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Now I feel like I overpromised it a little since those are headcanons from a while ago, but I'll try my best! But before that, yes, that is the fic I meant! And I liked how they had Jon use an Artifact for the eye removal, since presumably, a regular one wouldn't have done the trick. Basically, and with the caveat that these headcanons are primarily built on the first 3.5 seasons and that they still didn't quite manage to capture every avatar experience, I had the impression that most avatars had to undergo a moment of death/rebirth to truly become avatars. Jon is basically the best example for it: He has the aptitude, and he's introduced to his position as an avatar for the Eye. Slowly, he develops powers, but he's still human enough, and it's only after the explosion, after explicitly choosing the Eye and coming back from the dead, that he truly became the Archivist. Sure, in the end, the rebirth element he shared with many other avatars was more thematic than an actual requirement (iirc Jonny also mentioned that at one point), but I also saw it as this life then basically being "borrowed" from the power they serve. We saw that with Daisy for example, who started wasting away in season 4.
Back then, I also assumed that the reason Gertrude died was because she chose death instead of the Eye, because I thought Elias's plan involved marking her as a "complete" Archivist for the Watcher's Crown (RIP to the Watcher's Crown as a concept, I thought it was a really cool name and I wish season 4 had delved more into it as a semi-red herring instead of having the characters assume it was off the table because Elias was in jail (I can't remember, did they assume that? I just felt like it only really came up once or twice, in Smirke's letter and maybe the finale where it's skipped over entirely as "yeah I tried that, it gave me near-omniscience, let's move on")). But I do love that the marking part was something specifically for Jon, that's very sexy.
Overall, I will admit that I fell a bit into the trappings of extrapolating things a little too narrowly, so that when canon followed up with specifics, my headcanons fell apart (for example, I was also pretty interested in how Orsinov's partner, whose granddaughter gave a statement about the Calliope, managed to escape the Stranger and thought there'd be a big reveal, but that never came. Which is fine, because apparently it's possible to escape your avatarhood and we don't need a specific statement for that), but I guess my general assumption still remains that before passing a certain Threshold, you can still escape that power, but once someone becomes an Avatar, there's no turning back and their existence will forever be bound to the power they chose to serve. It just feels less impactful to me if you can just "change your mind", even if "technically" you'd have to pay a high price.
yesss i also liked that jon had to use an artifact for eye removal. and i like that it still didn't work 🥰 also this fic isn't normally a flavor i go for in the sliding scale of dub/noncon but i love the concept sm, i love annabelle being cunty in the front row, and i love love love love love jon seeing the adoration in elias' face when he gets his eyes back. it's a good fic!! i enjoyed it nwn
i thought you were right about rebirth not being necessary because it jogged my memory for the s4 q+a so i went digging to find the word of god on the matter and:
ALEX You’ve mentioned that previously that in order to assume their full powers as an avatar, a death seems to be required. Does it make a difference that the death used to the fuel The Archivist’s transformation? Was that of another avatar? JONNY I don’t feel that a death is necessarily required to become an avatar? What is required to become an avatar is always active choice. ALEX Yes. JONNY You need to make an active decision to finally cross that threshold. ALEX (whispers) Because drama. JONNY And death is a very good motivator for that sort of decision. You know, that prospect of death is very scary and it’s such a… powerful categorical thing that… in the many cases, it is going to be the catalyst.
but i agree with you actually i think jonny contradicts his own lore?? death and rebirth is pretty obviously a necessary factor in becoming an avatar of fear. i think you're right on the money, i just posted a little collection of the "feed what feeds you" theme and it is made very clear in canon across all the entities that if you serve a fear, you need to feed it, or else it feeds on you instead of feeding you. daisy is a great example of this! jon is as well. so yes, i totally agree with your interpretation of their life being "borrowed" from their patron. that's exactly how i've always understood it to work as well.
re: the watcher's crown. it is mentioned in smirke's letter, but none of the details are mentioned. only the resulting sky that can look back:
I have been dreaming again, Jonah. The same every night for months, now. I imagine myself a boy again at Aspley. I awake, cold and alone in the dormitory. The sky outside is dark, and I see no stars. I light a candle, to better see my way, and step down the silent corridor. The master’s rooms are empty, the fire in the kitchen is dead. Eventually my steps lead out into the courtyard. It is so quiet that the sound of my feet upon the grass is painful to my ears. I stop, and look up at the sky, that empty black nothing, and I see the edges of the horizon becoming a dull white. I cannot understand what I am looking at. And then the sky blinks. And I awake. I am not a fool. I know well enough what this dream is likely to mean, and I warn you again, that if you have any remaining ambitions to use our work, to try and wear the Watcher’s Crown, you must abandon them! Not simply for the sake of your own soul, but for that of the world! I have always had the utmost respect for you as a man of dignity and learning. Do not allow yourself to fall to this madness.
from how this is phrased, it sounds to me like smirke knows the mechanics of the ritual. "to wear the watcher's crown" sounds to me like marking yourself with all of the fears. but what i don't think smirke knows is that it must be The Archivist who does this, because of their function as an avatar. they are already a catalog of fear. i see a lot of talk about how elias was a coward for not marking himself but he is not The Archivist. he is a servant of beholding (arguably its most powerful) but he is not The Archivist and he could never be. that is not his role to fill. he needed his Archivist to fulfill the watcher's crown, he couldn't do it himself.
sorry that's irrelevant to your point i just have strong opinions on elias-related things.
back to the red herring tho, i personally think that keeping all the details of the ritual a secret until 160 was perfect. 160 is my favorite episode and i think the reveal could not have been better. personally on my first list i figured out about halfway through s3 that jon was being marked by every single fear but i had no idea it was a ritual. it never crossed my mind. so i'm a huge fan of the fact that the watcher's crown was lowkey and under the radar for all of s4, i think the payoff was incredible. YMMV ofc!
but yes i agree it's extremely sexy that the marking was especially for jon 🥰 elias couldn't do it himself. he needed jon to do it. he needed to craft him into a god and he did. he honed him as a tool to bring the ceaseless watcher forth into the world and rip apart its weft. that's so 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰
overall tho i agree with your assessment of there being a threshold/point of no return. i think that there are basically five (5) categories of alignmet/association with the fears:
Witness
this is ofc the most common category for people in general who have ever interacted with the fears but specifically for statement givers. lots of statement givers had something terrible happen to a loved one or a coworker or a friend and they come to tell the institute about it. their lives are touched by the entities of fear but they are not directly eaten by them. witnessing these events could lead them to being marked and they can become victims eventually after their initial escape.
Victim
self explanatory i think! you have a run in with an entity of fear and it gobbles you right up.
Monster
this is where the tier system breaks down a bit but basically there are things like the distortion, the creature that lives in the ming vase, the man upon the stair, who are all more than victims but less than avatars. leitner describes them really beautifully in MAG 80:
The books are, I think, their essences in a purer form. The other things that stalk us, from what I know of them, they have varying wills of their own. All in service of the thing they’re a part of, but not directly controlled by the mind beneath them. At least, inasmuch as these entities have something we could recognise as a mind.
Avatars
these are fully realized avatars that have consciously chosen their alignment with their patrons! simon, peter, elias, jude, arthur, etc.
Entity-Aligned
this is the loosest category and one that includes many of my favorite characters. mary, gerry, basira, gertrude. they're all marked by the fears, their lives are really quite controlled by them, but they have not made the conscious decision to become avatars. gertrude sort of straddles the Avatar and Aligned category because she was, of course, the archivist.... but she wasn't really. she had the formal position and she got the powers that come with it but she didn't serve the eye the way that the position really warranted. tumblr user sm0kebreaks has a great post talking about how gertrude was a crap archivist.
so i think that if you are entity-aligned but have not yet passed the point of no return and decided to become an avatar, you can break your alignment
melanie, for example, had her alignment with the slaughter broken when jon removed her cursed bullet and she broke her alignment with beholding when she gouged out her eyes. personally i think that cutting the bullet out of her shouldn't have worked tho, since she was making the conscious choice to keep it inside of her and she wanted the slaughter to continue to give her its power so like. to me that makes her an avatar, not aligned.
but maybe she was saved by her beholding alignment! maybe because she had a contract with the institute, another power couldn't fully claim her. wow. that would be like the tenth way jon saved her stupid life.
