#web avatar sasha james

[lairde-lampblack]

i remembered my oops all avatars au lmao. jon gets Passionate

[the-lantern-lights]

First commission for @chrisis-averted :)

They requested for me to design Web!Sasha

[just-an-enby-lemon]

The people are different versions but still exist in TMAGP and that absolutly is the one thing moving a very specific TMA AU.

Basically besides joining the Institute, Tim gets very into online supernatural foruns trying to find people with similar experiences. So one day he gets a mysterious mensage from someone about the "thing wearing my brother's skin". The e-mail is about a young lady that says something very similar happened to her and her uncle and she has been investigating similar stories since. They chat more and with Sasha advice Tim decides fuck it and meets the woman, both pretend it's a date.

Everything is well until Tim mentions working dor the Magnus Institute, she, who presented herself only by Gwen, pales and goes "oh you're one of them" and leaves after saying "I'm not playing his games. I'm not feeding him." Tim is very confused, he thinks maybe the Institue tried to investigate her case and failed. They are not in the archive yet so he asks Jon and Sasha with help without giving any detail, basically hoping Sasha conection with Gertrude means she has acess to the archives and Jon being way to into spending long nights working will help them sort whatever Sasha finds.

Except Sasha finds nothing. Until a random day were she comes up with a big grim and goes "you guys won't ever be abble to guess what I found out?" and open in a very funky web page advertising Gwendolyn Bouchard, paranormal lawyer. Sasha is laughting, Jon is ranting about what a paranormal lawyer would even be but Tim is like "oh shit, that's her".

He doesn't connect the dots at first. Or doesn't want to. But he keeps thinking about "I'm not feeding him" and he is like "random question what do you guys know about Elias" and Sasha goes research into it.

At this point he and Jon aren't close friends but they are friends and if their boss is one of the things that ate his brother he needs to figure out something. With the assumption Elias is a clown, Tim does actually notice how creepy Elias is with Jon and is fully "Jon won't belive me but Elias is totally into eating his insides or whatever". So he tells the truth to Sasha and tricks Jon into visiting Gwen's lawyer thing for answers.

I still did not figure out most of the other things, except that Alice and Gwen are together in this verse and Alice made the web design for Gwen's page. I also know I want alt Sam and I want just our Celia who keeps almost meeting them but never doing. Or even a Celia that came back and has a dificult time being at her world and interacting with different versions of people that mattered so much to her.

I don't know still what to do with Sam, because I think Martin was very clearly Jonah backup archivist and the thing is Elias will try to convince Jon Gwen is the crazy/evil one and either he'll suceed making Jon betray his friends and be the archivist but with different assistants (except Martin) or he won't and Martin will start as the archivist. And while backup archivist/archival assistant Sam makes sense I'm unsure I want that for him. I'm thinking maybe this version of Sam after failing to get into Oxford went into a "rebelious" phase instead of doubling down in trying to met his parents high expectations and ended up joining Melanie ghost hunting channel. But not sure.

Like if I actually go the route of Celia is back trying to find help for both her worlds a Sam that's not quite the Sam she knows/cares about would be interesting. Like he is deep down the same but also he isn't in some obvious ways and she might just miss her Sam more. But if this is an AU not as connected with Protocol than maybe a Sam that's pretty much our Sam but if he was in Archives would make sense. Idk.

And ofc Basira and Daisy that I'm always partial to but I have no clue how to add, except maybe with them starting as Gwen and Alice rivals because Gwen attorney bussiness interferes with their sectioned police work. Also Gwen being an attorney is a 100% because I fully think she was her normal manipulative rise to the top and keep the Bouchard's name girl and went into law school for it except she mets Alice and by the same period Jonah happens and she was close to Elias (even if in parts was because she looked better in the family eyes when they were together by comparison) and it changed everything.

I don't know a lot about Alice either but she was Lena's college roomate and atended classes with Colin (yes he is here as well, unsure what to do with him tho). She had a paranormal encounter that left a scar similar but in oposition to Georgie's where she has a "spider sense" sort of think and can feel when the fears are involved, she knows if a library or book fair has a Leitner and where for example. It happened when she was young and possibly involved meeting my boy Gerry but she tried to avoid the supernatural ever since. She was very reluctant over helping Gwen except she acidentaly overheard her talking to "Elias" and Jonah messed with her head. More importantly she knows that ignoring sometimes is worse because some secret involving her baby brother who may or may not have joined Grifters Bone and becamed a Slaughter Avatar.

The supernatural lawyer was a joke from Alice but Gwen took it seriusly and Alice was loke "really?" and guess this moron will need help to not die/became an avatar and became her paralegal (tho it had nothing to do with her actual college diploma).

[afangirlingcosplayer]

Most of my TMA cosplays from March 2020-December 2022.

Tim & Melanie are @/likemysin on Instagram

[lady-bee-holmes]

Archivist Sasha au, but Jon is still the one who gets marked. He’s still him and applies his usual mix of curiosity, stubbornness, and idiocy to the role of assistant, and he will always play stupid games and will always win even stupider prizes

There’s no apocalypse (cause he isn’t the Archivist) and for the most part everyone lives, he’s just really unlucky and really bad at making decisions

[fiendishartist2]

web jon is so sillay

[driedlillies]

Tma AU where Jonah fucked up his ritual when transferring to Elias’ body and still exists but is like. On the backburner unable to control the body. Because he’s a loser. So OG Elias is able to hear everything he thinks but Jonah can’t do anything. And so he learns the evil plan to end the world and immediately decides nope that’s NOT happening.

And since James Wright appointed him as the next Head of the Institute he has full control over everything he destroys every single bit of Jonah’s carefully laid masterplan. And Jonah suffers seeing everything he’s build fall like a house of cards. At the end Elias just goes and kills Jonah — there were concerns that it may also kill him, but he was ready to sacrifice himself — and comes out alive and free from voyeristic georgian men.

Elias establishes something of a truce with Gertrude after explaining the situation and also perhaps maybe telling her that Jonah mentioned one of her assistants is of the Web and what does that mean? Also what are the rituals and why does Jonah keep saying they don’t work unless you— (Gertrude cuts him off before he says it out loud. Walls have ears. You never know who might be listening).

Michael doesn’t die. Neither does Gerry, because after he faints for the third time at the Institute — Elias doesn’t have spooky eldritch eye powers, but he has office gossip, and that’s basically the same thing — Elias personally goes down to the Archives and tells him to go to the fucking doctor dude. Gerry smokes weed with him after a few months and thanks him for potentially saving his life

By the time Gertrude dies, which is post Stranger ritual (not shot by him, but still probably not peacefully, knowing her) Sasha becomes the next Archivist, and her role in the overall world of the Fears — Elias is not an avatar, doesn’t want to be, but has some leftover traits from Jonah’s inhabitance in his body, and knows a lot — is explained before she signs any contract. Also you’re not tied for life, fuck that. There’s a mandatory Entities 101 for every employee, no matter what department they work in; the vast majority of them come here seeking answers for what really ruined their lives, none of them deserve to die because nobody tells them what they’re actually fighting against. Tim — very much alive — goes to the Archives with Sasha, Jon stays in reaserch and eventually becomes Head Researcher. Martin goes to college part time at some point. Life is good

[thebadchoicemachine]

Jonah raised Jon AU

Can't get this AU out of my head where Jon was adopted and raised by James Write and then later taken under the care of Elias Bouchard, as per his father’s will.

1.) He's raised to be the perfect eye avatar and Knows plenty pretty quickly—even the stuff “Elais” never told him. He's helping Elias search for the perfect avatars to be part of their ritual (if only because it’s what been ingrained in his head since he was 8. It’s no different than studying for college to him. It’s simply something he, as an Avatar, does.)

2.) One day, when he’s just turned 18, he runs into a few people hanging out at a cafe. Or, more accurately, a person ran into him. With a bike.

3.) (Martin didn’t mean to hurt Jon. He saw a hot regal-looking guy outside a cafe and started daydreaming about a meet cute and then… oops. He’s not sure how it even happened, it was like something yanked the handlebars of his bike)

4.) While Jon and Martin are laying on the ground—Martin apologizing like his bloody life depends on it and Jon cussing him out, wondering why he didn't See this this coming—two baristas come out to help.

5.) Tim and Sasha burst out the front door, clambering to get a break from work help with the commotion outside the shop.

6.) After more outrage from a (much more entitled) Jon, Tim ends up calming everyone down with his charm and some pastries. They end up talking after Jon gathers his composure and demure. He finds the three intriguing and resolves to be friendly with them, even if only as an act to dig into their minds.

He ends up having a surprisingly good time, though.

7.) Also, Tim hits on everyone a bunch because you cannot escape polyarchives even here, though he's mostly joking.

8.) That evening Jon returns home with some news for his father. He explains the three people he met and how he was drawn to them… as possible avatars to be used.

Martin was the strongest, tormented by the Lonely and with a fierce potential for the Web. Jon could tell that, as sincere as he was trying to be, Martin was manipulating the converversation to paint himself as far more pathetic than he was. He wanted Jon to pity him. For what purpose? Seemingly nothing more sinister than wanting a connection of some kind. He was good at it too; if Jon didn't Know it, he'd never have guessed.

Tim had a deep-seated hatred of the stranger, though he didn't know what it was, making the connection rather vague. He hid it well, but there was a hunger in him for revenge and a willingness for violence. It wasn't purposeless or self-indulgent like the Desolation would feed from, but there was a seed to work with.

Sasha was the least interesting Avatar-wise. She was hard to read, which could be a sign of the Dark or Stranger, but she also had a drive about her that could feed the Hunt quite nicely if driven to extreams.

9.) Elias nods, thanks him for his reconnaissance, and lets him go to bed.

10.) Jon tries to sleep but lays awake that night, thinking about his first genuine interaction with people since he was eight. He was extremely sheltered living with his father, both bodies, and his interactions were limited to small talk and supernatural beings. Despite doing it for his father’s mission, he found that talking with them to be oddly freeing and even a little fun. “Elias Bouchard” was technically his gaurdien, not his father, and he was 18 now. He could argue for more freedom. Barring that, he was getting strong enough that Elias couldn't read him anymore, and he could tell when he was. Maybe, after a decade of being under All Knowing observation 24/7, he could allow himself another attempt at rebellion.

More of this AU under #Jonah raised Jon AU

[witchinatree]

oh dearest magnus archives & protocol fandommm (you are my top fandom on this blog)

how would you like a new TV show to fill the void left by the protocol hiatus/the end of archives

it's 'dead boy detectives' on netflix it's my favorite TV show and i really think you all would enjoy it!! (i should warn you: it did get cancelled, hence the save the dead boy detectives campaign and why i'm advertising it to you)

on the save the dead boy detectives server we were discussing (in the sense that i woke up to a discussion that happened 7 hours ago and saw the words magnus and archive and lost my mind) which characters match the core four and which entity they would most likely align with/be avatars of so i will share these findings with you now 🙏

edwin - sasha james but also a bit of gertrude robinson, probably wouldn't become an avatar but if he were i think he'd be an avatar of the stranger (feel free to ask for my reasoning btw i just don't want to spoil the show)

charles - tim stoker ofc and he has a lot of desolation and slaughter alignment but i think he'd be a water themed avatar of the vast with lonely elements

crystal - jon sims and she would definitely have eye alignment but i think she would end up as a web avatar

niko - martin blackwood but also she's SOOO jane prentiss!!! so she would be an avatar of the corruption with lonely alignment

thank you for coming to my TedTalk and i hope you enjoy the show if you watch it (or if this convinced any dbda fans to listen to the magnus archives i hope you enjoy it!!)

[ao3feed-jonmartin]

The Thing Under the Streets of London

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/hDrxHq7 by DarkSilverShadows36 Michael Shelley has always had a fascination for the supernatural, ever since his childhood, and because of his friendship with Gerry Delano. So, he finds himself interviewing for a job in the Archives of the Institute of the Paranormal and Strange, and getting said job. He does not know of the monster that lives in the archives, of the plot spreading out with the Institute at its heart, and soon discovers the truth of the fate of the Institutes two illusive founders. Thus beginnings the journey into secrets unknown, alongside his old friend, as he plunged deeper and deeper into the world of the supernatural, strange, and terrifying. Words: 764, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Fandoms: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Categories: M/M Characters: Michael Shelley, Original Characters, Gerard Keay, Sasha James, Oliver Banks, Michael "Mike" Crew, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood Relationships: Gerard Keay/Michael Shelley, Gerard Keay & Michael Shelley, Michael Shelley & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Gerard Keay & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood & Gerard Keay, Martin Blackwood & Michael Shelley Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Gerry and Michael as Childhood Friends, Archivist Sasha James, Monster Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Moth Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Mute Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, They/Them Pronouns for Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Web Avatar Martin Blackwood, Good Parent Eric Delano, Gerry Delano is Gerard Kaey, Mentions of Mary Kaey's A+ Parenting, Slow Burn, Canon-Typical The Beholding Content (The Magnus Archives), Canon-Typical The Spiral Content (The Magnus Archives), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, This is technically post canon, but I'm not explaining why just yet, Blind Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/hDrxHq7

[lairde-lampblack]

welcome to an au i like to call oops all avatars, where all the s1 archives staff all come from branching timelines back in time to try fixing the mistakes, but each timeline is a little different in a few ways. details under the cut

jon (eye): follows canon mainly up to the eyepocalypse, whereupon he's sent back in time to s1

martin (lonely): is largely the same up until the lonely aside from tim getting got by the not!them and sasha dying in the unknowing, and jon himself not being too far along in avatarhood where it's easily missed by martin, where jon getting lost in the lonely is the catalyst to martin becoming and in his rage he exits the lonely to murder elias and plukas in a blind rage, ending his timeline w the dead man's switch taking martin down in the process

tim (spiral): in this timeline, it's martin gotten by the not!them. sasha gets killed by jane prentiss during an investigation after being the one trapped in her flat, leading to both jon and tim spiralling and seeking revenge. tim takes to the corridors to find answers, and his door is what saves him at the end of the unknowing where jon dies. tim becomes as a spiral avatar and takes to tormenting the archive replacement staff and elias until he and helen end up warring and leading to the collapse of both avatars and ending the timeline

sasha (web): biggest divergence. jon is claimed bt the not!them in this timeline, leading to sasha investigating the house on hilltop road. martin was kidnapped by the not!jon, and tim was killed in the prentiss attack, leaving sasha all by herself to try fixing things. sasha meets annabelle cane and was learning to be a web avatar, where elias basically serves sasha on a silver platter to the circus because hes sick of spiders in his archives, ending the timeline w her death in the unknowing, where she falls through the crack in hilltop road and sends out panicked web strands and inadvertently brings all the othere back

it doesn't take long for the three archival assistants to realize they all know more than they should and that they're all from different timelines, but all three assume jon knows nothing because he died in all three of the timelines, and that he's just an ordinary human. thry do not know that he knows the actual most of all of them

[stephaniebrownslover]

My Creepypasta but The Magnus Archives style AU

Okay so this is an old AU that I would like to explain and write, but my street cat is currently sick and he's requeiring all my time and energy and that's okay!

There'll be only character roles and AU explainations in this post.

Character roles and which TMA character they match;

Judge Angels//Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Police officer called upon to deal with paranormal cases

Nurse Ann//Annabelle Cane, Avatar of The Web

Zero//Basira Hussain, Police officer called upon to deal with paranormal cases

Vladimir and Zachary//Breekon and Hope, Mysterious deliverymen and servants of The Stranger

Slenderman//Elias Bouchard , Head of The Magnus Institute

Mary Vaughn//Georgie Barker, "Host of the What The Ghost?" podcast

Ben Drowned//Gerard Keay, Mary Keay’s son and acquaintance of Gertrude Robinson

Rouge//Gertrude Robinson , Former head archivist of The Magnus Institute

Nina The Killer//Helen Richardson, Real estate agent merged with the Distortion

Lulu//Jane Prentiss, Avatar of The Corruption

Masky//Jonathan Sims, Head archivist of The Magnus Institute

Clockwork//Julia Montauk, Hunter and daughter of Robert Montauk

Homicidal Liu//Jurgen Leitner, Collector of paranormal books

Hoodie//Martin Blackwood, Archival assistant at The Magnus Institute

Jane The Killer//Melanie King, Proprietor of the "Ghost Hunt UK" Youtube Channel

Laughing Jack//Michael Shelley, Gertrude Robinson's assistant who was merged with The Distortion

Laughing Jill//Nikola Orsinov, Plastic mannequin created from Joseph Grimaldi

Zalgo//Peter Lukas, Avatar of The Lonely and captain of the Tundra

Kate The Chaser//Sasha James, Archival assistant at The Magnus Institute

Trendderman//Simon Fairchild , Avatar of The Vast(edit:he's changed from Offenderman to Trenderman)

Ticci Toby//Timothy Stoker, Archival assistant at The Magnus Institute

Eyeless Jack//Trevor Herbert, Self-proclaimed vampire hunter

Notes;

-Creepypasta characters, which are the equivalent of The Magnus Archives characters, were selected without caring about gender and the character whose personality is the most similar with TMA role was replaced with creepypasta character.

-The terms like The Stranger, The Vast, The Spiral, The Buried and blah blah and being an avatar etc. will be explained in future as in the podcast.

-Although I'm trying not to go out of personality to a large extent, there will be many things that do not fit because this is a completely different universe.

-Most of the Creepypasta characters are not killers, and some external appearance features have been arranged accordingly. If you don't like it, you don't need to read it because it's an AU. It's that simple.

-This AU is set in London, just like the podcast.

-If there is a thing that you are uncomfortable with, just don't read it. TMA is a podcast series full of really interesting horror stories, and if you're feeling uncomfortable, it's quite normal but please don't push yourself too much.

- All statements in the 200 episodes will not be mentioned in this AU. Only as much of it as will help you understand the AU will be edited into the AU.

-The dialogue is not exactly the same as in the podcast, because it will vary depending on the characters, but the critical scenes may be the same.

-I think that's it, have fun.

-And for you to have a better idea, The Magnus Archives description;

"The Magnus Archives is a weekly horror fiction anthology podcast examining what lurks in the archives of the Magnus Institute, an organisation dedicated to researching the esoteric and the weird. Join new head archivist Jonathan Sims as he attempts to bring a seemingly neglected collection of supernatural statements up to date, converting them to audio and supplementing them with follow-up work from his small but dedicated team.

Individually, they are unsettling. Together they begin to form a picture that is truly horrifying because as they look into the depths of the archives, something starts to look back…"

[itsclydebitches]

I haven’t read a whole lot of TMA fic, so I’m sure this already exists somewhere, but I really want a time travel fic where Jon goes back to Gertrude’s era.

So it’s 2007-ish, before his younger counterpart has started working at the Institute, but years into Elias and Gertrude’s tenure. They’re having a normal day serving the semi-omniscient fear god when a fucking full-fledged avatar of the Beholding - complete with a small mountain of tapes - falls through a rift in space-time and crash lands on Gertrude’s desk.

(Season 5 Jon might have decided not to kill Helen and instead used her to get here. If he ever sees her again they’re going to have A Talk™ about her choice of transportation.)

For the record, a hot mess of a man falling from the sky indoors is only like... the eighth most interesting thing to happen to Gertrude this week. Still, it’s clear he’s not entirely human - one gets a sense for these things, even without a giant eyeball’s help - and she’s got a knife on him faster than you can say “Statement.” This doesn’t seem to faze the man.

That annoys the fuck out of Gertrude.

Meanwhile, Elias has nearly passed out from the supernatural alarm bells going off in his head because the Ceaseless Watcher’s special little boy is here!!! What does that mean? Hell if he knows, but this man is ALIGHT with the Entities’ marks, just dripping with the power of the Eye, and Elias finds he has the sudden urge to drop to his knees before this stranger, something he’s only ever done post-Watcher’s Crown.

(This might be a Jonlias fic, whoops.)

Elias, seeing The Archivist for the first time: 😍😍😍😍😍

Gertrude, seeing The Archivist for the first time: 🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪

So after introductions Jon is all, “Yes, I’m an eldritch monster that’s forced to feed off the trauma of others, but I’m your eldritch monster. Please, Gertrude, I’d like nothing more than to carve out Magnus’ heart with you so he can’t destroy the whole fucking world.”

Elias, suddenly experiencing true fear for the first time in decades, feeding the Eye and being fed in turn and basically entering a feedback loop where this powerful stranger threatening to murder him is the hottest thing he’s ever Seen: !!!!! 💖💞😱!!!!!🤩😊💚!!!!!

And at first Gertrude’s like hell no, not having any more goddamn avatars in my archives thank you, but then the trio passes young intern Sasha James (shhh don’t worry if that fits the timeline) and Jon looses it. The hold that the Stranger had on him in his original timeline has broken and he’s able to recognize this as the real Sasha - her face, her voice, her very panicked looks towards her bosses as this random man sobs into her shoulder. And Gertrude’s like dammit, clearly The Archivist still has some of his humanity left. No true Fear monster would ever willingly be that embarrassing.

After prying Jon away from Sasha and promising her a raise to avoid any HR reports, they get the whole long, traumatic story out of him, but any plans to just permanently kill Elias kinda... sputter out. It’s a little bit of a Web thing, a little bit of a time travel thing, and a little bit of Jon just feeling... wrong when he considers it, no matter what he’s told Gertrude. It’s similar to when he let Annabelle live, though Elias has done absolutely fuck-all to earn his mercy. This confuses Jon, though it’s pretty far down on his list of worries.

The good news is that Jon’s mere presence puts a permanent wrench in Elias’ plans. He’s never going to repeat the ritual to open the door, obviously, and good fucking luck marking another archivist while he’s Watching. Given Jon’s suspicions that he became semi-immortal after waking from his coma, he’ll be Watching a damn long time, you megalomaniacal bastard.

The bad news is that since Elias can no longer plot an intricate manipulation, he’s decided that the next best thing is to just convince Jon to bring about the end of the world willingly.

By wooing him.

Elias: “We can be Kings of a ruined world together, Jon~”

Gertrude: “I am not paid enough for this.”

So begins the office romance comedy of Jon’s nightmares, where instead of hating him for ruining his world domination plans, Elias is smitten - in a suave, very creepy kinda way - and has decided that he’ll simply wait Jon out, wearing him down until the inevitable day when he realizes that they were meant to be. A full-fledged Archivist was dropped into his lap, ranting about how he out-foxed a future version of Elias, tormented by his own monstrosity, and people expected his narcissistic ass to not fall head over heels with his own creation?? As if.

Jon is Not Having A Good Time.

Originally when he landed here he was all, “Where is my Martin whom I love so dearly? Where is the support and companionship that I crave?” But after ‘bumping into’ him a few times outside the Institute, Jon comes to the bitter conclusion that whatever connection they had is gone. He recalls Martin’s firm belief that they never would have become a couple without all the trauma they’d been through and though this time around Jon definitely doesn’t hate him... he doesn’t love him either. Oh, he loves that he exists, seeing Martin whole and blissfully ignorant of the Fears helps heal something in Jon, but it takes him a very long time to admit that he’s too nice. Too caring. Too tentative in his insecurity. Jon grinds his teeth and admits in the privacy of his own thoughts that he was attracted to a bastard version of Martin, one who showed off a little bit of his own monstrosity, was connected to his own domain, could cut just as cruelly with his words as Jon could with his powers... Meeting with him now over coffee, inches away, Jon has never felt farther from him. This Martin simply isn’t a part of the world that created Jon.

Good, he decides and firmly steers Martin away from the Institute. Thanks to some blackmail and Peter Lukas’s money, Martin finds himself with a caretaker for his mom and the promise of a full ride through whatever creative writing program he can get into.

Meanwhile, Elias is of course stalking and spying on Jon whenever he can, doing the metaphorical equivalent of doodling hearts in his notebook whenever he catches a glimpse of why Jon no longer connects with Martin. He’s a bastard avatar with shitty morals and, frankly, far better taste in poetry. Open your third eyes, Jon!!

Gertrude, who avoided sacrificing Michael after a stern talking to from Jon: “You sure you don’t want the Spiral to eat you, kid? Anything’s better than watching this clusterfuck.”

Michael: 🙃🙃🙃

After a while the Institute settles into a new kind of normal. Jon, Gertrude, and Michael defend the archives from the slew of enemies they’ve both amassed, stopping the occasional ritual in their free time. Jon has long come to the conclusion that the Fears couldn’t have originated here - not with the Eye being unable to see its own creation - so starving them in this reality at the expense of their world wouldn’t serve the greater good. The best they can do is continually contain them - which they’ve gotten real good at. Elias continues to bother Jon with a fervor that’s almost admirable (he can see how this guy managed plans for upwards of 200 years) and waffles between playing the Mysterious Boss archetype that he’d used on Jon the first time around, and just giving in to the utter adoration he feels whenever Jon is in the room. It’s clear he’s long since started worshiping Jon rather than the Eye and the Eye is... totally fine with that?

Gertrude: “How did you get the Ceaseless Watcher to treat you like a favored child?”

Jon: Trauma?? 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

After seeing how much happier Martin is, Jon guides the rest of his former assistants away from the Institute, Sasha included. It helps, a little, but it also makes him even more isolated than he was the first time around.

Gertrude realizes this, so when Elias’ flirting - “I’ve found a fresh statement for you, Jon. Oh do stop glaring, it’s just a bit of chloroform. She’ll wake up soon. You can’t be satisfied with stale writings for forever” - starts inducing more fond annoyance than fear or horror, she becomes #Concerned.

Gertrude: “You realize that desensitizing you to his actions was the point all along, right?”

Jon: “Mmhm. But is it still manipulation if I know it’s manipulation?”

Gertrude: “You cannot possibly be considering this.”

Jon: “Would it help if I admitted that dating Elias wouldn’t be the worst decision I’ve ever made?”

Gertrude: “NO.”

The thing is, Jon liked Elias before he revealed himself to be an immortal body-snatcher hell-bent on creating... well, hell on Earth. He liked the soft academic exterior, his careful words, love of organization and attention to detail, the dry humor, cutting intellect, those suits that likely cost more than three months of his salary combined... In fact, Jon is now in a place to vividly remember the embarrassment he felt while interviewing for the archivist’s position, too busy avoiding looking at Elias’ lips to catch the hungry glint in his eye.

Of course, that Elias only exists as a veneer... though what was Jon’s “I’m just a normal man going grocery shopping, please ignore my scars and aborted grab as I resist demanding a statement from you” if not a veneer of its own? Where did their ‘real’ selves begin and their conscious choices end? The most awful thing about all this is that Elias is right. Oh, not about them being Kings of a ruined world, but about how no one but another avatar can truly understand an avatar. By this point Jon is years past his coma, fully at peace - or at least, as at peace as he’ll ever get - with the fact that he chose to live as a monster rather than die as a human. That means Knowing things at his leisure... though he tries not to catch anything private. It means Compelling others to provide him with more knowledge... though he’s careful with his questions around friends. It means Feeding off of others’ worst moments in life... though Jon restricts himself to statements that Gertrude has collected first, so that he never haunts anyone’s dreams. And it means spending the majority of his time with other monsters and monster-aligned allies... though Jon plants his feet firmly in his human morals and refuses to budge.

If he can navigate all that, why not this too?

Elias has said more than once that he would make Jon the worst version of himself - said with such glee and promise as to almost, almost sound like something Jon wants. Jon figures that the worst version of Elias, from his perspective, would be to look a bit more human.

“We can bring out the worst in each other,” he agrees one day, followed by a shark-like grin.

Elias hasn’t the faintest idea what he’s just gotten himself into.

And that feels wonderful. Manipulating him into being a marginally better person who doesn’t bring about the apocalypse might actually be more satisfying than stabbing him. The Elias of Jon's original timeline would have HATED this and that makes Jon do a happy little wiggle whenever he thinks about it.

Gertrude: “You’re leashing a fucking dragon, Sims.”

Jon: “Better than letting it roam free.”

Gertrude: “Just so long as he doesn’t chew through the reins.”

Jon: “Yeah well, I’ll be the first one burned if that happens” and he holds up his charred hand with a shrug.

So begins the most messed up courting ritual the world has ever seen. Do they work as a couple? Oddly enough, yes. Amazingly well, in fact. Is it a healthy relationship? LOL yeah right. But then that’s rather the point. Jon gave up on that the day he acknowledged that, yes, a part of him liked being the most powerful being roaming a hellish landscape - liked not being vulnerable for once. Back when he’d first joined the Institute, post-breakup with Georgie, Jon couldn’t even imagine someone liking him enough to grab a drink after work. He’s past pretending that having the cult-like devotion of a lover, the favor of a Fear god, and the grudging respect of everything else that goes bump in the night isn’t really fucking nice.

Sometimes Elias plays the part of a compassionate human for Jon, as a treat. Sometimes Jon let’s Elias bask in another’s terror, as a treat. Sometimes Jon is Jonathan Sims and sometimes he’s The Archivist. “Let’s rule a burned-out world together” becomes a staple request in their relationship, with Jon always giving Elias the equivalent of a pat on the head and a, “Sure, honey. Maybe next week.” They find something like balance that way.

Plus there’s Gertrude, perpetually in the shadows with an arsenal of weaponry and the promise to obliterate them both if they ever go too far. She reminds Jon of his grandmother when she threatens to fuck them up in the afterlife if they ever make her kill them.

Something, something, dysfunctional eldritch found families are beautiful?

Jon and Elias have achieved something akin to an uncanny, domestic bliss when Elias points out that this body won’t last forever...

Jon Does Not Like the idea of Elias kidnapping another innocent.

However...

Jon: “You know Jurgen Leitner is living in the Institute’s tunnels, right?”

And they lived ever after. The “happily” is highly subjective.

Bonus:

Post-apocalypse!Jon meeting with Original!Jon to warn him away from the Institute, painfully thin ever since his coma, hip-length hair streaked unnaturally white, a slew of scars covering every available bit of skin, the slightest green glow behind his eyes, somehow looking supremely confident and powerful while also embodying the most Awkward Academic you’ve ever seen: Hey.

Og!Jon: G-good lord!

Jon: It’s okay. You can say ‘fuck.’ Please say ‘fuck,’ Jon. We deserve it.

[theslaughtersfavlesbian]

okay okay hear me out: stranger avatar turned archivist sasha james

instead of being killed by the notthem, sasha was kept alive, and managed to escape from the stranger but not before being turned into an avatar. jon ends up mever waking from his coma, and Jonah loses his precious archivist. but if he can't have jon, who better than the girl the last archivist wanted to take over, the one who's already been sought out by the spiral and an avatar of the stranger. it's no web mark, but it's still a powerful person to put in archivist position

[scarriestmarlowe]

now im RLLY intrigued, who r sasha and mike?:3

sasha is an npc, and mike is a pc! i can infodump more about sasha than i can mike, mostly because while i know about mike, hes still not My character yk?

sasha ive done a truly CRAZY amount of art of, but heres some highlights;

sasha kubrik is a 30 year old model turned director, and an avatar of the spinning (the web equivalent in this universe!)

he was a marqu(ess/is) in france, but a well timed plane crash allowed him to fake his death when he was 17 to move to america and change his identity to become a model.

around this time, a large string of models in the industry began going missing, primarily ones he worked with, and specs suspected him to be the culprit. so, like any normal person, specs made an attempt on his life, sasha stopped him, and then they shared a cigarette and became best friends.

he debuted his first movie when he was 19, and it got so incredibly popular that he immediately became relatively famous, able to churn out artistic, high quality horror in a way that he got extremely rich and famous by the time he was twenty.

when he was twenty, he met a man named kelsey st-james in a coffee shop, and asked him to be his personal assistant. during this time, he was helping specs hunt down out of control avatars, and stop her from immediately killing them. however, this got him extremely fucked up on occasion, because of course it did.

he and kelsey got married when sasha was 29, and as of right now, sasha has turned into a spider monster, turned back, and is currently recovering from gunshot wounds inflicted by specs.

and, he has npd, cptsd/ptsd, autism, ocd, and drug induced psychosis.

[fiendishartist2]

until my fears come to fruition, i'm not scared– tma

"'Once I even saw him take one of Hector’s femurs and, after twisting it into a corkscrew spiral-'" Sasha spoke evenly into the tape recorder, voice soft as if giving words to the statement was a divine act. She felt it reverberate through her, a warm shiver that ran from the soles of her feet to the tips of her fingers. It wrenched her eyes open and she drank the words in as quickly as her own cadence would allow. Cold fear settled unpleasantly in her stomach, but the deep rightness of it compelled her to continue.

Just as she came upon the climax of the account, reading growing more frantic with each word inching closer to the heart of the victim's terror, the door to her office swung open.

It crashed against the wall with reckless abandon– old and rusty hinges shrieking alongside a startled Sasha. Tim strode into the room, waving around a handful of loose papers and manila folders.

"I told you– I told you!" He raged as he paced in front of Sasha's desk. Each harsh clap of Tim's loafers against the scuffed hardwood floors of the Archives punctuated the pounding of Sasha's heart. She almost couldn't catch her breath in all of the commotion; the last remnants of her prior excitement trickled out of her thoughts, replaced by quickly fading adrenaline.

Sasha mustered up a weak glare, "Tim, what the hell are you on about? You nearly gave me a heart attack!"

Tim continued to pace, completely ignoring Sasha. He muttered furiously to himself, talking in circles.

"Look, Tim," Sasha sighed, "I really need to get back to work-"

He whirled around and slammed the stack of statements onto Sasha's desk. His eyes were wild and hard with anger, but flitting about the room nervously, as if expecting something to sneak up on them. She flinched– she had been doing that a lot recently, especially around the people she once called friends.

Tim released the papers, moving his hands to grip the edge of Sasha's desk. Sasha pounced immediately, flipping through them hungrily.

"Wait, are these-?"

"Statements you've already read? Some of them," He shot a look over his shoulder, "Most of them aren't. Most of them are statements I've never seen before. I-I found them hidden in Document Storage- surely so we wouldn't find them…" Tim trailed off, babbling to himself.

Sasha's attention was glued to the unfamiliar statements. Her gaze jumped from paragraph to paragraph– page to page– as she tried to discern if she had seen them around the Archives or not. Something about these statements in particular repulsed her, even the ones she knew she had read prior. It felt wrong, like Tim had disrupted something important by taking them.

"So… what?" Sasha asked distractedly, "You found this lot of statements in storage. Gertrude probably hid them away for some reason or another. You know how she was."

A hand suddenly blocked her reading again as Tim slapped it down in front of her. He leaned in, mouth caught in a snarl.

"No." He said darkly, vitriol boiling just under the surface.

"No…?" Her voice climbed a few octaves as a different kind of fear wracked her.

Tim's erratic behaviour in the past few weeks had been causing her considerable alarm, but being faced with his rampage upfront was a whole other beast. She didn't want to believe Tim or Martin would harm her, but discovering Gertrude's body had changed things. The last Archivist was murdered, her death successfully covered up by someone working in the Archives. It rattled Sasha, made her wonder day in and day out if that would be her last– made her obsessive and confrontational and paranoid. The only person who could keep her anchored to reality was Jon; he kept her sane, in a way. On top of being a trustworthy friend in a place where she had lost all feelings of safety, he was incredibly helpful with Gertrude's murder investigation. He always seemed to get the perfect evidence just when she needed it. Sasha needed Jon, and she was grateful for it.

"Someone in the Archives is hiding these statements. Hiding them from you and me and Martin- a-and probably Elias too, for that matter!" He lowered his voice, once again checking over his shoulder before speaking, "I'm sure this is all Jon's doing."

Sasha burst into laughter.

All at once, the tension in the room dissipated. Of course Sasha was not about to be shot in her office, going the way of her predecessor; Tim was on another one of his 'Jon is evil' tirades. Tim sat back on heels and crossed his arms protectively over his chest. The faint blush creeping over his stony face prompted another round of giggles from Sasha.

"Sorry, sorry! It's just- Tim, please," She all but rolled her eyes, "I promise Jon did not squirrel away random statements for nefarious purposes."

He started pointing desperately at the papers again, "Look at them Sash- really look at them and-"

"Tim, I am looking at them. All I see is unrelated statements." Her hand moved of his own accord, settling on top of Tim's. She smiled, "You're getting worked up over nothing."

He looked disgusted for a moment, and then confused.

And then angry.

"You're not listening!" He shouted, before shooting a frightened look over his shoulder and lowering his voice to a growl, "If you just read them, you would see how they connect to Jon-"

"Spit it out already!" Sasha snapped. Her own frustration was bubbling up and the longer Tim beat around the bush, the more irritated she grew.

Tim dropped himself bodily into the chair in front of her desk– the one reserved for statement givers who thought the couch made it feel more like therapy than academia. He slid one of the folders towards himself, plucking the statement from within and holding it up.

"Read this one," he urged, "All of the writing in this file was done by Jon, but it's not anything coherent. Just the statement and pages of nonsense. I've never seen it before because it's been misfiled since Jon started working here."

"How do you know it's Jon's and you're not just using him as a scapegoat? You all started work on the same day." She asked cuttingly. She felt quite mean talking to Tim like this, but these baseless accusations against Jon were getting under her skin. She was just protecting a friend.

"Look at the handwriting- it's got to be Jon's." Tim handed over the open file and sure enough: Jon's characteristic cramped cursive littered each page.

As she flipped through the pages and pages of indecipherable 'research', she came upon the original statement: 'Statement of Darren Harlow, #0101811'. It looked relatively new; maybe a few years old, taken by Gertrude but untouched until Jon picked it up. Curiously, some parts of the statement were obscured– words, sentences, even entire paragraphs scratched out in pen. Otherwise, the statement appeared unharmed.

The visual of a marked-up statement made Sasha itch behind the eyes.

"'Annabelle Cane'? So, what, she turns into a spider monster by the end or something? Seems as normal as a statement can be."

Tim shook his head, "They're all like that, though! All about spiders and webs and- and puppets, for whatever reason. All follow-up done by or re-opened by Jon."

Tim snatched another piece of evidence from the pile, "A-and look at this one! I could have sworn you recorded this one right before Martin's run-in with Prentiss, but apparently it's been unfiled since Jon decided to 'continue Martin's research'," he mimed exaggerated quotation marks, "While he was absent."

Sasha remembered this one; statement #0150409, from the man who believed he was haunted by an immortal spider. She still regretted how hard she pushed Martin into proper follow-up on that one. In some ways, she felt like she had handed him over to Jane Prentiss on a silver platter.

However, she knew she could put Tim's skepticism to rest, now that she had a statement that was already on tape. Sasha pulled open the bottom drawer of her desk, where she kept all of her tapes. They were in neat stacks of six, ordered by date recorded. She shuffled through them, passing over the exact date where Carlos Vittery's statement should be. Real panic gripped her when she came up empty handed.

With more urgency, she dug out the entire stack it was supposed to be in and tossed it haphazardly onto her desk. The itch behind her eyes spread like a wildfire, filling her brain with an inescapable, searing buzz. She needed to find that statement– it was hers and the possibility of it being missing or- or stolen was inordinately wrong.

She pawed through the scattered tapes frantically.

"It's not here," she said faintly, turning back to her drawer to dig through the tapes with reckless abandon, "Tim it's not- it's not here. Why isn't it here?"

"I didn't see any tapes with the lost files, but-" Tim started tentatively, his own rage fizzling out as Sasha visibly spiralled. She stood abruptly, sending her chair careening behind her. It crashed into the bookshelf on the wall, dislodging a few books that fell to the floor with dull thumps.

Sasha marched around her desk. She pulled Tim out of his seat and pushed him out of her office.

"They were right here, I swear."

Tim had led her to the back of Document Storage. She had been trying to tame this room since day one in the Archives; so far, she had managed to record a considerable number of statements, but it had barely made a dent. There were still stacks of statements littering the floor and filing cabinets overflowing with manila folders.

Tim had pulled out one of the drawers of a filing cabinet and pointed out the space behind it. She had to admit, she's not surprised Tim found it so easily. It was a horribly obvious place to hide something.

"I don't see the tape…" She mused. Calmness settled over her like a blanket, pinning her down underneath it.

When Tim had steered her toward Document Storage, the panic fuelling her started to lose steam. Despite everything that happened between them recently, Sasha loved Tim– he was one of her closest friends. But, ever since Jon joined the Archives, she had to admit he had become a bit… irrational. After Prentiss, his disdain for Jon reared it ugly head and, subsequently, so did the theories and the arguments and the paranoia. Looking at it from a calmer perspective, it was easy to see how Tim was just jumping to conclusions, like usual.

Document storage was a mess; a room where every nook and cranny had a statement shoved in somewhere. Sasha often found herself getting turned around in there. It was impossible to find anything in the nonsensical filing system as statements were, more often than not, incorrectly filed. She couldn't exactly blame Jon for just sticking all of his work behind a drawer and calling it a day.

Of course, that wouldn't explain the missing tape, but what reason did Sasha have for thinking Jon was the culprit? Maybe she had just misplaced it, even though she was impeccably organised. That pressing calmness was now almost crushing.

She must have misplaced it.

"Sasha…?"

Sasha squeezed out a chuckle. What a strangely humorous situation. How could she have gotten so wrapped up in this? Obviously Jon wasn't working against them just because he chooses to research spider-related statements. That's ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.

"Sasha, are you okay? You're acting a bit… weird."

Sasha felt a bit weird, but that was okay. She was so calm that she couldn't mind if she tried. The familiar force tugging at her thoughts was so helpful, so kind. It knew what was best for Sasha and wanted Sasha to know as well.

Wordlessly, she wandered back to her office, still chuckling under her breath.

When she pushed open the door, feeling a bit unsteady on her feet, she was greeted by the sight of Jon. Her desk was empty, cleared of statements and tapes. Something ugly squirmed around in her stomach, but that gut reaction was unreasonable. How utterly ridiculous she was being.

"Hello, Sasha. I was just coming to talk to you when I spotted my research work on your desk. Mind if I take it back? I believe there was some follow-up I hadn't quite finished up." He said innocently.

The ugly thing in her stomach was trying to crawl up her throat and out of her mouth. She wanted to scream at Jon– tell him no, tell him to leave, to stop doing whatever he was doing to all of them.

But Jon smiled that kind smile– the one that crinkled his eyes and thinned his lips and seemed to draw all attention to it– and numbness settled over her again.

Tim whipped you into quite the accusation, a voice in her head scolded. And of Jon of all people? That's ridiculous. That's absurd. How could that ever be possible?

The corners of her lips moved of their accord, manipulated into returning Jon's smile.

"Of course. Go right ahead Jon."

"Why, thank you, Sasha."

Jon shut the door softly behind him as he left. Sasha crumbled to the floor, her strings cut.

I'm going to find a way to tear your web apart, Jonathan Sims.