The Magnus Archives was a podcast.
It has been a podcast in my life since 2018, and it appears it will continue to be a podcast with the incoming The Magnus Protocol sequel. I have a lot of opinions, but really most of them can be summed up by the two words heading the column to the left.
I got into the podcast because my friend and roommate at the time had commissioned an artist to draw our OCs. Said artist told my roommate that this OC helped him envision how to draw a character, who I eventually learned was a fella named Martin Blackwood, from this little horror podcast called The Magnus Archives. My roommate listened to it, found out it was kinda good, and got me to listen to the first episode with them. We were sitting in a dark car at night in the parking lot of their college. Not sure if that added or took away from the ambiance.
I was working two jobs at the time, pulling twelve-, and even sixteen-, hour days at a time. Thankfully, these were jobs where I was allowed to plug in my earphones, so it gave way to a lot of time for listening to those podcast things. I burned through so many, and this was before I found out the trick of listening to them at 1.5x speed. TMA was no different. I caught up in no time, and yeah, you know what, it was kinda good.
What is it actually about.
The serious answer? Some white British nerd from 200 years ago gets it in his brain that he's a special little boy, so he proceeds to spend the next couple centuries invading people's privacy until he finds the right guy he wants to make his messiah. And the majority of this podcast follows this forced messiah coming into that role, which involves a lot of annihilation of personal safety, both others and his own.
My personal answer? Some white British nerd from 200 years ago gets it in his brain that he's a special little boy, so he proceeds to spend the next couple centuries whoring around until he finds the right guy he wants to make his dom. Unfortunatey for him, the majority of this podcast shows this guy's a sub and a bottom, but it's fine!! It works out. Sort of. He gets penetrated by his chosen messiah, so didn't he truly win?
The podcast mostly follows the format of the main character Jonathan "J'Archivist" Sims reading what amount to stories of people's traumatic supernatural encounters. Sometimes there are character supplementals before or after an episode, which is where the plot will generally take place. Of course, the bigger episodes, such as the season finales, will break this format. And the final season turns this on its head a lot more.
Honestly, I'm only really writing this out to fill up space so I can test anchoring sections LMAO. But also it's nice to keep a record for the future. I'm at a very interesting spot in how I feel about The Magnus Archives, where we're quite a bit away from its highest point, and yet so close to its new beginning. And I'm sure by the time The Magnus Protocol rolls around, I will remember even less about my TMA feelings. So might as well write it down as soon as possible.
For as long as I've been listening to the podcast, I've been involved in the fandom. At 3 A.M., I honestly don't remember if I finished catching up to the podcast first or not.