing, but somewhere along the way he lost the humor for anything else, and it’s as good a job as any. Not too many strangers make it into the kingdom these days, but plenty have foul intentions and it is something he takes some pride in, keeping watch over those ill-meaning outsiders and making sure they stay put, where they belong. He’s not the kindest of dungeon-keepers, but quite frankly, since when was ‘kindness’ part of that job description?

Bram (Descendtale Papyrus): His brother keeps the dungeon and he keeps the grounds. While a groundskeeper isn’t anything close to what he thought he’d want to be, a lot has happened—to him personally and to the kingdom as a whole—and well, he’s providing a very valuable service with his work, humble though it may be. Anyone with skin would have a horrid time pruning back all the wicked, cursed thorns that keep trying to consume the realm, and unchecked, they could probably run wild in less than a fortnight, where would they all be if he let that happen?

[kandicon]

Actually I really wanna write a role reversal gerrymichael au and let me be so, so transparent when I say it is literally just bc I wanna fantasize about the tall, gangly blond man beating monsters to death

Everyone else has the same roles. Mary Keay is still Mary Keay in all her abusive and obsessive glory; Gertrude is still the Archivist.

Vaguely spiral aligned Michael who Does Not Like It. Pretends his connection is a hell of a lot looser than it is.

The only benefit (that Michael thinks of the Spiral) is how he can move around the Institute with relatively little interference and watch, after all, it is hard to behold something that is both nothing and everything and never was all at the same time.

Gerry ran away from home really young and actually succeeded. Spent a few years fucking around and learning what kind of benches are best to sleep on before applying to the Magnus Institute because that's what his dad did. He lied to hell and back on the application, but was hired quickly because of how thoroughly touched by the entities he was (thanks Mary) and Gertrude was running low on assistants. Gerry also felt completely justified in faking stuff and that he was perfectly qualified bc he grew up in a bookshop and how much different could it be (very different, as it turns out).

They first meet each other when Michael is prowling through artefact storage like it was a shopping mall, and pocketing everything he saw that didn't immediately mesmerize him. He was nervous and jumpy as all hell, even though this was not the first time he's done something similar and he's fairly certain Gertrude doesn't care, so when Gerry first spotted him from behind, he was immediately suspicious even before he saw Michael try to shove a lamp into his jacket pocket. This led to an altercation that eventually led to the lamp being accidentally turned on, Michael smashing it to pieces with a hammer Gerry had not realized Michael had, and Gerry suddenly being a lot more consciously aware of the supernatural than he was.

Gerry's mother was still obsessive over Lighteners, and she didn't make an effort to hide what she did, but she didn't actively try to educate Gerry on anything to do with the Fears. So he is fairly knowledgeable on the supernatural, but he doesn't know anything concrete about the Fears themselves and their categorization. The role of a stand by sacrifice instead of an errand boy and heir.

Michael still trusts Gertrude, but this time he knows he shouldn't and hates himself for it. Gerry wants to trust Gertrude, and she does hide him from anything Fears related and behaves around him like she did Michael in cannon, but he just feels something off about her and doesn't like it. She's just a bit too much like his mother for him to let his guard down.

Michael gets referred to by "it/its" pronouns once by Gerry as a teasing joke before Gerry fully knows what he is and is absolutely terrified by how happy the pronouns make his feel. (He thinks, maybe, that the Michael of his childhood liked something similar, too, but everything too far back is all twisted and he doesn't know what has been touched by the Spiral and what hasn't, so he doesn't trust any of it). He/it Michael ftw

At one point Michael just started putting black lipstick on himself because some of Gerry's always stuck to him when they kissed anyways n this gave them plausible deniability. Michael will never admit to the little spiral thrill it gives him when people do a double take upon seeing his face, the black lipstick contrasting literally everything else about his style.

Gabriel attempted to track Michael down exactly once, a few years before he joined the institute. He had heard about Michael's unsavory... Hobby... (<- reckless destruction of artefacts and throwing himself at all monsters and avatars he sees with a murderous rage regardless of their affiliation) but spiral avatars capable of holding a conversation are so few and far between and the Great Twisting was almost prepared, so he thought a meeting would be worth it. He showed up at a cafe Michael frequented one day expecting lovely, but tense, conversation, only to promptly lit on fire (mostly) in the back alley behind the cafe after he introduced himself. Gabriel survived, but some of his clay body still hardens unexpectedly or shows signs of firing from time to time.

Occasionally Michael's eyes will change colors and shapes, so he likes to put contacts in (he used to just use tinted glasses, but after one time of Gerry getting lost in his eyes in the far too literal, not at all romantic, sense, he decided to invest in smth a bit harder to take off and forget about). Unfortunately, this sometimes means other, very much not his original eyes will pop up around his body and in his hair as protest when he puts them in. It's not very fun to have to chase off eyes at 6am, but he does it regardless and complains the whole time about how he shouldn't have to deal with eyes when he very clearly isn't of The Eye.

Gerry: Oh hey you were running pretty late. I was starting to get worried.

Michael, not about to admit he spent an extra thirty minutes to get ready yelling and brandishing a lighter at a door that was following him around like a lost puppy: Ummmmmm I forgot my wallet. :((