I've been trying almost too hard to make what I what I wanted to say about The Magnus Archives into the perfectly worded eloquent essay, but if I stay on that train of thought then I'll never get anything written, so I'm giving myself permission to make it a bunch of jumbled dot points. It's me writing down my feelings, not a graded essay. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be out of my head and on the page.
I have put it under a cut though since it's going to get long and I don't want to clog up people's dashes.
Before that though I really have to say thank you to @petticoat-swashbuckler for insisting that I listen to The Magnus Archives in the first place and then for letting me message you my live reactions to almost every episode (some at some truly awful hours), and thank you @jonnywaistcoat and everyone at Rusty Quill for the story you created that will always be a powerful gift and experience that I'll treasure forever~💚
Now Statement Begins let's go~ ⤵️
Never has a character spoken to my heart like Martin Blackwood. I see SO much of myself in him, even - especially - the messy parts. But he grows, he learns to set boundaries and take up space and stand up for himself, even if sometimes it's one-step-forward-two-steps-back sort of thing. But watching that character growth happen, as someone trying so hard with similar issues - it gives me a lot of hope for my own future. Also the fact that he's canonically fat and people celebrate that in fan art means so much, it's really helping me learn to love my body more, seeing this character I'm so close to drawn so often with a body like mine!!
Bouncing off that a bit, Recollection (ep 170) is the first episode that made me truly cry - full on sobbing on the couch, no exaggeration - and also feel a nauseous kind of fear rather than spooked or squicked, because it was so real. I get stuck in that fog too, more than I'd care to admit, and the way those emotions and experiences were layed out in that episode really hit hard. Martin's firm declaration "I am not lonely anymore" is something I'm carrying forward with me as a mantra. I'm not alone, I'm not lonely, I have friends who love me and want to see me get better and even in the thickest of fog, I will find a way out and back to them, back to myself. The temptation to eventually get that quote tattooed somewhere is very strong.
The fact that Jon is canonically asexual still makes my heart swell to bursting to think about - even if it isn't a major part of the story, it still means the world to me to have that representation, especially in a character so dear to my heart
Jon just means so much to me in general. I don't relate to him quite as heavily as I do Martin, but I still see connections. Though mostly when I think about Jon, to me he's my friend. He's my friend and I love him and I trust him and the podcast ending - aside from breaking my heart with what happened - felt like saying a goodbye I wasn't ready for to someone dear to me.
TMA is a story about a lot of things, but a big thing to me is that it's a story about choices. About how even decisions made with good intentions can still have negative consequences, but that doesn't make you a bad person. That making a decision at all can be just as important (if not more-so) as what you end up choosing. That don't have to make all the hard decisions alone. It's definitely something I needed to hear.
I've started slowly working on my fear of ants/swarms thanks to the Corruption episodes, so that's something!! (I did skip half of Pest Control (ep 55) and read the transcript of the rest though, it was making me want to crawl out of my skin. But I listened to Like Ants (ep 184) all the way through so yay for progress)
Speaking of the Fears, I'd absolutely serve the Vast!! Space, the deep sea and giant monsters don't scare me, though I definitely can the horror element in them. But to me, they're fascinating because of all of the potential there, all the beauty to see and learn about!! In that regard, I'm also certainly marked by the Eye - I need to know things! I love learning and researching and there's just so much in the world to discover and I know realistically I can never learn everything, but that doesn't mean I don't want to try. Another friend of mine said I was seeking a "Vastness of Knowledge" when we were talking about it and that's definitely an apt description!!
The existential side of the Vast does scare me though, that idea of cosmic insignificance is terrifying. I definitely agree with what Martin said to Simon - "I think our experience of the universe has value. Even if it disappears forever." - even if we're only here for a short time in the scheme of things, what we do in that time still matters because it's ours, and we still make an impact that ripples out even when we're gone.
It's re-sparked my interest in wanting to write horror (honestly just my desire to write in general) and reminded me how much I genuinely enjoy horror as a genre - it's just something easier for me to consume as a written or audio medium than a visual one, that doesn't mean I don't or can't enjoy it at all! Jonny's manner of storytelling is so compelling, and his descriptions - especially the statements in season five - have really lit a fire in me to up my game and work on my own creations
"Feed it, fearlessly and without hesitation, or it will feed on you" I know Jude Perry was talking literally about feeding the Fears, but this one stuck with me thinking about the idea of working on/with the things that scare me - "feeding" them - rather than letting them consume me. Maybe that doesn't make sense, but in my head it does and it's helpful to me which is the main thing.
Seriously The Magnus Archives has been so good for me in terms of helping me rethink/reframe a lot of my fear, anxiety and trauma. I'm so grateful for that, and even if it's hard to articulate (seriously not sure where to begin explaining it to my psych), it's something special to carry with me and help me push through. Part of me wishes I'd gotten into the show a lot sooner, but at the same time I think it truly came into my life when I needed it most and would get the most from it.
..... Ok once I started writing this was actually easier to get through than I initially thought it would be. I've still got a lot I want to talk about, but most of it would probably just end up being me posting quotes that ruined me and explaining why. But if anyone wants to talk about any aspect of TMA with me, please drop into my inbox!!! I'm usually better at answering questions than I am being left to ramble directionless (it's why I like writing essays so much, it's easier to keep focused on what information I'm presenting) and I'm not going to tire of talking about this series any time soon!!!
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in honor of that anon who said jews have done nothing for the world, here’s a non exhaustive list of things we’ve done for the world:
arts, fashion, and lifestyle:
jeans - levi strauss
modern bras - ida rosenthal
sewing machines - isaac merritt singer
modern film industry - carl laemmle (universal pictures), adolph zukor (paramount pictures), william fox (fox film forporation), louis b. mayer (mgm - metro-goldwyn-mayer), harry, sam, albert, and jack warners (warner bros.), steven spielberg, mel brooks, marx brothers
operetta - jacques offenbach
comic books - stan lee
graphic novels - will eisner
teddy bears - morris and rose michtom
influential musicians - irving berlin, stephen sondheim, benny goodman, george gershwin, paul simon, itzhak perlman, leonard bernstein, bob dylan, leonard cohen
artists - mark rothko
actors - elizabeth taylor, jerry lewis, barbara streisand
comedians - lenny bruce, joan rivers, jerry seinfeld
authors - judy blume, tony kushner, allen ginsberg, walter mosley
culture:
esperanto - ludwik lazar zamenhof
feminism - betty friedan, gloria steinem, ruth bader ginsberg
queer and trans rights - larry kramer, harvey milk, leslie feinberg, abby stein, kate bornstein, frank kameny, judith butler
international women's day - clara zetkin
principles of journalizm, statue of liberty, and pulitzer prize - joseph pulitzer
"the new colossus" - emma lazarus
universal declaration of human rights - rene samuel cassin
holocaust remembrance and human rights activism - elie wiesel
workers rights - louis brandeis, rose schneiderman
public health care, women's rights, and children's rights - lillian wald
racial equity - rabbi abraham joshua heschel, julius rosenwald, andrew goodman, michael schwerner
political theory - hannah arendt
disability rights - judith heumann
black lives matter slogan and movement - alicia garza
#metoo movement - jodi kantor
institute of sexology - magnus hirschfeld
technology:
word processing computers - evelyn berezin
facebook - mark zuckerberg
console video game system - ralph henry baer
cell phones - amos edward joel jr., martin cooper
3d - leonard lipton
telephone - philipp reis
fax machines - arthur korn
microphone - emile berliner
gramophone - emile berliner
television - boris rosing
barcodes - norman joseph woodland and bernard silver
secret communication system, which is the foundation of the technology used for wifi - hedy lamarr
three laws of robotics - isaac asimov
cybernetics - norbert wiener
helicopters - emile berliner
BASIC (programming language) - john george kemeny
google - sergey mikhaylovich brin and larry page
VCR - jerome lemelson
fax machine - jerome lemelson
telegraph - samuel finley breese morse
morse code - samuel finley breese morse
bulletproof glass - edouard benedictus
electric motor and electroplating - boris semyonovich jacobi
nuclear powered submarine - hyman george rickover
the internet - paul baran
icq instant messenger - arik vardi, yair goldfinger,, sefi vigiser, amnon amir
color photography - leopold godowsky and leopold mannes
world's first computer - herman goldstine
modern computer architecture - john von neumann
bittorrent - bram cohen
voip internet telephony - alon cohen
data archiving - phil katz, eugene roshal, abraham lempel, jacob ziv
nemeth code - abraham nemeth
holography - dennis gabor
laser - theodor maiman
instant photo sharing online - philippe kahn
first automobile - siegfried samuel marcus
electrical maglev road - boris petrovich weinberg
drip irrigation - simcha blass
ballpoint pen and automatic gearbox - laszlo biro
photo booth - anatol marco josepho
medicine:
pacemakers and defibrillators - louise robinovitch
defibrillators - bernard lown
anti-plague and anti-cholera vaccines - vladimir aronovich khavkin
polio vaccine - jonas salk
test for diagnosis of syphilis - august paul von wasserman
test for typhoid fever - ferdinand widal
penicillin - ernst boris chain
pregnancy test - barnhard zondek
antiretroviral drug to treat aids and fight rejection in organ transplants - gertrude elion
discovery of hepatitis c virus - harvey alter
chemotherapy - paul ehrlich
discovery of prions - stanley prusiner
psychoanalysis - sigmund freud
rubber condoms - julius fromm
birth control pill - gregory goodwin pincus
asorbic acid (vitamin c) - tadeusz reichstein
blood groups and rh blood factor - karl landsteiner
acyclovir (treatment for infections caused by herpes virus) - gertrude elion
vitamins - caismir funk
technique for measuring blood insulin levils - rosalyn sussman yalow
antigen for hepatitus - baruch samuel blumberg
a bone fusion technique - gavriil abramovich ilizarov
homeopathy - christian friedrich samuel hahnemann
aspirin - arthur ernst eichengrun
science:
theory of relativity - albert einstein
theory of the electromagnetic field - james maxwell
quantum mechanics - max born, gustav ludwig hertz
quantum theory of gravity - matvei bronstein
microbiology - ferdinand julius cohn
neuropsychology - alexander romanovich luria
counters for x-rays and gamma rays - robert hofstadter
genetic engineering - paul berg
discovery of the antiproton - emilio gino segre
discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation - arno allan penzias
discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe - adam riess and saul merlmutter
discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity - roger penrose
discovery of a supermassive compact object at the center of the milky way - andrea ghez
modern cosmology and the big bang theory - alexander alexandrovich friedmann
stainless steel - hans goldschmidt
gas powered vehicles
interferometer - albert abraham michelson
discovery of the source of energy production in stars - hans albrecht bethe
proved poincare conjecture - grigori yakovlevich perelman
biochemistry - otto fritz meyerhof
electron-positron collider - bruno touschek
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TLT thought of the day is that more posts about John Gaius should engage with the fact that he's explicitly an indigenous man. Especially content about pre-Resurrection John and his backstory, intentions, politics, ambitions etc. He's a product of an environment that Tamsyn goes out of her way to describe.
This is noteworthy, because TM doesn't give much thought about race when it comes to the rest of her characters. It's not a key aspect of the present day side of her worldbuilding; see the sparing physical descriptions, her 'take it or leave it' Word of God on the matter. It's not something that she makes a priority to communicate to the reader, and clearly not a big deal for any House or BoE characters that we've seen.
This is what makes John's backstory VERY noteworthy by comparison. Or, rather, the care Tamsyn put into it.
Compare that one GtN character description post — “Judith is Pasifika and Isaac is Chinese and Magnus is Samoan and Abigail is white, but this mostly in my head and you can picture them as monitor lizards if you want” — compare that to the way she really goes out of her way in NtN to make sure that the readers know that John is Māori, and it's something that absolutely shaped his 30-something years on earth.
Like, it's spelled out multiple times, it's not something for the keen-eyed repeat reader to puzzle out. He's explicitly referred to as Māori; Tamsyn specifically namedropped Dilworth; she sketched an underprivileged background for both him and G. lot of John's obsessive attitude about his world-saving project — no compromises and acting now and nobody left behind — it echoes the concern that small island nations have repeatedly expressed towards the climate crisis, and predictably bigger rich countries don't give a shit about.
IDK where I'm getting at! But I think it's a fundamental part of his character that we sometimes overlook. We all live in a society etc, and the society John created is very very different from the one he grew up in — but it's the latter that shaped him.
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💚👁️🕸️ In honour of The Magnus Protocol releasing today, here are some book recommendations based on The Magnus Archives Fears!! 🕸️👁️💚
Detailed list of books below the cut!
For more book recommendations, especially queer horror, check out my Bookstagram @hauntedstacks
The Buried ⚰️
- Into the Sublime by Kate A. Boorman
- Stuck by Ben Young
- The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling
- The Deep by Nick Cutter
The Corruption 🦠
- What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher
- Green Fuse Burning by Tiffany Morris
- The Honeys by Ryan La Sala
- She Is A Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran
The Dark 🌑
- Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes
- Nightfall by Jake Halpern & Peter Kujawinski
- No Power by Todd Kirby
- The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
The Desolation 🔥
- Firestarter by Stephen King
- Burner by Robert Ford
- Those Who Wish Me Dead by Michael Koryta
- Burn the House Down by Kenna Jenkins
The End 💀
- Funeral Girl by Emma K. Ohland
- Pet Sematary by Stephen King
- Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune
- This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno
The Extinction 🦴
- Lost Signals by Max Booth III
- Bride of the Tornado by James Kennedy
- No Safety in Numbers by Dayna Lorentz
- The Rules of the Road by C.B. Jones
The Eye 👁️
- Video Palace by Maynard Wills
- Episode Thirteen by Craig DiLouie
- A History of Fear by Luke Dumas
- The Watchers by A.M. Shine
The Flesh 🦷
- You’ve Lost A Lot of Blood by Eric LaRocca
- Carnivore by Justin Boote
- A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers
- Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
The Hunt 🏹
- Hunt by Alexandra Nisneru
- The Woods Are Always Watching by Stephanie Perkins
- Survive the Night by Danielle Vega
- The Hunger by Alma Katsu
The Lonely ☁️
- Red River Seven by A.J. Ryan
- Solitude by Michael Penning
- Dark Matter by Michelle Paver
- We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
The Slaughter 🥩
- Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin
- Your Shadow Half Remains by Sunny Moraine
- American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
- The Summer I Died by Ryan C. Thomas
The Spiral 🌀
- That Darkened Doorstep by Catherine Jordan
- Mind the Mirrors by Amanda Leanne
- Grey Noise by Marcus Hawke
- Last to Leave the Room by Caitlin Starling
The Stranger🕴️
- It Looks Like Us by Alison Ames
- My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix
- The Deep by Alma Katsu
- The Outside by Stephen King
The Vast 🪂
- From Below by Darcy Coates
- Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant
- Floating Staircase by Ronald Mafi
- Nightmare Sky by Red Lagoe
The Web 🕸️
- The Taking of Jake Livingston
- The Fervor by Alma Katsu
- The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig
- Come Closer by Sarah Gran
If You Like The Magnus Archives 💚
- Thirteen Stories by Jonathan Sims
- Family Business by Jonathan Sims
- Gas Station by Jack Townsend
- Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix
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Pakistan is drowning, and we need help
Since July of this year, Pakistan has been affected by heavy nonstop monsoons and is yet to stop. It is only getting worse. Rural areas in Balochistan, Sindh, KPK, Punjab and Gilgit Baltistan are the most affected.
As of September 4th, over 1300 people have died and over 500,000 homes have been destroyed along with livestock deaths and ruined infrastructure. The floods have left more than 33 million people affected.
Most of Balochistan is still submerged. Locals are forced to flee and cannot account for their missing relatives until much later. More than 100 districts all across the provinces have been impacted.
Quetta, a major city of Balochistan, has been cut off from the rest of the country as the roads and highways are destroyed.
We get monsoons every year and we are used to them but this is not normal. We are in our 8th monsoon cycle when we usually get 3-4 cycles.
Two of the worst-hit provinces – Balochistan and Sindh – have received 298mm and 689mm rains respectively this year, which is about 400 percent more than the 30-year average. (c)
Along with the floods, there are also landslides and glacier bursts that have claimed lives and made the situation worse.
People from other cities were unable to get in contact with their affected relatives because they did not have electricity. The cloud cover meant no solar power either.
There are more monsoon predictions till September. I don't know how we're going to come back from this.
This is worse than the 2010 floods and the government doesn't give a shit.
This is going to have disastrous impacts on our economy and society but what does it matter? after all, the people are only there to vote, right? :)
It is the volunteers and NGOs helping, it is the public. There was no help when Karachi flooded and people died and they don't care now either.
Here are some links for donations if you can.
Al-Khidmat ways to donate (for international)
Al-Huda
Edhi Foundation
Some GoFundMes
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Sites to educate yourself more on this
1)
2)
3)
Climate change is very real and I am terrified right now.
tagging some people for signal boost @khaleesiofalicante @binch-i-might-be @gayforcarstairsgirls @all-the-cool-ones-are-gone @elettralightwood @rinadragomir @magnus-the-maqnificent @sociallyineptbibliophile @dumb-ass-biatch @noah-herondale-lightwood @steven--with-a-v
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