#MAG97

[thewrongshop]

Incredibly vulnerable Archivist challenges terrifying avatars completely unprovoked compilation

[ID: screenshots from the transcripts of episodes 89, 97, and 131 of The Magnus Archives. The first reads, “ARCHIVIST: Yes, yes, I understand, you could easily kill me, I’m at your mercy, blah, blah, blah. I have heard it before. And from things much scarier than you.” The second transcript reads, “ARCHIVIST: I… Y… Y-you don’t… sound Russian.” The third transcript reads, “ARCHIVIST: That’s it? [he snorts] Hardly worth a rib.” End ID]

[ceaseless-bitcher]

I’m literally obsessed with how victims’ differing feelings about said ambiguous fears pre-encounter impacts how they are affected. Because we only hear the survivors, it’s kinda implied that a massive piece of the sample population is lost to us!

Also, there appear to be large differences between the people who die soon after giving a statement and those who have an experience, survive to give a statement, and then go on after. The latter group seems to have a better grasp on their relationship with the specific fear tormenting them; episode 71, statement #0172501 from Karolina Górka comes to mind, as she was able to reach acceptance of her death before The Buried fully trapped her. It realised she wouldn’t be worth it because she wasn’t feeding it anymore. The survivors almost always seem to “let go,” or are otherwise incapable of feeding the entity further. Nathan Watts is suspicious of the Anglerfish, and is able to notice what is wrong with it before he gets into its range of attack. Because of this, it relents and he’s able to escape.

However, there seems to be another class of statement giver: those who only have a tangential encounter, or those whose fear is reliant on limited exposure (like the Not!Them). In MAG30, David Laylow survives because his experience was mostly a result of Tom Haan’s avatar-ness, not his fear drawing in The Flesh on its own. In MAG97, Jackson Ellis escapes from the pit in Bucoda because he wasn’t a part of the town or their attempted ritual. Even in MAG12, Lesere Saraki, the nurse who treats Gerard Keay and Diego Molina, is only a bystander in the Desolation avatar’s death throes and general lashing-out.

I would love to see some statistics of victims of entities that isn’t inherently biased by the fact that only some live to give a statement, want to, or are able to recognise that what happened to them was supernatural. I don’t think it’s coincidence that the highest proportion of statements given throughout TMA are attributable to The Stranger (although data is, again, disrupted by the fact that they were gearing up for a ritual)- the Uncanny Valley (lol) is one of the most recognisable tropes in horror. The only statement that Jon took from someone who wasn’t willing to give it (MAG142) was a woman who was trapped by The Buried, and enough of the fear was “natural” claustrophobia, or deniable, that she was able to brush it off.

JONNY GIVE US THE STATISTICS

goddd i love tma so much i love how each episode has thematic relevance to the fear that's about to attack the person, they have to be SUSCEPTIBLE first. im relistening to piecemeal and in addition to just being a literal murderer who presumably deals a lot in Meat, the guy keeps using phrases like "waste of skin" and "human garbage" and all this other stuff that clearly feeds into the more esoteric stuff behind The Flesh, about feeling like a body in the machine, only as valuable as the pieces you can cut off of yourself are. he was ripe for the flesh long before he met angela.

and ive gone on before about like, Do Not Open, and how joshua was feeling money pressure and all this ambient stress unrelated to but definitely feeding the coffin.

10/10 good shit jonny sims knows how to do a horror.

[trenchcrows]

Happy to be in 'the archives fall apart without the magic powers' episodes?

OH?

[witsserviceablesubstitute]

Jonathan Sims, the author, is especially good at never oversimplifying characters and motivations (unless they are the villain, but power can just make you that Machiavellian). He understands people, the systems that hurt them both inside and outside their control, and it makes him an excellent Horror writer. I finished Thirteen Storeys recently and one of the reviews I hated commented on how most of the POVs were too human in their unlikability. As if being likeable matters in Horror protagonists (though I thought they were likeable, personally, people are largely unable to live up to romantic ideals of who we should be). As if being doomed by 'too human flaws' that are nurtured by their environment and that build systems perpetuating abuse wasn't the whole freaking point of the story, but I digress.

The point of Jonathan Sims, the character, both what dooms him and makes him redeemable (at least to me), is that he isn't Gertrude. I love Gertrude, she's a great anti-hero, but her icy practicality of purpose is at direct odds with Jon's increasingly desperate floundering. Jon starts off cooly removed but it doesn't take long to understand how much of a front that is. He's been thrust into a management position too early (on purpose) and he's wearing the skin of what he thinks a Head Archivist is supposed to be. His disdainful professionalism is a vaneer that's thoughly rubbed away with trauma by Season 2.

By contrast, Gertrude is steely and efficient resolve to her bones. My favourite image of Gertrude is the outside perspective of her in MAG97 'We All Ignore the Pit', where she's coldly surveying The Buried's ritual and ignoring the 'distraught young man' sobbing in the car behind her. It's a powerful reminder of the cost of her particular brutality. Ultimately Jon could never have sacrificed an innocent like Jan Kilbride to end one of the rituals, but it's Jon that becomes the monster and Gertrude who remains human till the end of her life. It's Gertrude who saved the world for decades and Jon who ends it in under 5 years. Yet it is Jon who I'd say is the better person, for whatever that's worth, because the point is to care about the individual cost of the pain that callous disregard can cause. Which is something Jon understands at the end while Gertrude never could because she's too blinded by the bigger picture.

Jon's strengths and flaws are the point, as are Gertrude's, as are Martin's, as are Tim's, as are Melanie's, as are Daisy's, as are Basira's, as are any protagonist in a Horror story because human flaws and fears, their action and inaction, their strengths and weaknesses, are what drive a good Horror narrative (and a good Comedy, actually 🤔. Maybe just a good story in general).

Look, I love Jon as much as the next person but I think some of you have gone so far along the ‘Jon is a sad little man who did nothing wrong’ route that you’ve genuinely forgotten all the times he held power in a situation or like. Made a decision that hurt people

[mag200]

MAG97: We All Ignore the Pit

charcoal & ink // kofi

[rainwritings]

MAG97 - We All Ignore the Pit reads exactly like someone moving to Night Vale.

[heliophaestus]

day 21: we all ignore the pit

[ID: a digital drawing of the pit from Bucoda in MAG97 of the magnus archives, from the perspective of being in it looking up and out. in the foreground the dark silhouettes of four people are visible, and a fifth is seen in the dark looking in from the edge of the pit, holding up a phone with the flashlight on. behind them the night sky is visible, dark blue with stars. /End ID]

[ty-bayonet-betteridge]

first pass just assigning songs to episodes as we thought of them (note that i have decided to explicitly exclude anything written as a TMA fansong)

MAG17 The Bone Turner’s Tale - “Skeleton Appreciation Day in Vestal, NY (Bones, Bones, Bones)” (Will Wood & The Tapeworms) MAG28 Skintight - “Under My Skin” (Jukebox the Ghost) MAG34 Anatomy Class - “Halloweenie IV - Innards” (Ashnikko) MAG42 Grifter’s Bone - “Cbat” (Hudson Mohawke) MAG45 Blood Bag - “Blood” (My Chemical Romance) MAG54 Still Life - “Terry’s Taxidermy” (Teddy Hyde) MAG58 Trail Rations - “Misery Meat” (Sodikken) MAG72 Takeaway - “Cannibal” (Tally Hall) MAG85 Upon the Stair - “The Little Man Who Wasn’t There” (Odd Chap) MAG90 Body Builder - “Body” (Mother Mother) MAG97 We All Ignore The Pit - “Circus” (Lindsay Mendez, Drew Gasparini) MAG101 Another Twist - “The Distortionist” (Ghost and Pals) MAG102 Nesting Instinct - “Hot Venom” (Miniature Tigers) MAG108 Monologue - “Limelight” (Rush) MAG112 Thrill of the Chase - “Blood and Bones” (The Blake Robinson Synthetic Orchestra) MAG115 Taking Stock - “Eat You” (Caravan of Thieves) MAG125 Civilian Casualties - “Let’s Kill Tonight” (Panic! At The Disco) MAG131 Flesh - “The Dismemberment Song” (Blue Kid) MAG144 Decrypted - “Number Stations” (I Am the Digital Madman) MAG153 Love Bombing - “Love Me Dead” (Ludo) MAG165 Revolutions - “Faceshopping” (SOPHIE) MAG169 Fire Escape - “Choke” (I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME) MAG171 The Gardner - “I Deserve To Bleed” (Sushi Soucy) MAG172 Strung Out - “Drunk” (The Living Tombstone) MAG176 Blood Ties - “Animals” (Maroon 5) MAG177 Wonderland - “They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haa!” (Napoleon XIV) MAG186 Quiet - “Disco! In The Panic Room” (Bug Hunter) MAG187 Checking Out - “The Mind Electric” (Tally Hall, Miracle Musical) MAG188 Centre of Attention - “Somebody’s Watching Me” (Rockwell) MAG189 Peers - “Kiss Me, Son of God” (They Might Be Giants)

if you ever wanted proof that we have the autism consider that "making a 200 song playlist where each song corresponds to a TMA episode" is an idea that just occurred to me as both reasonable and fun

[fagderolo]

heard a clip from mag97 on toktok yesterday and wow. tma audio quality was shit for a lot longer than I remember it being.

[water-mellie-seeds]

mag97 is weird so far almost feels like a nightvale plot

[fates-theysband]

I just listened to mag97 and oh no. ohhhhhh no.

[neosatsuma]

The Archivist, Sasha, and Georgie!

The Archivist: when and how did you get into tma?

So @mothmansbutt was TMA-blogging like crazy (especially about MAG154 I feel like?) and it was so incomprehensible and intriguing that in... early October, I think, I finally gave in.

Sasha: which episode were you most afraid of on your first time listening?

It's a close call between Anglerfish and Lost Johns' Cave (the latter purely for the recording at the end).

Georgie: what did you do while listening to tma? Did you listen with friends or other people?

Just about everything! I listened while I was driving, drawing, doing dishes, lying flat on my bed and staring at the wall -- though that last one very rarely because it's hArD to pay attention that way ashfdhvhk. I listened to like MAG93 to MAG97 with my friend Jon (funny, I know) and now I'm re-listening with @littlelaneybird through the wonderful power of the internet! :P

TMA End of the Decade Ask Meme!

[farouche-aigrid]

Mag97? The old woman is Gertrude, surely, she booked flights all over the world this is established. And the young blue eyed man...Michael, the creepy thing Michael, has blue eyes no? Blonde hair and blue eyes. That’s what is established about him. But that doesn’t make sense.

I think Gertrude destroyed the town tho.

And Nikola Orsinovs (?) voice is terrifying. Congrats to her actor. I’m genuinely unnerved.

Also this new theme of turning Jon into a punching back is sorta amusing and horrifying at the same time.