..I’m still confused as to why it is surprising to easily buy an axe in London. I have never lived anywhere that an axe could not be had at the nearest dry goods store/sports store.
I have now listened to the whole 1st season of the Magnus Archives
my main observation is that I can’t believe that Jon (John?) Sims is supposed to be younger than me when he sounds like he is Nine Thousand Billion Years Old and is on his eleventeenthousandth cup of coffee while also having never gotten a morning cup of caffeine in his LIFE
other thoughts, under cut for some spoilers I guess?
-I can see where there are certain patterns to the kind of horror in various stories (I assume these have to do with the Entities I’ve seen mentioned around The Tumbs), and I really enjoy the variety--not knowing exactly How things are gonna go Terrible Shaped is really fun.
-It’s also been interesting in a Self Discovery sort of way to track which of the stories particularly resonate with me horror-wise. The Spiral stuff? whoof some of that hits home, although some of it is just kinda confusing. The Vast, the Buried? REALLY UPSETTING, JUMPING AT SHADOWS , which really was a surprise, since I’ve never been prone to either claustrophobia or agoraphobia, and fully loved both caves and high lonesome spaces back when I had the mobility to reach them. (Or maybe that’s it, the horror of something enjoyable--because it is enjoyable for the most obvious episodes of both-- being turned sinister?)The Flesh? eh. The Corruption? hit or miss. The Stranger? LITERALLY MY PERSONAL PHOBIA NOT!PEOPLE NONONONONO And I just love the mythos around things like the Piper or the Death avatars; it doesn’t give me the shudder-shakes but it’s the kind of eerie world-behind-the-world thing that really speaks to why I love Weird fiction.
(The Hunt?... my jam, but not my Horror. So far I’ve spent every Hunt episode going WHOOOOO:D. Anyone who has tracked my blog for a while probably realizes this is Predictable.)
- regardless of the subject, I find the stories get less terrifying the more the Mythos is built? the first few stories had me holding my breath, hiding under the blankets and jumping in my seat every time the heat came on. As it went on, the “I know that reference!” ping of satisfaction started to interrupt the mood more and more often, and that kinda killed a lot of the suspense that this style of Weird Horror depends on for me. Not that it’s Bad Writing, it’s just that it moved the experience away from nail-biting Weird Horror to Exciting Dark Mystery. The sense of being afraid to even hear what happens next is now replaced too often by an impatient Need to Know where a thread connects and a desire to Check My Notes for that horror mood to last.
...But then as is probably obvious from my...everything about me, I am really into research and finding common reference points and the whole Everything about exactly the kind of study the Archives do so far; I wonder if the Worldbuilding has the same emotional damper-effect on the horror for people who aren’t..well, such friggin’ nerds about everything , for lack of a better description.
..and then again, That Bit in ep 40? with the table...? I see you, I see you ? Yeah, right back in Screaming Nightmare Horror Land despite the full-on whiz-pow Season Finale adventure mood otherwise going on. I really can’t say enough how much The Stranger is my person creepville.
Anyway, this continues to be completely my jam, as I strongly suspected it would be. Thank you everyone who helped finally shove me into watching it!:D
..Time for S2...
Some thoughts on Narrative Voice that have been raised for me by Melanie’s involvement; all this is relevant as of TMA 87, so under the cut for spoilers:
it’s hit me on and off for a while that there’s a certain...Magnus Archives Presentation Style when reading statements. Not just the manner of speaking, which is a very specific kind of good reading that actually is very hard to do, but the phrasing and metaphors and all. There have been several times when a particular turn of phrase hit me as just Not Right for the person making the statement-- too esoteric or too fancy or just out of place with their pre-statement presentation, or something. As long as Jon and Gertrude- the pro archivists-- dominated the recordings, it was kind of hard to say?
But hearing Melanie--new, awkward, not part of the Archive’s reading culture in any way yet--read? Where she starts out sounding so much like she’s reading from a script and then just sort of..slowly morphs into Archivist Voice? Or Martin, who always shifts from his own awkwardness to the smooth , character-voice heavy Archivist reading style? Especially with Jon off still doing his own recordings, saying he can’t stop ...
I’m wondering if the reason for everyone sounding Like That as they give or record a Statement is that it’s a sort of...invocation? invitation? if the Eye is influencing them, making them inhabit the telling in a certain way.
..I have no idea! I genuinely don’t , maybe I’m way off base and it’s a purely Doyleist quirk rather than a Watsonian one. But I am really wondering now...
...you ever just getting to like a story, innocently liking a character, even though they’re not the sort of character who’s your usual Type, but then the Backstory Drops and suddenly it turns out oh hey actually they were That Type all along, you played yourself
TMA fanwork meta question, spoilery if you’re not caught up to Pretty Recent eps
... so there’s got to be some good discussion of the way that Tim’s repeated Close Encounters with The Stranger affected him, right? can anyone toss me some decent links?
under the cut for massive major spoilers of course
- I’m really glad I’m binging this, it helps me remember things to have a big chunk of story and lots to pick up on all stacked together and reinforcing itself. I still have to check and double check the Fan Wiki for names here and there, when I hear someone I KNOW I recognize from earlier; I’ve inevitably run across some spoilers that way, thanks to the structure of the wiki, so I’m really glad I’m needing to do that less and less as the show goes on; I don’t think I had to check anything in the last ten episodes, thought I did still have to go to the wiki to get links to the Transcripts, because
- I find the tunnel-echo effects make the dialogue pretty unparseable no matter how loud I have the show, unfortunately. I could understand Michael,and not much else. (I mean,I could understand Michael’s voice, the Spiral’s motives and all are fairly opaque to me still.) The voices and acting lend so much ambiance, I would have been happy to watch along on the YT vid with subtitles , but it doesn’t have subtitles? Frustrating, but I do really appreciate there being transcripts!
- Michael makes me really, really sad. He was just a kid who stayed out in the rain a second too late! It wasn’t even his idea! And he got Marked and he lost his whole damn life to this thing before he was even old enough to have a good grasp on what reality is in the normal swing of things. Poor kid. Poor Michael-that-should-have-been. (ETA so I don’t answer this multiple times: I’m aware Lightning-and-Tower Michael might not be Hallways and Hands Michael, but this is just name-association, really. Also, there’s a growing horror in S2 in finding so many people who seemed to escape their encounters showing up again in much worse shape in other Statements...)
- Thanks to Tumblr Osmosis , I’m sure the Endgame OTP (at least so far) in Jon/Martin, and while I’m currently not a fan of that (though totally prepared to change my mind according to character/relationship development!) I am delighted to be able to enjoy Jon and Basira’s relationship without worrying that her character is going to be suddenly smashed flat to make her The Love Interest. I love their weird uneasy alliance! I hope she comes back but also hope she goes somewhere Far Away and lives Ordinarily Ever After.
-on that note, Daisy Daisy Daisy bring back Daisy, I don’t usually get into cop characters but WEIRD CRYPTID FORCE COPS are apparently a potential weakness for me (..also I know, I know they are probably Hunt-aligned. I’ve already said I’m unfortunately Weak for The Hunt ).
-I miss Actual!Sasha >:
- Tim is seriously the only person in this whole damn institute with any self preservation either supernatural or normal?? “Yeah you’re right I don’t like the boss who stalks me and keeps secrets about a situation which is directly about my own personal safety like I was the enemy and takes his trauma out on me directly while I’m recovering from,in this case , exactly the same trauma thanks “
Martin: Wow Tim you’re so selfish, how can you even think about fleeing our supernatural hellscape, why aren’t you more concerned with the guy who is very overtly considering you a potential enemy and crossing all boundaries in a way that, in any normal job, would right off be enough to get HR and maybe the cops involved? WHY ARE YOU BEING SO UNREASONABLE, TIM??...Now excuse me while I run to my probable death with no preparation in defense of a guy who seems to go out of his way to hit my very obvious emotional weak points and considered me so useless he thought I might be dead already, because unlike you I am making good decisions!!! LEEEROY JENKINNNSSSSS”
-honestly the apparent connection between why the Institute/Elias accepted Martin as sacrifice an employee and Martin’s emotional Everything is both screamingly apparent and worth an essay all on its own , that’s some Good Charactering
-I never trusted Elia-- Never Trust the Boss Of Shadowy Organization With Mysterious Backers, that’s my motto-- but HE KILLED THE INFODUMP SOURCE. HOW DARE. INSTANT LEAST FAVE.
- I KNEW LEITNER WAS A RESEARCHER I KNEW IT I KNEW IT, who has a vast occult library BUT never really figures in any accounts of actually DOING anything?? AN OCCULT NERD DOING RESEARCH. (I say, well aware that *I* did not do my research as fully as I’d like here, to avoid spoilers, and thus may be forgetting a Big Thing he apparently did)
- I did NOT know he was still alive?? and totally didn’t see him working with Gertrude (it was actually Gert’s Occult Book Hunting that made me slap my head and go OH RIGHT about Leitner!)
-I want to know more about Gertrude
- The OH NO moment I had during Leitner’s description of obvious multiple entities working together to just wreck his shop!! BAD, BAD, THE INJUSTICE LEAGUE OF AAAAAH IS BAD
- also now I know for sure that the Web and the Stranger are enemies? this puts at least 2/3 Fear Entities that could, I am aware , pretty much have me as a pawn for a cheap ice-cream cone allied against the one Entity that makes me absolutely go into Screaming Phobia Murder Mode, I don’t know if everyone’s feeling the same way or if this is just the show happening to find my particular keys like that
-...listen Elias is THE WORRRRSSSST and I am sure The Institute is Not Good but if The Stranger existed and was A Thing like this then they wouldn’t have to Play me to get my assistance on taking it out , every single episode about it makes me go Mad Raccoon in A Box , I want it gone, the enemy of the Stranger is my ...slightly less enemy
-Jonnycakes Sims is the Avatar of the Human Trainwreck, but I did not realize until this episode that he does not drink coffee?? I’m torn between thinking he should and thinking all caffeine should be taken away from him forever.
-Also, Dammit, Jonet, this “keeping info about supernatural horror schemes from my team For Their Own Good” nonsense? BAD , you are not a Victorian patriarch and they are not your children, GIVE THEM A FIGHTING CHANCE YOU GOOBER, DID YOU EVER READ ONE GOTHIC NOVEL, IGNORANCE IS DEATH
- ..HOW DID YOU DECIDE TO SMASH THE TABLE YOU. GOOBER PIE. I take it back, definitely Jonny needs to drink all the more caffeine.
--in conclusion, ELIAS TOOK MY LORE HOOKUP AND HE MUST PAY FOR HIS CRIMES.
(Supplemental:P)
I'm getting the impression, from responses to my earlier little post, that people don't? like Tim ?? and I am Afraid this means he is Something Horrible?? but he's fun and friendly and smart and reacting like a human with normal human self-preservation instincts + a touch of Heroic honestly?? why do people not like Tim, is he a secret Horror, NO DON'T ACTUALLY TELL ME but D: NERVOUS NOW
