I love the way the Horror™ works in the Magnus Universe, because the way we understand it is wildly ill-equipped to actually describe what’s happening beyond the immediate context. It’s all vague descriptions of patterns and motifs. The only detailed taxonomy or pantheon we get is Robert Smirke’s, and while I like it for what it is, I am fascinated by how other people in other cultures and time periods would organize these ideas.
For example, I think you could combine The Buried and The Vast into one idea- the fear of space. It’s just two extremes of the same scale, it’s about feeling helplessly small against a force that doesn’t even care to notice you. It’s not vindictive, it’s apathetic. There is no bargaining with the ocean, no fighting with the sky, no compromising with the crumbling cave.
Can you really say that the Flesh and the Slaughter are particularly different? Sure, the Flesh is about the horror of being meat, but what makes someone more aware of that than the ruthless cutting of a life? Isn’t there inherent body horror in rot? At what point does a parasite cross from Corruption to Web?
And then we have the avatars. Would you call Ink5oul a being of The Eye or of The Flesh? Simon Fairchild is obviously of The Vast, but can you say with confidence that The Lonely doesn’t benefit from his shenanigans? Jared Hopworth is 100% Flesh, but when your body is twisted around in impossible ways until you are unrecognisable… That sounds like being made into a Stranger to me. The Eye wouldn’t be nearly as distressing without the paranoia of paranoia you get from The Spiral, and how can you doubt a reality you can’t perceive?
I hope that Protocol takes advantage of this nebulousness going forward to explore other frameworks besides Smirke’s, it’s so damn fun to think about.
The horror of Elias Bouchard is so fucking underrated. When I say the horror of Elias Bouchard, I mean Elias Bouchard, not Jonah Magnus. Because this dude had one of the most fucked up existences in the whole damn show. Poor dude was truly just some random pothead with daddy issues trying to make it through life without becoming the worst kind of rich kid, and he got his whole body yoinked by a 200 year old bitch.
And the worst part about that to me is the social aspect- no one mourned him. Elias Bouchard died, but the guy wearing him just kept trotting along like nothing happened. And not only was he not mourned, his death was probably celebrated. Look at him, young Elias, finally coming into his own. They’d been so worried, but now he’s found his own way. He’s got a bright future ahead.
This one goes out to all the bitches who love some good Safehouse Era Horror. It’s me, I’m bitches. I want Jon and Martin to be fucked up and eldritch but I want them to be fucked up and eldritch and loved
(Notes under the cut because I can’t help myself. Heads up, I do go into some detail of how Jon gets injured so I can explain my thought process for how I designed his scars. All canon-typical and fairly clinical in tone.)
So I made this as a reference for myself because. Reasons.
I don’t recommend actually reading it because the text is mega cramped, but essentially it’s a comprehensive diagram of every character that appears or is mentioned in the statements of TMA season 1, when they show up, and how many times they show up. The statements are organized in a truly horrific diagram format that happened because I did not plan the layout of this monstrosity, it just Kept Growing Without My Consent. It also includes case file numbers, episode names, markers for which entity is most likely involved, and markers for whoever conducted the follow up research on that particular case. There’s also a character counter (for appearances in total and appearances in statements) and a small calendar documenting all the dates each statement was given. Still working on a way to map out the order in which Jon found them, because it is NOT chronological, but that’s neither here nor there.
Now. The point. I’m considering possibly making a video breaking all of this down because I keep explaining it to my friends and family in ridiculous detail almost entirely by accident and I should probably put that energy somewhere. Would anyone be interested in that?? Is this a thing?? I’ve never made a video for the internet before so I’m wondering if it’s worth jumping into a new medium as opposed to writing it out here, cause I know that a video is going to be more digestible for a lot of people. Lmk!
I like to think that Jon’s comment about Tim “wooing filing clerks” has nothing to do with dubious legality or slut-shaming, he just thinks it’s inefficient. Building rapport is such a slow process, Tim. It’s so much easier to just break into the records room if Sasha can’t access what we need. This is wholly unnecessary. Just use your lock pick, Tim. Fine then, use mine! Honestly, showing up to work without even a lock pick. Incredibly unprofessional, Tim.
Saw a post that was like “your childhood blorbo and current blorbo fight, who would win” and all I could think of is Tobias Animorphs and Jon Jarchivist getting ready to throw down when someone shouts “hey how do you feel about the loss of your humanity” and they both become too depressed to do anything.
It’s not even funny how hard Tobias would win that fight if nobody interfered lmao. Actually now that I think about it Tobias might be able to straight up kill him without even morphing. Tobias has a history of diving into enemy faces and leaving them with less eyeballs than they had before. So. Depending on the timeline he could either solve Jon’s current employment issue or just straight murder him
