#archivist melanie

[gr-book-worm-1818]

the thing with tma is you could shuffle and place pretty much any mc as an archivist and as a not!person au and make it WORK

jarchivist & not!georgie. jarchivist & not!tim. sarchivist & not!martin. tarchivist & not!jon. marchivist & not!sasha. hell, who’s to say melarchivist couldn’t work? or garchivist, or barchivist, or even darchivist? just slightly alter their backstories so that they’ll find themselves in a position where elias both offers them the archivist job and they accept it. just THINK of all the possibilities!!!! no matter who the archivist is, imagining that someone STILL gets not’ed no matter what, is absolutely HAUNTING and i LOVE it.

working ideas for these:

not!georgie au where she visits the institute and ends up in artefact storage, BOOM not’ed ; naturally, jon isn’t even the one who notices. maybe martin or tim?

the classic sarchivist & not!jon au BUT martin is still the ‘anti-christ plus-one’ and gets to watch the smiting of the not!them, sasha james style

sarchivist, not!martin, & archival assistant jon where JON is the only one who thinks something’s kinda off with martin

melarchivist au where she encounters something genuinely Fucked Up at ghost hunt uk pre-jarchivist and literally no one believes her et cerera et cetera so drama happens, ghost hunt uk is abolished, and when melanie heads to the institute elias offers her the position

MARCHIVIST + NOT!JON.

SARCHIVIST + NOT!TIM.

tarchivist au where he’s still the one who sets off the explosion during the unknowing, but HE’S the only one who survives and all of his friends die in the explosion (yk cause in this case he’s an avatar)

tbh, i think every single one of these characters, no matter who’s the archivist and who’s the not!person, they’d still end up starting the eyepocalypse one way or another, even if their way isn’t as impulsive as jon’s. i just feel like they would!!! i mean, we all know every single character had made incredibly stupid decisions in tma, so…

anyway, just things to think about :)

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

Podcast fanartists baffle and amaze me. I've been seeing TMA fanart for *years* on the peripherals of my feeds, and I always assumed that there was official art or clear descriptions or something because there was always variety in the designs, but there were things that were almost always the same, just like fanart of any visual media.

Here is a list of all the main character descriptions I am aware of that exist in the 200 episodes of The Magnus Archives (not counting scar descriptions):

Johnathan Sims

"Scrawny"

Premature grey hairs

Martin Blackwood

"Not the smallest guy in the world"

"Uncanny" resemblance to his father. Whatever he looks like.

Sasha James

"Tall"

"Long hair"

"Glasses"

Timothy Stoker

"The hot one"

Basira Hussain

...

Alice "Daisy" Tonner

...

Melanie King

...

Georgina Barker

...

The amount of details that everyone has just agreed on being true for all of these guys is legitimately wild

[bleeding-seraphic]

Hell of a season finale huh

[wilkoakdraws]

have at ya an unholy pile of wildly chaotic and VERY serious magnus stuff from last 6 months. happy 2024

[saragrosie]

Some really stupid season 3-4ish mag sketches plus obligatory crumpling Jon up into a ball (And also s1 Jon is there writing his gay little statements whatever).

I say s3-4 cuz Helen ya know here's another Helen under the cut my beloved they could never make me hate you. You are the not a who but the moment the icon the legend:

I'm sharing some more dumbass things I've drawn in another post cuz there are early season 5 references (I'm on MAG 169) so check that out if you're caught up to there if not begone no spoilers for you ok byeeeee

[y3llow-hoodie]

I made this like ages ago, I remember it made numbers on other social media so I figured I could repost some Elias slander here

For anyone wondering: punch is Basira, stab is Melanie, derogate is Tim, and burn is Martin (King) Blackwood

[laughable-umbrella]

LETS PLEASE NOT FORGET THAT MELANIE’S ACTUAL PLAN WAS TO KILL ELIAS THEN GO OUT FOR DRINKS WITH BASIRA AND MARTIN DIRECTLY AFTER

[bardic-irritation]

losing my mind what do you mean martin is canonically Down Bad for jon? and jon is canonically ace? these were casually confirmed in the span of like 30 seconds? i thought those were just the typical in-denial fanbase headcanons, they're REAL?!?

[asherlookit]

was scrolling through the "the mechanisms was Jon Archivist's college band" tags on ao3 and misread "martin finds out Jon is the lead singer of his favorite band" as Melanie, and i honestly think that would be a hundred times funnier. imagine your eldritch boss who you fucking hate but sounds vaguely familiar asks what you're listening to one day out of awkward obligation to make British Small Talk and you roll your eyes and tell him he probably doesn't know them and then you drop their name and he goes very still and flushes and suddenly Jonny D'Ville is speaking in your airpods and you're looking at your boss (who again, you fucking hate) and your world crashes and burns

[mintytea-exe]

me while socialising atm

[occudo]

fine, they can be happy too

pose ref

[scooterscoob]

“And yet you’ve come to make a statement.”

[ep.28]

[lunacias]

are you still listening?

[aziuuu]

SEASON 3!!!!!!!!!

Jon is wearing random borrowed clothes... Not like he has time to stylize proffesional looking outfits.

Have some fresh Elias but I didn't change his outfit. Maybe I'm getting lazy lmao

I just made Tim more angry lookin sorry

Michael is the same as in last season and Helen will be in the next one!

[wilkoakdraws]

My 2023 Inktober, done all as Magnus Archives illustrations!

[yellow-faerie]

Ok ok ask and ye shall receive - Archivist!Melanie

So the basic premise of this one is that Melanie has weird things happen to her super early in her career. First, there's an encounter with the Web probably when she's still at Uni, and there's an encounter with something or other while recording, and maybe another incident with someone or something else.

In her quest to find answers, she ends up at the Magnus Institute literally the day Gertrude goes missing (probably due to some sort of Web machination, or just dumb luck) and comes to the attention of Elias Bouchard who's like - well she's got herself a head start! And so he literally offers her a job in the Archives on the spot.

Melanie is like...umm am I qualified for that? And Elias is like...I'm gonna pay you loads and give you four assistants so do with that what you will. So Melanie takes the Archivist job.

The assistants are Sasha, Tim, Jonathan and Martin. I think the dynamic in the Archives is quite fraught between Melanie and her assistants for while they are very happy to help, there's this sort of unspoken agreement that even Martin would have been a better pick as Archivist.

This isn't to say they are friends/friendly but they don't have the basis of a friendship from working together previously that Jon had with Sasha and Tim, and so it's more difficult to not feel an undertone of bitterness that she got the job.

I reckon she's probably still quite sceptical of statements to begin with, perhaps a touch less due to her Several Experiences Already. The whole reason she's here is to understand why the Fears are like that and she is determined that once she's worked it out, she'll step down and let the others fight over the position.

Jane Prentiss happens pretty much the same as canon EXCEPT that it is Martin who gets taken by the Not!Them - not sure on the logistics of how yet - when they come out.

Melanie has a sort of paranoia arc, but it's mostly just an anger issues arc, and she and Georgie - who were sort of dating by that point - "take a break" over this and this just sorta makes things worse. The police suspect her of the murder (how could they not) and Basira and Daisy still come in as they did in canon.

The Not!Them is discovered by Jon though - who goes through a little, mini paranoia arc as a treat when his boyfriend (he and Martin were dating) starts acting weird; which culminates in someone from the library coming down to the archives and being like...that's not the guy I remember - and so he burns the table down with his lighter. (The web lighter)

Which still releases the Not!Them but we get rescued by Leitner, while Michael ends up having Tim and Sasha in his tunnels. He takes a particular liking to Sasha but does let them both leave.

Leitner appears; Leitner dies. Melanie gets accused of murder and ends up staying at Georgie's. This is inconvenient because Jon ALSO comes to visit Georgie because of the cat (a rather new development coming from losing the guy he really quite liked to Strange Fear Entities).

I reckon Melanie would definitely also travel like Jon did. I think she's probably marked by the Slaughter with the bullet in her leg just as in canon. I'm not gonna get into the specifics here because I have yet to map them out lol.

Meanwhile, back home, Jon is getting super quiet at work, Tim is furious that he's still here and Sasha has a new, developing fear of opening doors. Basira joins the Archives around this time I believe as well. (I have not got this far on my relisten so details get fuzzy from here on out lol)

But the Circus of the Other! Tim dies, as in canon, Melanie goes into the place between Life and Death but it is Georgie who wakes her up. Georgie who still has a great deal of affection for her ex-girlfriend and would rather she not die.

So I have not planned this out lol but things I know happen in this alternate S4:

- Jon goes Full Web (he's the one that Peter chooses to be his assistant but Jon is playing his own game)

- Sasha either a) ends up opening the wrong door and being swallowed by the distortion, something that kept happening for longer and longer times before the final time) or b) goes the Melanie of S4 route and quits the institute - I literally cannot decide haha

- I reckon Basira is the same sort of ruthless as in canon and is the one who does Impromptu Near Surgery (the bullet is still there after all)

- Daisy is rescued

I reckon a lot of S4 would be Melanie trying to prove she's not a monster; she helps Daisy to feel like a hero (Jon pulls her out with the tapes - the Mother doesn't want them losing the Archivist), she refuses to eat (and then lies about it when she does), etc etc

Eventually though, things come to a head and Melanie - fully marked - has to escape. So she goes to Georgie's house for help and Georgie knows a place up in Scotland where they can stay safe. (It's Daisy's safehouse, the information is for some reason being given by Georgie but shhh)

So then the Apocalypse happens. Melanie has kinda accepted that she has to eat so Georgie leaves her to it and voilà, eyepocalypse.

I really haven't thought this far ahead but if Sasha got eaten by the Distortion, she would appear instead of Helen; and if she was blinded, she'd probably end up beneath the Institute although I don't know if she'd rescue anyone or not.

Basira and Daisy's story would, again, be somewhat similar to canon because they really do not want to be AUed against their will for some reason.

That said, Jon definitely becomes a full avatar of the Web in this situation and is like Annabelle's right hand, being used to convince Georgie and Melanie of the plan to release the Fears; which he's good enough at that he gets Georgie.

And Georgie stabs Melanie.

So yeah! I love these sorts of AUs where everything twists and turns, and Archivist!Melanie is one that's so totally full of a lot of denial and anger that it...frankly fascinates me as an idea.

I desperately need to talk about my TMA au where several alternate universes with different Archivists starting the eyepocalypse, all meeting in the winding corridors of Hilltop Road as it exists in between universes, like I am literally lying awake thinking about it

There's Jon, of course, looking for Martin but there's also:

Archivist!Gertrude starting the apocalypse because she and Agnes were much closer than in canon and Gertrude will put herself in danger for one (1) person

Archivist!Melanie who joined the institute after several very weird encounters on the job and who Elias shoved into the archivist position because of her several marks; she screams and screams against it but doesn't leave because a small sliver of her is scared of death, and half believes she might be able to help other people

Archivist!Basira who takes over after Jon dies in the Unknowing and is sceptical and untrusting and ruthless, but too reckless not to get marked (and maybe she's friends with Rosie, out of lack of no-one else to be friends with, and maybe clinging to that friendship means she misses when Rosie's eyes subtly change colour)

Archivist!Sasha who is almost as sceptical as Jon but is more light-hearted, and has her own past, and whose journey mirrors Jon's so terribly but she still digs that hole anyway

Archivist!Elias, which was admittedly crack to begin with, but now I'm obsessed with whatever that would be like after Gertrude dies early - also weirdly got me into LonelyEyes so...I don't know how I feel about that

There are just so many twists and turns to all these aus and in my head they don't even interact all that much but....all the other characters who twist into new narrative positions when the Archivist changes...it fascinates me

Send me an ask with a character (literally any character from TMA) and I'll tell you how they change in each au, as well as maybe a few headcanons from the canon universe ;)