Okay, I had a crackpot idea, not even a theory (it is by the end of this post btw) just an idea, that I need to put out in the ether.
So, I recently came across a post from @vertigala who theorized that RedCanary might be the new host for Protocolverse!Jonah Magnus. And I thought, if they were to ever show up in person it sure would be fun horrible if RedCanary was someone we know from TMA. So... I'm trying to work out who would make more sense be absolutely gut-wrenching when it hits me. What if, just IF, because the likelihood of this is, like, zero, I'm sure, but JUST WHAT IF... RedCanary is Protocolverse!Jonathan Sims?
I mean just think about the potential in that. The moment we first hear this universe's Jon talking in TMAGP, sounding "awfully happy" or something, bringing a fleeting sense of joy, knowing that at least in one universe he's not so devastatingly miserable, but it slowly dawns on us, and on Jon if he's the one/one of who's listening, that it's not him, that that bastard wins again, that utter, truly next-level defeat, that heartache! And then for however long Jonah would be an active threat in TMAGP we'd have to hear him through Jon's own voice, see him in his body, all the while TMA!Jon, trapped in the 'puters (with TMA!Jonah nonetheless), using the last remnants of his own agency, all of his remaining consciousness, is actively trying to stop him (and/or this world's horrors), as the only people being vaguely aware of him are a paranoid IT guy who is actively conspiring againts him and a woman from his own world who has every reason not just to never trust Jon but also (imo) wanting to work againts him given the chance.
On top of all of this there's the several layers deep irony to all of it. Jon being the one who reads out that case, either out of his own choice or being forced to do so, the implication of him specifically chosing this case to deter Sam from or leading him directly towards the Magnus Institue, or someone else using Jon for that. Then there's the idea of this universe's Jon willingly seeking out spooky abandoned locations for fun and then meeting a gory demise from exploring the burned down ruins of the Magnus Institute, becoming a mistery known only to the mostly oblivious staff of an organization that specifically looks for these eldritch monsters to recruit, reducing his experience to little more than random numbers in a database that nobody uses anymore.
Even though RedCanary doesn't particularly strike me as a likely candidate for Protocolverse!Jon based on the wording of their comments alone, plus they also suggest they're from Manchester and their dad is still alive, I still think it would make some weird, karmic sense for them to be this universe's Jon. By not growing up in Bournemouth or, more importantly, not being raised by his grandmother, who'd carelessly buy any random cheap book on clearance for him to read, he could have avoided making any significant connection to the supernatural in childhood and therefore avoiding geting on the radar of the Magnus Institute prior to their destruction in '99, despite now being much closer to it. This being Jon, I think he would still have that Eye-aligned thirst for knowledge, secrets, uncaring for the dangers he'd be exposed to while looking for them, so with the Institute gone he finds another way to satiate that thirst and developes a liking for exploring abadoned places. Which then leads him back to the Magnus Institute, striking his interest, publically at least, with it being "cleared", "explored to death", holding no more secrets, yet not having any pictures to show it, not having any concrete information on it. So he goes to explore, not being deterred by the state of the building, being careless, expects piles of papers, the renmants of the knowledge that place once held, having the sense of doors shutting behind him, seeing grafiti on the wall and wanting to know more about it, trying to document all of it and failing to do so due to photographic distortions, having to resort to older technology, taking something they're weren't supposed to, not just in a supernatural sense, but the place they're discussing all of this is also against it, the rising paranoia that leads to the brutal mutalation of their eyes, the sight of which makes the forum freak out and remove the only photo that found its way to the internet, the only real evidence of what happened to them. All of it is there, narratively speaking, for the audience of TMA entering this new world, this new story, serving as a red thread from one world to another, basically summarising the entirity of TMA without spoilers. But how thematically fitting it would be that after being welcomed in this new world by the remnants of Martin, who's pained sob was the last thing the tapes supposedly recorded before entering the Protocolverse, telling us a tale reminisent of his own feelings and his, Jon's and Jonah's state of being at the moment ("Some of him") the person who then basically introduces us not just to this world's Magnus Institute and the danger it still holds but also theslightly changed rules of the Fears, warning us not to / beckoning us to investigate further, to be this world's Jon, appearing only through a thematically fitting username in a tale told to us by the remnants of the original world's Jon. Once used by Jonah to be the vessel through which all the fears entered the world, now possessed entirely by Jonah, allowing him to enter the world even after being defeated and do as he pleases.
(...Okay, I know it all started as a sleep deprived mind's musing on a bittersweet scene that was likely never to happen but I'm lowkey totally sold on this idea now.)
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