Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Anne begrudgingly switched on the tape recorder, twirling one of the beads on her bracelet. This was her job now.
Recording into a dusty old tape recorder.
Reading people’s traumatic experiences.
Clearing up this complete mess of an archive.
Yay.
And it was fine, y’know? She was…. looking forward to it. That was an obvious lie, but it didn’t matter.
She cleared her throat, and spoke into the recorder.

“Test… Test… Test… 1, 2, 3… Right.
My name is Anne Boonchuy! I.. work for the Magnus Institute, London, an organisation dedicated to academic research into the esoteric and the paranormal. Y’know. Ghosts and stuff. I mean- That’s why you’re listening to this tape.”
Anne cleared her throat again. Okay. Bit of a bad start. C’mon! She had to sound way more professional.
“The head of the Institute, Mr. Andrias Leviathan, has employed me to replace the previous Head Archivist, one Hoppediah Plantar, who has recently.. passed away.
I’ve been working as a researcher at the Institute for about four years now and I’m familiar with most of our more- significant contracts and projects. Most reach dead ends, shocker, as incidents of the supernatural, such as they are – and I always emphasise there are very few ACTUAL cases – tend to resist easy conclusions. When an investigation has gone as far as it can, it is transferred to the Archives.
Now, the Institute was founded in 1818, which means that the Archive contains… pretty much 200 years of case files. Plus, that with the fact that most of the Institute prefers the ivory tower of pure academia to statements, recent victims and experiences, and y’know. Anything after 1900. So now you have the recipe for an impeccably organised library and an absolute wreck of an archive. This isn’t necessarily a problem – Thank GOD for computers, and all it would need is a half-decent archivist to keep it in order. Hoppediah Plantar was apparently not that archivist.
From where I’m sitting, I can see THOUSANDS of unorganised files. Eugh. Many spread loosely around the place, others crushed into unmarked boxes. Some have dates, or weirdly cryptic labels from Hoppediah’s old organisation system. That uh.. no one else knew how it worked, apparently. Not only that, but most of these are handwritten or produced on a TYPEWRITER with no accompanying digital or audio versions of any sort. Actually, I think the first computer to ever enter this room is the laptop that I brought in today.”
She stopped for a deep breath. Anne was getting too much into rant territory.
“More importantly, it seems as though little of the actual investigations have been stored in the Archives, so the only thing in most of the files are the statements themselves.
It is going to take me a.. long… long… LONG time… to organise… all of this. I’ve managed to secure the services of two researchers to assist me. Weeeellllll…. TEEECHNICALLY three, but I don’t count Marcy as they’re.. uuhhhhh…UNLIKELY to contribute anything but delays. I plan to digitise the files as much as I can, and record audio versions, though some are gonna have to be on tape, as my attempts to get them on my laptop have… made the audio go all weird. Corrupted and stuff.
Alongside this Sasha, Maggie and… yeah, I guess Marcy, will be doing some supplementary investigation to see what details may be missing from what we have. Marcy’s not actually a researcher, they were a part of the library staff, but whatever. I’ll try to present these in as… y’know, organised as I can get them when I actually record the statements and follow ups. I can, annoyingly, promise no order in regards to date or theme of the statements that are recorded, and to literally anyone using these in your own investigations? Sorry. We are trying our best.” Anne sighed.
There was a slight prickle at the back of her neck, but didn’t pay that much attention to it.
“That’s probably enough time spent making my excuses for the state of this place, and I suppose we have to begin… somewhere.”

Anne clutched the paper in front of her a little tighter.

“Statement of Nathan Watts, regarding an encounter on Old Fishmarket Close, Edinburgh. Original statement given April 22nd 2012. Audio recording by Anne Boonchuy, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.
Statement begins.”

Chapter Text

Andrias Leviathan was an interesting man.
Anne had never really regarded him with much interest, more mild unease. He had a way of taking up space in a room. Not in an oppressive sense, no. Actually, Andrias was quite the pleasant man. If a bit of an old fashioned prick, in Sasha’s words.

No, he took up space in a room by making everyone else feel somehow so much smaller. When being interviewed for her previous position as researcher, Anne felt that same, uncomfortable oppressiveness as she did after getting lectured as a child. Which happened often.
Anne, though, just chalked this up to Andrias having the air of a strict, but fun father. He was the least of her worries, and the prickle on the back of her neck was something she was happy to ignore. It’s an old, dusty building after all.
He wore a single ring on his finger, with eyes engraved into it. It was gold, as was some of his other jewellery. Andrias quite liked expensive-looking suits, heels, and things that would make any perfume advertisement stop and turn to him. Anne sometimes wondered how Andrias got the funding…

Anne had.. mixed feelings about her coworkers.

Maggie. Maggie James was quite confidentzzz. She was a lot quieter than Anne was initially expecting, though her facekzkkk was permanently set in a glare. She was actually quite nice to talk to, and she was certainly a competent researcher. Maggie gossiped quite a lot, but then again, so did Sasha, so the two were a perfect match. Maggie was smart. Far smarter than Anne initially gave her credit for, and honestly, had Anne not been hired, she would have rather expected to have Maggie replace Hoppediah instead. She usually wore her long, wavy, ginger hair in plaits, and stuck to chunky jumpers, cropped cardigans, longs skirts, and that sort.
z
Speaking of Sasha… Miss Waybright. He’s loud, outgoing, friends with EVERYONE, and yet has adopted three introverts, somehow.
Sasha was the first person that Anne became friends with at the institute. Anne would never forget that. In a place in which she was so sure she would be an outcast, Sasha made Anne ķfeel welcomed. Her style reminded Anne of the side character of some 90s movie, what with their leather jacket, cuffed jeans and piercings.

Now… Marcy Wu. There was not words enough to describe how much Anne hated this person. Marcy Wu was a librarian. And now theykz are an archival assistant. One such position Anne is SURE they aren’t qualified for. They trip over everything, drop everything, they’re insanely forgetful and worst of all? So bloody nice. Absolutely a sweetheart.

They make cups of tea for everyone, offering practically everyone doing anything. Anne just couldn’t trust that. Someone as sweet and as absolutely idiotic as that was sure to not have survived in the real world, Anne concluded. So that can only mean, that Marcy is trying to make a fool out of Anne. To make her let her guard down. To make her embarrass herself. Well it wouldn’t work.
That nerd in their gaming t shirts, denim jacket covered in ridiculous pins, and glasses. Bloody round glasses. Anne was smarter than to fall for a ploy like that.

Marcy Wu made very good tea, however.

Not that Anne would admit that.

Anne was sitting at her desk, safely hidden from the bright morning clouds and typing away at some statement documents. She was bored, and her thoughts were wandering. This particular case, luckily one of the many statements that didn’t come through with any corruption, had the annoying curse of bad handwriting, so the text scanner didn’t pick up any of the words correctly. And Mr Plantar clearly hadn’t thought to use a typewriter, either.
Or a computer.
Or anything.

Anne’s main issues were.. just how the HELL was the archive even allowed to get like this? And why had Andrias hired HER of all people? Don’t get her wrong, the pay was much better, and arguably less work than research, but dear god, she wasn’t even qualified for the position.

Maggie was, she knew that. Maggie would’ve been perfect for the position! At the time, Anne didn’t even question it, she was just so desperate to prove herself worthy of the position, and happy she’d been noticed.

Anne took a long, long swig of her coffee. It’s just her anxiety talking. Probably. Partially. She could do this job. She was capable, and she was going to prove to her coworkers that she could be a good, responsible boss.

Anne returned from her thoughts to her work, typing with a little more ferocity. The hairs on the back of her neck raised just a little.