![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
felinejumper) wrote2020-04-18 02:15 pm
magnus archives x sarah waters/affinity
one of those aten't dead things, hi, god, how are we all doing? Bad, I assume, I wouldn't know because if I think about it too hard I will stop functioning and this bitch is an essential worker (not the direct-patient kind, though). Have we thought about how taboo it will be to kiss another person in [some number] of months?
Anyway, I listened to the entirety of season 1 of The Magnus Archives over the past week, and wow fuck did I love it. Meta archival narrative? Self-deception? The translation between mediums? Dubious record keeping? Fickle memory? The things that live in the cracks of the world?! A deep voiced British academic with big skepticism vibes being mean!?! I have been swooning and getting chills in equal measure.
I'm on season two (translation: I am 10 minutes into the first episode), and Millbank Prison has come up for reasons, and now I'm just...obsessing over Sarah Waters and Affinity and the para/normal dis/belief &first person narrative dubiousness, of both stories. I love that I already have fictional context for Millbank, as it deeply adds to the contextually skin-crawling creep vibes. I just!!! I don't wanna spoil stuff but I want this fic to exist (I always want the fic to exist). Like -- Jonathan Sims reading me an excerpt from Affinity, sort've vibes. The overlap is just...just there and I so hope it gets more fodder, tangential as it might be.
Perhaps my Affinity fix it is just...The Magnus Archives? Oh boy, I feel genuinely great about that.
no subject
Hiiiiiii. I'm afraid I have absolutely no memory of what context I first encountered you in (Black Sails, possibly?) but hiiii, you're talking about The Magnus Archives, hi.
It's SO fucking good (I am up to speed and being flattened by the new eps on a weekly basis, it's great).
no subject
Black Sails seems likely, no guarantees, I tend to be a shadowy multifandom participant. But. AHH MAGNUS ARCHIVEESSS. I was so happy when I listened to the little q&a between s1/s2 and realized I had dependable storytellers coming thru. I lost my miiind when the metaarchival stuff started poking through! I also think I've developed a Pavlovian joy response to the musical cue for the turning point in every story, you know, when Jonathan is saying "And that's when it got *really* weird, because nobody could remember there ever being a wardrobe there."
Uff. So excited to pump my brain full of horrifying worms for another 4 seasons!
no subject
I was so happy when I listened to the little q&a between s1/s2 and realized I had dependable storytellers coming thru.
Yessss, love their commitment to having an actual ending, and knowing the answers to your mysteries if you're spinning a grand meta-plot (and their thoughtfulness about narrative in general, e.g. things like mystery/horror and what makes them satisfying, answers versus the unknown).
There's a Patreon interview featuring Alex Newall ripping the shit out of -- can't remember if he namechecks it specifically, but it's certainly the "mystery box" mode of storytelling he's referring to: "It is an UNSUSTAINABLE NARRATIVE MODEL!"
The progressive reveals in TMA (including the initial reveal that there is a meta-plot and this isn't just a frame for an anthology) have been handled so beautifully.
And at this point I'm very hopeful that they're going to stick the landing. Very little idea what the ending will be, but high hopes that it'll be properly cathartic and satisfying. I may be disappointed, but I am on for the ride.
no subject