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Anonymous asked:

i’m begging u to share those AUs T_T

A shocking number of people expressed interest in this self-indulgent AU. Let me try to explain Web!Jon in a way that doesn't make me sound entirely unhinged.

  • Basic premise: Isn't Jon tired of being nice? Doesn't he just want to go apeshit?
  • It's self-indulgent because it's a fair bit removed from canon and exists for the sole purpose of exploring themes I like.
  • For instance, agency.
  • In this AU, Jon quickly grows viscerally ill of the fact that he's being blindly led around by forces he doesn't know or understand. Does making choices with so little information even qualify as making choices? This Jon doesn't think so.
  • Of course, this thought process could easily push him deeper into the Beholding, but Jon is tired of walking the path that he unknowingly wandered into. He wants to feel like he's making his own choices. And so, he rejects the Ceaseless Watcher.
  • Manipulating people isn't something Jonathan Sims is good at. But then, he doesn't think he likes being Jonathan Sims.
  • It's amazing how easily you can feel in control of things when you're actively feeding a dread power of manipulation.
  • If he controls enough people, then maybe he'll start feeling in control of his own path.
  • Of course, he's “choosing” something that marked him all those years ago. Is he really exercising free will, then? If you're aware you're being manipulated, does that nullify it? If you're choosing to become something you fear, are you overcoming it?
  • Jon doesn't know. He hasn't known anything in a long time.
  • Hot Jon rights, though!
#answered ask#anonymous#mine#jonathan sims#web!jon#mother of puppets

@elias-rights / elias-rights.tumblr.com

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how do you feel about web!jon or web!elias? i think they're almost archetypical-Eye, but there's something about their need for control that I find intriguing. especially in conjunction with how often Elias uses his Knowing to manipulate others & the world around him, and how Jon's powers manifest in a lack of control on his victims' part (i.e being compelled, being unable to resist either a question or giving a statement, etc.)

Entity swaps fascinate me, although I rarely read fics about them because I have a mild brain block about things that are too canon-divergent. I rotated a couple of ideas about Jon rejecting the Eye and turning to the Web as an attempt to regain agency a while back, and I think it's the most compelling (pun retroactively intended) Web!Jon scenario to me.

Similarly, I once saw a post that said Elias is at the centre between the Web and the Slaughter, and I'm inclined to agree. But I also think the Eye uniquely fits him because it is, as others have said, the "meta" fear. Elias is clearly afraid of being afraid and uses fear as a tool for control. Plus, Web avatars don't seem to believe in their free will, while Elias uses his control over others to assert his own. So, as you said, the Eye is still the most fitting for him. Still, entity swaps are very interesting to explore, and there's also some merit in the concept of the Web feeding on residual fear from Elias's actions, as the Entities are not truly separate. Elias did once say that Melanie fears being trapped.

Do you have any specific ideas on this entity swap? :eyes:

I'm not the first Annabelle anon but I totally agree with what you said "It would be disappointing to see all the other plot threads be rendered anticlimactically irrelevant cause she was behind everything all along" wise. I just doesn't seem like good storytelling to me to build up this whole story, make the eyepocalypse happen, only to find out it was all the webs plan all along. Yeah Annabelles involvement was foreshadowed but making her the endboss would just be disappointing after all this

Yes, you said it better than I! It makes sense for her to be relevant (and it'd also be disappointing if we didn't hear from the Web), but not in an endboss capacity.

How do you think jonelias would play out if Jon managed to figure out that Elias was Jonah this whole time? Whether through finding a journal or general stalker behavior during season 2

That's a very good question. I think that if it happened during season two Jon would immediately (out of paranoia, but coincidentally correctly in this case) classify him as an unknown variable and therefore a high-level threat. But he's attempted to wrench answers from more aggressive avatars, so it would also qualify Elias as a potential source of information. In that sense, the situation wouldn't differ much from season three: Jon is on the opposite side from Elias, but he still needs to know what he knows.

I don't imagine Elias would be very thrilled by this development, but he's adaptable, and I wager he'd find a way to use it in his favour. I think it'd be fun if he disposed of the Not-Them in an attempt to win Jon's trust and played the victimised and afraid avatar just like he played the innocuous boss before. Gaslight, gatekeep, etc.

You've mentioned jongerry before, do you have any headcanons for them? Or a favorite au?

I'm answering old asks for a laugh and because I feel a bit bad about letting so much time elapse between the question and the response. You know how it is with linear time.

I'm not the type to come up with many headcanons or AUs, but I have a significant soft spot for AUs where Gerry is present in season four. In canon, the only person in that time period to make the slightest effort to empathise with Jon is the woman who tried to murder him, and even that only applies to the episodes following her rescue from the Buried. Even if the podcast had taken the trouble to explore how uncharitable everyone else was to Jon (which I am not sure it did, one of season four's few flaws), there would be a self-indulgent part of me that wants Jon to have friends and allies who are there for him.

I think Gerry could be very good for Jon in that situation. They have similar experiences with Leitner-induced trauma; their senses of humour are compatible; and if their only canon interaction is assumed to be at all representative, they can communicate with each other with relative ease (contrast Martin's frustration with Jon's exposition in season five against Gerry's explanation of fairly complex concepts that Jon grasps with comparative fluency). In fact, Jongerry is one of my very few ships that are calibrated to be actually very healthy.

Jon: is literally an all knowing being, trying to make people suffer less, Knows the solution most likely to work

Everyone: You just want to martyr yourself, and you're being a dickhead. You have absolutely no say over this matter, because we have already decided

Me: ????????

Yes I am Upset about this. Like??? Hello????

I'm sure I don't know what you mean, anon. I believe it's entirely reasonable to dismiss and reject any input Jon—the one who out of all of them is the most affected by the outcome and the one who has consistently made efforts to understand the reality of this world and make decisions accordingly—has to offer in this conversation, even if it could save entire realities full of innocent people. As I understand it, this behaviour is typical of level-headed strategists and good friends. I don't see why anything Jon has to say is important.

I had a dream that there was a cat on my back and everytime I tried to move she would yowl and wouldn't calm down until I stopped. Anyway, Jon being unable to physically detach Elias from him in the mornings. It takes at least a half hour of gentle prodding to make Elias get up.

Thinking of jontimelias ✌ how would that work? Fuck if I know but the three sexiest characters would be together

Oh, big brain.

Let's see, the most problematic (as in complicated, not ~problematic~) angle seems to be Timelias. I haven't seen much content for it, so let me try to make it work.

On Elias's side of things, I imagine he might become fond of Tim due to how diligent and competent he is (Tim is smart and dedicated and you will pry that from my cold, dead hands). I think Elias's fondness of him would make Tim angry, and I don't think he'd let himself admit that he likes it. We'd get a lot of sexy confrontations and the overlap between love and hate and violence.

Then we have Jontim and Jonelias, which are both very good ships and have been explored by the fandom. Not much to say here.

Now, what happens when we combine all these...? Honestly, your guess is as good as mine.

ngl this episode finally DID sell me on jm but not in a nice way. jon's so used to playing games where he's not told the rules and always loses that this is just how he expects people to relate to him now. kill people enthusiastically but don't be happy about it. smite evildoers but don't you dare judge people. be sorry all the time about everything. 'sure babe! <3'

Actually? You may have a point. That exchange made me foam at the mouth; why is Martin the only one who can enjoy the smiting of avatars? He can be overjoyed that Jon did something morally questionable that he's conflicted about, but when Jon considers committing a murder that might actually help... And yet, if you squint and tilt your head it can be seen as an interesting exploration of an incompatible couple. I have murdered authorial intent with a pipe <3

I'm writing a thing on Jonah's thoughts on imperfection amd how they change over time, and how when he met Jon he went "Wow this guy has so many issues. I love him"

I love that akfnaldn

I also love the implication that Jon is not being loved in spite of.

Do I want to be loved in spite of? Do you? Does anyone? But aren't we all, to some degree? Aren't there important parts of all of us which must be, so to say, gazed past? I turn a blind eye to that aspect of you, and you turn a blind eye to that aspect of me, and with these blind eyes eyeball-to-eyeball, to use an expression from the early 1960s, we continue our starched and fragrant lives.
Donald Barthelme, "Rebecca".

I adore the concept of Elias loving Jon with his eyes wide open and all-seeing (because with them, how else could it be?), not in spite of but because of. "No, I won't look away, I won't turn a blind eye, because I love what I see." That's an inhuman kind of love that I think we all desire, in the end.

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