2021-06-28 0:26:39 ¶ ●

Today I was thinking about all of those TMA fanfics that are like, “It’s season 3 but Sasha’s still alive and everyone is friends, fuck you!” And, like, I don’t need those fics to justify their canon divergence, because frankly, it’s more fun if Sasha isn’t dead and Tim isn’t miserable. But I realized that you really only need to change one thing to get this exact dynamic:

Just have Prentiss attack the institute on a Saturday.

We know Jon at least sometimes works on Saturdays (Martin came back from his first run-in with Prentiss on a Saturday, and Jon was at the institute recording a statement) but we can probably assume that Tim and Sasha usually don’t. And if Jon and Martin are the only ones in the building during the attack that means:

1. Sasha doesn’t get not!them’ed

2. Tim doesn’t get traumatized by almost getting eaten by worms

3. Martin probably doesn’t find Gertrude’s body, which (in conjunction with point 1) means that

4. Jon probably doesn’t get super paranoid and ruin his friendship with Tim

So any fanfic writers that want an in-story explanation for why no one is dead and everyone is friends, you can have this for free! (And send me the fics! I’m always a slut for alternate universe - everyone lives/no one dies)