August 2025

Here’s a Keay family headcanon:

Mary Keay had red hair. Eric Delano had brown hair.

Gerard Keay had red hair that looked brown under certain lights.

What The Magnus Archives characters would do with “The Sims” headcanons

Jon - Jon gets stuck on the character design section. He ends up being worried about the Sim’s outfit going together and then he’s super indecisive about hairstyles and accessories. He end’s up being overwhelmed immediately.

Martin - Martin makes a sim couple with the intent of having very mundane gameplay. However, everything somehow spirals and he ends up with one of his sim’s mass collecting everything there is to find in the world and his other Sim making non-stop cups of tea to get rid of that stupid caffeine crash moodlet.

Tim - Tim makes himself then gets into antics. Sometimes he wohoo’s the entire town. Sometimes he tries to max out skills that he’ll probably never take up in real life. Sometimes he works more normal jobs for catharsis.

Sasha - Sasha plays with mod’s. She has so many on her computer that it runs hotter than a car engine, but her favorite is her mod settings menu. She’s practical about sorting her unhinged mods like that.

Melanie - Ironically, Melanie really likes Supernatural gameplay even after everything that went down with The Institute. She really likes playing as a witch or a werewolf and then having them have insane encounters like getting abducted by aliens or planting a plant sim.

Georgie - Georgie always starts out with the mindset of “I’m going to make a Sim and play them normally,” then within 30 minutes she’s enabled every cheat in the game because she gets bored with mundane gameplay. So what if she wants to make her Sim a millionaire who can afford everything in the game ten times over?

Basira - Basira is always doing some kind of challenge. Whether it’s a legacy run or a zombie apocalypse challenge she always enjoys the game the most when it has a clear set of rules.

Daisy - Daisy is a completionist. She has to collect all the things, and max out all the skills, and earn the rewards, and work all the jobs, and earn enough money naturally in the game to buy all the things. She takes The Sims very seriously.

Peter - Peter makes a version of the apartment complex he wanted to build and lives out the dream that Gertrude killed. That is, until Gertrude finds out what he’s doing on the game and calls the papers again to tell them that Peter is doing a “trial run” of his plan. Thus, the think pieces start up again.

Elias - Elias can’t play The Sims for more than a few hours without getting bored and making a whole new story and starting a whole new life. He’s never played the game for an entire Sim’s lifetime.

Gertrude - When The Sims was first released in the year 2000 Gertrude was the first person to realize that you can drown a Sim by removing the ladder. She’s used The Sim’s plenty to plot some of her most impressive fear related takedowns.

Gerard - He makes a little sim family and then plays a shockingly mundane game of their day to day. It seems like normal gameplay at first, but the more you think about the more you’ll be convinced he needs therapy.

Michael - Michael Shelley likes to make things in build mode. He spends hours making little houses and perfecting cozy rooms that he’d love to inhabit. Distortion Michael likes to build too. Though in a different way. It likes to make confusing, uninhabitable, hallways for his Sims to traverse through.

Personally I headcanon Gerard Keay’s natural hair color to be red, but I have thought about what Gerard might have thought about his natural hair color and those thoughts can’t be restrained by just one color. So here’s some little snippet’s about Gerry and his hair:

More Undercut

————————————————————————–Gerry has always hated his red hair. It attaches the color Mary taught him from a young age meant “blood” and “violence” to his very being, and that’s reason alone for him to find it distasteful.

Yet, the reason he find’s his hair so distasteful is the same reason that makes applying his hair dye so powerful. With just a box of color he can cover up the color most associated with his Mother. Making him his own even if it’s just in a metaphorical way.

He tries not to think too hard about the fact that the red never seems to cover completely.

————————————————————————–Gerry has always hated his blonde hair. It’s far too bright, far too cheery, and far too contrasting with the dark aesthetic he claims as his own. Given his string of luck he guesses he shouldn’t be surprised that he’s never managed to get rid of it completely. His light roots still peak out through the black dye of his hair. In the same way his light still shine’s no matter how much his dark world tries to cover it.

The color is a bit more enduring when he thinks about it that way. But he still refuses to like it on gothic principal.

—————————————————————————-

Gerard has always found his hair color annoying. It’s a light black shade that’s barely not dark enough to blend in with his style. It’s like when he accidentally wears two different shades of black on his shirt and on his pants. It’s just obnoxious enough to grate on his nerves. He wants to have the shade of a raven, not a crow.

Not to mention the way it somehow never manages to be fully covered by dye. Despite the fact that it’s only a shade or two lighter.

—————————————————————————-

Gerard has many complicated feelings about his hair. Though it’s not the color he feels odd about. The brown color is a nice neutral shade that reminds him of clay used to sculpt or the dirt under his palms after a close encounter with a fear that reminds him he’s still alive with the Earth.

It’s a nice color. But he just can’t move past the way his stomach flips when he remembers that he has the exact hair color as the Father he’s only seen in photo.

—————————————————————————-

Gerard isn’t surprised that his hair has started going grey so early. He’s had a short yet stressful life that has left many lasting imprints on his appearance. He notices the eye bags, and the stress lines, and scars. But the thing that gets commented on most is his silver hair that throws off people’s guess of his age range.

It was a relief to dye his hair for the first time and find that the comments died the second he applied the black dye….and resurrected in the form of everyone commenting on his bad dye job.

Some Random Magnus Archive Headcanon’s

A: Michael Shelley had visual snow syndrome, which is a condition that makes you see static. It got worse when he became The Distortion.

B: After the apocalypse Rosie Zampano tries to use her limited (but still more than most) knowledge on Elias and The Institute to help people make sense of things. Any time she comes cross someone that’s frazzled she tells me as much as she can…and before long it becomes widely know that Rosie Zampano was the apocalypses secretary. This actually launches her into a bit of a fame and she get’s quite a few “tell all” offers in the form of book deals and interview offers. Though she’s very hesitant on whether she wants to take any of them.

C: The Admiral is a manx. And I headcanon this because the manx breed was popular as ship cat due to their skilled hunting abilities…So that adds another layer to his name.

D: Gerard Keay has missing and chipped teeth on the side of his mouth from running straight into a wall while chasing someone with a Leitner.

E: Agnes Montague didn’t even like coffee, but she was so unsure of as a person that she wasn’t totally sure what drinks she liked. Most of her life was a performance, just doing she thought others wanted her to be doing, and her food and drink “preferences” were one of those things. She would loved hot chocolate.

F: Melanie’s style takes a lot of inspiration from the 80’s grunge aesthetic. She also really likes 80’s new wave music.

G: Gertrude Robinson has massive burn scars all over her body from The Desolation ritual. And bonus headcanon about The Desolation ritual: It gave her fire resistance. She can still still get burned but it takes more to burn her than the usual person.

H: Jon’s hands are chronically cold. Martin’s hands are chronically warm.

I: Danny Stoker still made mix tapes. He made a lot of them on his travels and when he returned home he would give some personally crafted ones to his friends and family. Tim keeps his in a box on his dresser.

J: Anabelle Cane was the one responsible for posting the tapes to YouTube in-universe. It wasn’t necessarily her who posted it, but she had…contingency plans to make sure the new universe knew what they were getting into.

Gerrymichal but Michael thinks it’s hilarious to joke that he’s dating a cryptid and has made one too many people wonder if he’s dating a vampire.

Doorkeay but Gerard keeps half-heartedly trying to rationalize to wait staff why his boyfriend just turned a spoon into a top hat in the middle of a crowded restaurant.

Selfish question of me, but as an avid enjoyer of your analysis and thoughts but neutral opinion of Doorkeay, what do you think are traits or key attractions for Gerry for a romantic partner?? I like for Doorkeay and one your posts, how Michael is very much a gentle and sweet natured person but can have a surprising twist to his character because that was my impression for Gerry that he would like a kind and sweet partner but who can hold their own in a way. Thank you if you're able to respond, but if not, that's okay...!

This isn’t a selfish question at all! I love getting asks and interacting with people.

My headcanon about Gerard when it comes to romance is that what he thinks he wants and what he actually subconsciously wants are very different things.

What he thinks he wants from a romantic partner is someone who’s bit distant, someone who he can say “Hey. I have to go chase down a Leitner in America. See you in a few weeks,” and they’ll shrug and let him go without fuss. He thinks he wants someone super intertwined with the fears so he never has to worry about them being naive. He thinks he wants super interesting like himself who he could trade stories with.

What he actually wants is someone who prioritizes him, someone who see’s him walk through the door and stops what they’re doing to take a second to acknowledge him. He wants someone who’s aware of the fears and can handle themselves with them, but a part of him yearns for something normal and would be happy with someone on both sides of the fence of “normal and not normal” instead of being firmly on one over the other. He wants someone a bit routine and boring who he can have stability with and not expect the unexpected with. (Though he’d like them to have stories too. Even if it’s just about the overly angry bus driver they met once.)

Basically what Gerard would describe on paper as his perfect partner isn’t what he would really want when push came to shove. But also he’s never really spent that much time thinking about it due to the life he lives. He kind of just assumes that long-term romance is off the table for him.

TMA characters but it’s just media that I’ve hyperfixated on before that I think they’d like:

RIP Jonathan Sims, you would have loved “Marble Hornets.”

RIP Martin Blackwood, you would have loved “Undertale.”

RIP Tim Stoker, you would have loved “Date Everything.”

RIP Sasha James, you would have loved “Gravity Falls.”

RIP Basira Hussain, you would have loved “Squid Games.”

RIP Daisy Tonner, you would have loved “The Wolf Amoung Us.”

RIP Georgie Barker, you would have loved “Scooby Doo.”

RIP Melanie King, you would have loved “Telltale’s Batman.” / RIP Melanie King, you would have loved “Bojack Horseman.”

RIP Gertrude Robinson, you would have loved “World Of Zoo.”

RIP Gerard Keay, you would have loved “Supernatural.”

RIP Michael Shelley, you would have loved the “Life Is Strange” franchise.

RIP Annabelle Cane, you would have loved “The Sims.”

Gerrymichael AU where Gerard and Michael are trying to keep their relationship private from The Institute since Gerard is aware of all the ways the fears could use it to their advantage.

Which goes poorly.

Michael is a chronic talker and over explainer. All it takes is Emma asking him ONCE why he’s not doing over time as often for him to break and admit that he’s seeing someone. When she asks who he resists for only a few seconds before crumbling under her curious stare and guilt about lying. He says that he’s seeing a “goth guy” but can’t say names for privacy reasons. Not that it matters when everyone has noticed that Gerard keeps popping into The Institute for “no real reason.”

Then meanwhile Gerard has never thought about the words coming out of his mouth a day in his life and has verbally admitted to dating Michael on five different occasions without even fully realizing it.

So yeah. Gerrymichael AU where they think they’re in a secret romance while everyone and their Mother knows.

I am a firm believer that Gerard Keay would be have the worst love/hate relationship with the show “Supernatural.”

On one hand: The way it treats monsters is very inaccurate to Gerard’s lived experience and sometimes the writing on the show is just downright bad.

One the other hand: The early seasons aesthetic is right up his alley and the shows themes about family get him. Not to mention that while the show can be bad it’s usually in a campy way that’s pretty enduring.

Basically if you ask Gerard Keay if he likes “Supernatural” he’ll sigh a long time and say “Yeah,” before admitting he’s watched all 15 seasons multiple time.