Tuesday DE: Things that go bump in the night

[bjornwilde]

So I apologize in advance that this DE has spoilers for the big bads in The Magnus Archives. This is all information that can be found in wikis and doesn't go into plot specifics, but I thought I'd give the warning in case you haven't started the podcast and want to go into it with fresh ears.


So in the world of The Magnus Archives there are several primordial entities that either are primordial fears of our world or feed on those fears. From the list below, which might have the strongest influence on your character?


The Buried: AKA Choke, Too Close I Cannot Breathe, The Forever Deep Below Creation, the fear of small spaces, suffocation, drowning, buried alive.
The Corruption: AKA Filth, The Crawling Rot, The Flesh-Hive, the fear of corruption, disease, filth, rot and decay, of disgust and revulsion.
The Dark: AKA the Forever Blind, the primal fear of darkness, of what lies beyond that we cannot see.
The Desolation: AKA The Lightless Flame, The Devastation, The Blackened Earth, the fear of pain, loss, burning, and senseless destruction.
The End, AKA Death, Terminus, The Coming End That Waits For All And Cannot Be Ignored, the fear of death.
The Eye, AKA The Beholding, The Ceaseless Watcher, It Knows You, the fear of being watched, exposed, followed, having secrets known and shared.
The Flesh, AKA Viscera, the fear of corpses, meat, bones, butchers, fear of realization that we are just animated meat and bones.
The Hunt: the fear of being chased or hunted as prey, fear of animalistic instincts and desire to hunt.
The Lonely, AKA Forsaken, The One Alone, fear of isolation, of being completely cut off from others.
The Slaughter, the fear of war, or of unpredictable, unmotivated violence, the fear of sudden and random pain.
The Spiral, AKA It Is Lies, The Twisting Deceit, It is Not What It Is, the fear of madness, of the world you know being wrong, fear of deception of lying, or that your mind is lying to you.
The Stranger, AKA I Do Not Know You, the fear of the unknown, the uncanny, the unfamiliar, the uncanny valley, the creeping sense that something isn't right, mannequins, wax figures, dolls, masks, taxidermy.
The Vast, AKA The Falling Titan, the fear of heights, falling, large open spaces, including the sky, deep space, or deep water, fear of human insignificance and meaninglessness.
The Web, AKA The Spider, Mother of Puppets, the fear of being controlled or trapped, especially being unaware of one's own entrapment, fear of being manipulated, also fear of spiders.

Comments

[zenigatcha]

Zenigata: The Hunt. There's no question about this. I don't think he's afraid of the hunt ending -- because he enables it so it doesn't. But he'd definitely get MARKED by the Hunt.

Lan Zhan: He'd be preyed on by the Lonely, emphasizing his isolation and distance from his own clan, wedging the gap between him and others during WWX's 'missing years.'

Zuko: The Desolation is easy for him - though the hunt had it's eye on him, as soon as he found purpose elsewhere he slipped through it's grasp. However, now he has to deal with the fall out of war, of curbing the grasp of the Slaughter (who hates him as a peace bringer) and The Desolation. However, he is currently dealing with the isolation of being a ruler in a country that's hostile to him, that he feels like a stranger in frequently. Though he's gathered his family, he still feels frequently alone. Mai left him, Azula's trying to kill him, his father is whispering poison in his ear... I'd say the Lonely would really find him delicious right now.

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine is likely marked strongest by the Flesh and the Hunt, as she is squeamish about meat to the point of lifelong vegetarianism and deals often with vampires, and doing that requires frequently facing and processing the fearful ideas of bodies being meat and food and the idea of being hunted for such. To a lesser extent she may have been touched by the Stranger (due to what her Dark Sight does to faces) and the Watcher (recurring nightmares about vampires' eyes, which one mustn't look into). On the other hand, she has no fear of The End. If she were to be affiliated with one of the fears, she (and her wide network of friends, regulars, etc.) would be most easily be turned to the purposes of the Web.

Yrael, like most Free Magic creatures, would be most closely aligned with the Hunt and the Slaughter. He wouldn't admit to being *fearful* of it, but he doesn't like the idea of the Web, at all.

Max would be most strongly affected by The Lonely, as her social anxiety simultaneously makes it much easier to keep to herself, makes every conversation a challenge full of potential missteps and pitfalls, and makes her fear lack of connection or missed opportunities. If she were to be affiliated with a fear... well, she's always happiest when acting as the roving Eye of her camera.

[death_gone_mad]

A lot of these fears are tools in Amascut's toolbox; the stories about her promote them all to certain extents. But, I think the one that personally affects her is the Spiral, since she is really sensitive about what others say about her mental health. It is, ironically, the tool she uses best because she is all about lies and deceit. Well, that, and the slaughter/the end. She tries to promote a fear of unending, however.

The elder goddess she had her traumatic encounter with also had a spiral motif so there is that too.

The death of Fairy Fixit's god and the relevation that religions kept on popping up centered around him despite his best efforts to be forgotten led her to a fear of being manipulated by religious figures and higher beings. So, fear of the Web for her. As a member of a species descended from a flying social insect-like thing, getting caught in invisible webs is also likely a primordial fear.

[bjornwilde]

Ahsoka is giving me a hard time. A flippant answer would be the Choke due to who her master becomes. The Lonely fits until Order 66 and she is forced to face it.

Sabine is one for the Desolation I think.

Viv is kind of a tough nut, but I think I will go with the End. She has died and lost her mother and brother to death, which is the entire reason she has her emotional subprocessors turned off. Poor girl is in serious denial.

Jessica is Easy peasy and I even have canon to back me up. The Web. She controls people and she has a weakness to pheromone-based mind/emotional control as well. She is also a spider-totem and tied to the Web of Life.

Tybalt once would be been of the Dark but is now of the Hunt.

Ben...I am torn between the Slaughter and the Flesh as I'm not sure which would cover body horror/dysphoria.

[configuration_birdwatcher]

Ben's fear might actually be the Spiral, because Distortion avatars seem to get mutated... but that's a bit superficial, since it's mostly about paranoia and madness. Hm.

[bjornwilde]

And I am not too sure how much he fears his powers exactly. I know he is very reluctant to use them, which could be a fear of violence?

[bjornwilde]

Opps, I forgot Alustin. He'd be with the Eye. He loves secrets and gaining knowledge and just knowing things.

[sunbaked_baker]

Ohhhh body horror/dysphoria is absolutely Flesh. [eyes certain episodes]

[magnus_archivist]

Klaus - prey to SO many, but the Web, the Corruption, and the Spiral. It's a party, thanks, he hates it.

Cecil - is as close to being an avatar of the Eye as he can be without being part of TMA's actual canon.

Jon - .... just... yeah. Mmmhmm. Also he hates the Lonely with the power of a thousand burning suns. Straight to hell with you, Peter Lukas. And the Corruption is freaky, go away. Also the Stranger can die in flames. ... The Spiral needs a hobby. A DIFFERENT hobby.

Wei Wuxian - the Flesh and the Slaughter mark him up, but it's the Lonely that gets him.

[ceitfianna]

This is fascinating and hard.

Cassian, I think its the Eye, the Spiral and also the Desolation and the Hunt. I don't think he actually fears death that much.
Quentin very much is disturbed by the Flesh and the Hunt.
Charles is all about the Stranger and the Spiral.
Sameth is I think the End, but not as much as he used to.
Will used to be much more about the Flesh and the Hunt, now they're still there but not as much.
William, I think its the Lonely.
Demeter, oh she's complicated but the Corruption and the Lonely.
Ivan is very much the Buried.
Tumnus, I think the Hunt and the Lonely.

[configuration_birdwatcher]

Wilson got sent to hellmurder island because he made a deal with a supernatural apparition for forbidden knowledge, so he's marked by the Eye for sure. He might also have been easy prey for the Lonely in his backstory, but he didn't seem to want to be around people; I'm not sure if that makes it easier or harder to fall victim. Being stuck in the Constant just in general seems like it puts you in the hunting grounds of the Dark and the Spiral, since it's ultimately ruled by extraplanar living-shadow creatures deeply connected to madness, and the cat-and-mouse game between a survivor and the person on the Nightmare Throne adds Hunt and Web elements. I'm not sure how well I can pin down the justification for it but I get the feeling that Wilson's personal biggest fears are Spiral and Web; he doesn't like to think that he doesn't understand what's going on or his decisions aren't his own. Maybe also Corruption because he's pretty fussy about gross stuff.

Bastion is an unwilling tool of the Slaughter, and it's also among their biggest fears. The Web looms nearly as large in their mind, because that hits a lot of the ways the omnium controlled and directed its troops during the war. Plus the Stranger would probably take an interest in omnics in general since they have intelligence and agency but aren't human and sometimes aren't friendly to humans, which frightens a lot of humans.

Cirava is super marked by the Lonely, since the defining incident of their backstory almost killed them but they're more overtly bothered by losing all their friends. Probably the Desolation could get in on that as well.

Wormwood is so obviously prey for the Lonely that it's in their character title, but they're also extra-vulnerable to fire and fear it accordingly, so the Desolation would have to arm-wrestle the Lonely for this one. (Plus there's the Dark and Spiral stuff from being in the Constant, same as Wilson, but not the Hunt and Web stuff so much because Maxwell seems to have mostly ignored the Hamlet and Shipwrecked worlds while he was on the throne.)

Thurlow would make a great avatar of the Eye, but their own biggest fear is the Spiral predominantly. And a bit of the Web and the Lonely; being infamous and eccentric is their brand, but they still have to stay on the right side of social ruin.

Aradia is deeply entangled with the End, and has some Desolation moments as well; the robot body amplified that but she still finds destruction interesting even on her own and with her full emotional range unlocked again.