The date on the newspaper I found. I hope that’s right.
I found where you work. I knew the place felt weird, but I just pushed it off. Who was I to judge that?
And I would just freeze in place because people looked at me from windows, right?
There’s a nice alley across the street from the Institute. So I hid there behind a dumpster. Luckily, cold doesn’t really affect me like this. Plastic, ya know?
Also found a bunch of abandoned stuff out here. Broken down boxes, smashed tapes, and recorders. And a dented metal pipe in the pile.
And this typewriter.
I tried using a pen, but my hands don’t quite work well with it. Was kinda surprised the typewriter still worked and kinda wondered if someone would take it.
But no one has yet.
Anyway, I stayed there.
Watched. You still smoke like you’re gonna get caught by Mom. Pretty sure it’s still just nicotine, though.
I overheard a conversation then. Something about an old lady dying and how this other lady should have been the replacement. Sasha. You called her Sasha.
Said she would have been a better fit.
I think you like her.
You eventually left. I think you saw me. At least I think that’s why I froze as you looked around.
I wonder what you thought seeing me. A dirty store mannequin near a dumpster.
I wanted to hide. To run. But you just walked away.
And I still couldn’t move.
“Can I have a cigarette?”
I hate the trapper. Like that light fish in the deep ocean. A dangling lure into an alley. A corpse on a string.
It kept saying it for a while. I wonder if it’s too stupid to tell I’m not a person anymore.
After a while, I think it gave up.
I tried moving again, but couldn’t.
Then I saw him.
The upper floor, staring out of a window and looking right at me.
It was a bit away so I couldn’t make out much of his face. But I saw him lift a drink in the air. Like a salute to me before he turned away.
I swear, Tim, I don’t know how much you know about that man, but he knew me. He looked at me and he knew me and knew I couldn’t move.
I don’t remember how I ended up huddled behind the dumpster. But I did.
And I was afraid.
And for a minute, I swear I saw him lift that glass in my mind and I remembered the trapper… And I think he’s more dangerous than that thing. Like that little salute was his lure.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Characters: Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Danny Stoker, Elias Bouchard | Jonah Magnus, Nikola Orsinov, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood, Sasha James
Additional Tags: Danny stoker sort of lives, Canon-Typical The Stranger Content (The Magnus Archives), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe, The Stranger Fear Entity (The Magnus Archives), Stranger Avatar Danny Stoker, Uncanny Valley, magnus archives breekon and hope
Summary:
What if Danny Stoker survived as an occassionally mobile Mannequin?
(A typewritten stack of papers found in several thick envelopes amidst the rubble of the House of Wax)
My name was Danny Stoker.
And this is for my brother to read someday if he finds it.
Or that institute he works for now.
That staring bastard of a boss of yours can shove it up his ass. Already knows it anyway…
First off, before anything else. Tim, what happened that night was not your fault. I know you enough that I know you blame yourself. But I was the bored idiot who thought urban exploration was my ‘next big thing’. My next distraction. Next escape.
It wasn’t your fault. I don’t blame you.
Now…
I could say I was being controlled then. That she’d done something to make me go back. But I just wanted to confirm what I’d seen. The laugh I’d heard. To see if Grimaldi was still there…
I did technically die that night in that stone theater. I don’t remember how. I think that’s the only thing that helped me keep a bit of my mind left.
A clown puppet made of plastic and painted smiles cut my skin off and put on a show to scare the shit out of you. Looked like it worked.
I can’t imagine what it looked like to you.
Seeing my skin torn off the bloody dancer on the stage…
I was in one of the seats…a mannequin propped up and facing the stage. Watching the same show you were. Hearing you calling for me, even though I was right there…
Unable to move. Because the dancer was looking at me. Always looking at me like an expectant performer.
She went to you and handed you that flyer… walked right past me as I silently screamed.
And you ran. I think you ran. When she finally looked away from me for a moment, I turned where I’d heard you.
Then she looked at me again and I couldn’t move. At first I thought it was just her, but I’ve learned since then that I can’t move if people look at me.
Just plastic. A thing shaped like a person without a face or a voice or-
It doesn’t matter.
She kept me for years. Four, if I’m right. I’d try to run. I swear I tried to run before, Tim. But someone would always see me. A mannequin in some random place. Then she’d find me and bring me back. Made me watch as she took others. Or found corpses that weren’t too broken to use.
Or she’d threaten to go after you instead.
And those damn delivery boys of hers. Tweedle Dee and Dum. Never too far away. I think they brought me back a few times.
Breekon and Hope, I think, but they said it like it was a joke, so I don’t think those were their names.
I think it was after she found an old woman when she just… stopped looking.
Got distracted. I slipped out.
It’s hard for a plastic thing to be quiet, surprisingly. But she never looked up. Breekon and hope caught me by the door but just stepped aside. I think one of them pushed the other aside. I think it was Breekon?
But they looked away, letting me move.
And I ran.
Plastic clattering against stone and then concrete.
It took me a long time to find you.
You didn’t work or live where you used to. Then I saw you.
It took me a while to recognise you at first. Didn’t know what threw me off most at first, then it hit me. You dress like I used to. Down to the hair. Bit unsettling at first and I swear I almost thought Nichola replaced me.
But no. That was my big brother.
And you were alive. And safe.
And I was gonna keep it that way.
Next
(My new fic. Please share thoughts on the vibes? It's been a while since I wrote...)
Died in a horrible urban exploration trip, whatever his traumatized brother would say.
His brother would describe watching his brother’s skin torn off some sort of false body.
But Danny remembered the stage. The false faces looking at him blankly as he struggled and screamed.
The grinning mannequin that cut into him with too sharp nails, always commenting on skin and flesh and a pretty face.
He didn’t remember all of it.
Didn’t want to.
Didn’t want to remember the pain and loneliness with a hundred blank stone faces that he knew in some part of his mind were watching. Like a show.
Didn’t want to remember being a mess of barely living flesh tossed aside while the clown wanted to “put on a show” for his brother.
And he never wanted to remember the look on Tim’s face as he stared in horror at the farce the clown put on while he couldn’t even scream to him.
He never knew why he lived. Never knew why he didn’t just bleed out or die from shock. The damn circus never made any bloody sense.
But he did remember.
And he remembered the clown “remaking” him as a sort of stuffed clown. A life sized doll without a voice. A thing that might look like a human clown if you didn’t look to close at where the “clothes” met the “skin”.
He remembered being remade.
And he remembered the clown looking away long enough for him to run away…
(A story idea of following a puppet Danny watching over and protecting his brother from out of sight)
Thoughts?
Wouldn't read it
Would only read it if you finish your other work (I can't promise...)
Would read whatever you write for this
Only read if you finish it
Other (In comments)
Voting ended onMar 3
PS: I'm sorry to those waiting on more updates. I've still temporarily lost their plot/don't know how to continue most of them... I'm sorry.
but what if i read one of your fanfics and then went to your ao3 account and read all of your fanfics and left a comment on every single chapter of every single one and you got spam emails from all of my kudos and comments and it made you smile, what then? what if i brighten your day with my words like you did mine, what then???
Chapters: 3/?
Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Sasha James/Tim Stoker, Sasha James & Tim Stoker, Martin - Relationship
Characters: Sasha James, Jon Simms, Elias Bouchard | Jonah Magnus, Gertrude Robinson, Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Martin Blackwood
Additional Tags: Archivist Sasha James, Sasha James Lives, Sasha definitely fits her role, Archival Assistant Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Elias bouchard is his usual self, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, jon the skeptic, Unreliable Narrator, Might be Out of Character, but I'm playing dolls not writing the script
Summary:
What if Sasha James was the archivist just like Gertrude wanted? But there was more to her than a studious researcher.
(Might be out of character at times, but I'm playing dolls, not writing the canon.)
