#ivy helps jon be a proper archivist

[just-an-enby-lemon]

"The Mechanisms were Jonathan Sims college band" and "Jon is the secret real past of Jonny D'ville" are both great takes but I present "Jon's descend into an unwilling antichirst figure is The Mecs new album and Jonny plays him in the songs because they just have very similar voices for some reason."

#tma #the magnus archives #the mechanisms #jonathan sims #jonny d'ville #the mechs singing about Jon's life and interacting with it as a way to get more of the story is fun #ashes would love to join the corrupt avatar old men group for the maniuplation #they would be in all elias and peter divorce and marriage parties #Jonny is angry that people actually call Peter capitain #he is also at all grifters bones shows #and even played with them once or twice #breakon and hope accidentally adopt the toy soldier for a while #ivy helps jon be a proper archivist #marius tries to psicoanalyse elias #jonny is also just melanies bestie #she call him better jon #brian and jon discuss what it is to be human #gunpowder tim makes a whole presentation about why blowing up the moon is cooler than blowing up some clowns and he is the better tim #he also gives weapons to Martin #ralph becames an eye avatar somehow #manuella and brian insult suns together #ashes and anabelle became besties #ashes annabelle and jude perry go to parties together #ashes also hangs with gertrude and agnes they might have helped them became a couple because they now tragic saphics is a mecs classic #nastya just chills with her girlfriend at earths orbity and accidentaly saves dark sacrifice space guy and lonely experiment guy #she also bonds with manuela they discuss about spaceships and suns #she and aurora add manuella to spicy their sex life for a bit as a friend with benefit of both

[ghostbustermelanieking]

okay hear me out on this; archivist melanie au

• the major switch in this au is that melanie's encounters with war ghosts and the end of ghost hunt uk happens earlier -- right around the time gertrude dies. the other major switch is with melanie's father. who is still in ivy meadows when the corruption and john amherst comes, but he manages to survive. melanie is visiting when it happens and gets him out alive, but not before they've both encountered plenty of the corruption

• when gertrude dies, there's no obvious candidate for the archivist in elias's eyes. there's sasha, but she isn't marked by anything yet, and since gertrude wanted her, elias wants to avoid promoting her mostly out of spite. there's others who have been marked -- tim for example -- but none of them feel quite right. he transfers sasha, tim, and martin to the archives with the subtle offer of a promotion to head archivist for one of them, but he makes no promises, like he is still holding out for someone else... and then the very first week, they get a live statement for the Archives, a real one. from former ghost hunter, doubly marked by the entities already, melanie king

• melanie is as skeptical of the Institute as she is in canon, but it seems worth it to go in and give a statement. just to talk to someone who might believe her. (georgie has been telling her she should talk to SOMEONE about this, and this qualifies, right?) she hits it off with the archival staff, particularly sasha, and feels a surprising release after giving her statement. she keeps staring at the Archives, all the statements and unanswered questions -- and yes, maybe all of them arent real, but odds are that some of them are. that some of them might have answers. she definitely isn't expecting to be offered a job by the creepy apparent head of the place, but, well. she's gotten weirder offers

• melanie's primary focus in archiving is on investigation, and accrediting the various statements. she figures out the correlation between the digital and tape recordings pretty quickly, and starts disregarding any that will record digitally. and there's an even larger focus than usual on chasing down leads post-statement, something that melanie will often participate in herself. tim and sasha and martin are a little skeptical of an outsider taking a promotion that should've gone to one of them (or at least another employee), but they all warm up to each other at a decent speed. melanie and sasha hit it off to the point where melanie starts inviting her out with georgie, and then sasha starts inviting tim, and then martin, and the resentment more or less goes away after that

• melanie stays invested in war ghosts, and trying to figure out what happened with sarah baldwin (she reads the anglerfish statement and her eyes bug out when she recognizes the name from the follow up), but she latches onto figuring out other things. one of these things ends up being gertrude's disappearance. melanie has literally none of the history before she gets hired, and she gets curious after a few months, starts asking questions. sasha's able to provide the most context, having actually MET gertrude, but tim and martin have heard rumors of their own, and they end up swapping conspiracy theories for hours one night at the pub. someone throws out elias offing her. melanie can't quite let the stories go. she starts digging into gertrude's history in her spare time, wanting to put the pieces together. sasha helps her on that one, too.

• this is where jon comes in: he never works for the institute, but he stays interested in the supernatural. he also stays closer to georgie over the years, helps with research on what the ghost sometimes. this results in georgie being the only one who knows about the mr. spider incident. she ends up suggesting jon give his statement to the institute -- maybe a little reluctantly; she doesn't fully trust the institute, has seen how obsessive melanie has grown over the past few months, heard her talk about how creepy it is when she loses herself while recording statements. but she trusts melanie, and the others, and she knows they'll do proper follow up. maybe put jon's anxieties over the whole thing to rest.

• so jon goes in and gives his statement. and despite the fact that he and melanie don't see eye to eye on a lot of things (ghost hunt UK, how the institute is run, etc), he hits it off with everyone in the Institute, and seems intrigued by everything after it's all over. they promise to follow up on his statement, but there... isn't much to find. aside from a few mentions of the book on old internet forums, and a few potential missing person cases in connection, there isn't much to find. (jon's bully never reappeared, but this isn't a surprise.)

• the dead ends are disappointing, to a number of people. jon seems dissatisfied when he comes to follow up and they have nothing for him. georgie seems disappointed at the lack of clear answers. martin mentions once, to melanie, of how the statement reminds him of the carlos vittery statement, and maybe the two are connected? melanie suggests they look into it that evening.

• this time, jane prentiss doesnt follow martin home. why bother when the archivist is right there?

• georgie notices when melanie disappears; prentiss doesn't bother messaging her. she calls sasha and the others.

• georgie encourages melanie to quit after it's over, when melanie is staying in her guest room. tells her how worried she is. melanie agrees, she really does, but she isn't sure what else to do. even if she quits, the worms will still be in the institute (tim finds a nest under his desk three days after melanie gets out), and the mystery will still be there. she'll never know what happened to gertrude, never know the truth behind all these statements they've found. she wants to leave, can feel herself changing the longer she stays, but she isn't sure how she can leave

• things go pretty similarly after that. the only thing that's different is that jon feels guilty when he hears what happened to melanie, and comes by the institute to apologize. then he starts hanging around, asking sasha and tim and martin questions about statements and experiences and all of it, laughing stiffly and quietly at sasha and tim's jokes. martin sees how interested he is and actually invites him out on an investigation one night. melanie sighs and tells georgie to start inviting jon to pub night

• prentiss comes. this is the same. melanie kills the spider. she and martin and sasha end up in the storage room, tim is on the other side. tim saves melanie and martin. sasha goes up to artifact storage

• this is where things really change: sasha is taken, although she doesn't die. she's put in the table. but when the not-sasha comes up and hugs tim and martin in relief, asks worried questions, talks to the police and the employees and everyone like she is sasha... melanie still sees through it. she doesn't understand why this is happening because that is NOT SASHA. and tim and martin and georgie have no idea what she's talking about. the not-sasha just smiles at melanie when she protests and says, "don't you know me, melanie? it's just sasha. your good friend, sasha."

• melanie won't let it go. and she won't stay home and recover. she insists and insists until georgie says she believes her, and agrees to go along and help her look as long as melanie doesn't strain her leg. they go and they look in the archives one night, nearly tear it apart, and somehow they find it. the adelard dekker statement. it's the table.

• melanie tells tim and martin, but they don't believe her until she brings an axe down on the table, splits up and sends a shivering sasha tumbling down on the floor. until they are being chased with something with the face of the only sasha they'd recognize, and the real sasha is telling them again and again that it's not her

• they decide to quit, all four of them, tim and melanie still worm-scarred, tim and martin wide eyed and horrified by the way they don't recognize sasha. melanie ignores her sneaking suspicion that it won't work, ignores the sinking feeling, right up until she's standing in elias's office and he's smirking at all of them, stammering, unable to force the words out. i quit. but they can't

• melanie is furious. she shouts, she threatens, she pulls a knife on elias, but none of it works. it falls on deaf ears. no way out for any of them, even after everything

• the next morning, elias brings someone down to the archives and introduces them as a new archival assistant. it's jon, who's maybe a little eager, and certainly confused and hurt when everyone responds with horror

• elias meets melanie's eyes over her assistants' heads. he mentions how nice it will be to have someone new around, someone with experience in researching the supernatural... and what a shame it was that it couldnt be that nice young host of the what the ghost podcast

• they understand each other now. melanie grits her teeth and looks away. no way out now

#melanie king #wtgfs #tma #tma au #the magnus archives #magnuspod #i wanted to do this as a one shot and i still might but in case i cant...