The Magnus Archives - MAG 165 - Revolutions

Episode Date: April 30, 2020

Case ########-5.Ruminations on identity and the lack thereof.Audio recording by the Archivist, in situ.Thanks to this week's Patrons: Anna Stachia, SimonFeliks, Monica Quirk, doopliss, Tori, SelfAware, Mollie, AirmidCelt, Dian Syafeeqah, Ivy Piper, lilikoi, Maja Flink, Mei Parsons, Eddie Currant, Eli Lassiaille, Diana Read, Kieran, Harry Thompson, Erin Biddle, Becky N., Malraza, Jasper 'is The End looking for any sexy new avatars' Graham, Ley, Gene, Sharon V., DisasterNick, Amanda Nengel, Kiore Hernandez, Shannon O'Leary, Anika DuMont Arvanitis, Reagan Mellan, Jacob, Keelin Lawlor, Felix Nicoll, Jasmine Bloom, Brendan Abolivier, Lysimache, AaronBurrSir, Mandy, Zach Davis If you would like to join them, be sure to visit www.patreon.com/rustyquillEdited this week by Annie Fitch, Elizabeth Moffatt, Brock Winstead & Alexander J Newall.Written by Jonathan Sims and directed by Alexander J Newall.Produced by Lowri Ann Davies.Content warnings:- Loud / Discordant SFX- Mass Pain- Character Death- Body horror- Impostors- DissociationPerformances:- "The Archivist" - Jonathan Sims- "Martin Blackwood" - Alexander J. Newall- "Not-Sasha" - Evelyn HewittSound effects this week by youandbiscuitme, theshuggie, khenshom, Hupguy, hello_flowers, ThefitzyG, lzmraul, GiovanniProvenzale, soundmary, SilentStrikeZ, mrsorbias, f_ilippo, morgantj, kyles, soundscalpel.com, rkeato, jacobmathiassen, Anthousai, RutgerMuller, tvilgiat, ceberation, Yoyodaman234, digifishmusic, j1987, dster777, Vurca, tomattka, yeopot, tosha73, batman6661, minituffy, Suburbanwizard, AderuMoro, purplereptar, Pep_Molina, AlineAudio, visions68, morgothFLOW, FreqMan, DigestContent, Ohrwurm, burbujafilms & previously credited artists via freesound.org.Thanks to this episode's sponsor: Maeltopia.Find Maeltopia: A New World of Horror Fiction on your favourite podcast platform or visit maeltopia.com for more information.Check out our merchandise at https://www.redbubble.com/people/rustyquill/collections/708982-the-magnus-archives-s1You can subscribe to this podcast using your podcast software of choice, or by visiting www.rustyquill.com/subscribePlease rate and review on your software of choice, it really helps us to spread the podcast to new listeners, so share the fear.Join our community:WEBSITE: rustyquill.comFACEBOOK: facebook.com/therustyquillTWITTER: @therustyquillREDDIT: reddit.com/r/RustyQuillEMAIL: [e-mail] Magnus Archives is a podcast distributed by Rusty Quill Ltd. and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Sharealike 4.0 International Licence Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. Hey everyone, Alex here, just taking a moment to let you know that today's episode is sponsored by Maltopia. Maltopia is a multimedia dark fiction company that creates flash fiction, novel-length serials, artworks, YouTube content, and even a podcast, all tied to the single titular world of Maltopia. The small creative team behind Maltopia have worked hard to create a diverse collection of original horror and dark fiction that spans sub-genres from dark fantasy and dark sci-fi to weird fiction and beyond.

It explores our world in the aftermath of the Great Darkness of 1999, a year-long global amnesia that not all survived. This post-darkness world is a horrific version of its former self, where madness spreads like plague, nightmares come alive, and the very landscape itself lies twisted by unknown forces. If you're a fan of dark literature and graphic novels, then this is definitely worth checking out. So why not head over to Maltopia.com and give it a go? That's M-A-E-L-T-O-P-I-A dot com, and show them just how much you appreciate them supporting the Magnus Archives Episode 165 Revolutions Wow.

I told you. I mean, yeah, but when you said big... I meant big. Yeah, but... I mean, how big is it actually? It doesn't really work like that. Yeah, figures. If you tried to measure the diameter,

it'd probably only be a half mile or so. But the curve doesn't work quite right, and if you stayed at the same spot, just hopped on a horse or let it carry you round, it might be days before you pass the same spot, or... Or you might never see the same spot again. Exactly. Yeah. I think I'm starting to get it.

Good. But you said we needed to go through these places. Is that even going to work here? these places. Is that even going to work here? We need to go through them metaphorically. Psychologically, we need to experience them. Oh.

You think we could get that experience just walking along the edge? Because I really don't like the look of those riders. Would you believe me if I said they were the victims? At this point, I'm not even surprised.

Either way, best not to actually climb onto the thing, if we could help it. Fine by me. Never really liked merry-go-rounds anyway. No? You gone on any recently? What? No, I don't think so. Not since I was a kid. I actually... There's one at London Zoo. any recently? What? No, I don't think so. Not since I was a kid.

I actually... There's one at London Zoo. Was one at London Zoo. Big old thing. Went quite fast, actually. Surprisingly thrilling. What? Seriously? It was years back, before the Institute. I was in a weird place. Had a good time, though.

Well? I mean, obviously I wouldn't want to ride this one. We've got quite enough thrills already. Are you sure? I could speak to an attendant. I would advise against doing that. So you said the riders were the victims. Where's the monster? I'm hoping if we're quick we can avoid her notice.

Her? John, please don't tell me there's an evil clown doll down there because... No, no, Nicola died with the unknowing. It's, uh... an old friend. Oh. Yeah. I'd really rather not deal with her if we can avoid it.

Yeah, good call. Um, in that case, do you want to do your thing now, then, before we start moving? Are we close enough? Yes. Yes, I think so. Good idea. Thanks. You might want to take a bit of a walk.

This feels like a strange one. What does strange mean with something like this? Don't think you want to know. Good point. Okay, well, good luck. I'll be over there. Right. Your face is not your face is not your face around the curling carousel it twists in place to

take from you and all the tattered stolen souls whose sense of me is swollen and distended into nothing. Round and round and round it goes and when it deigns to stop who you might be you cannot know. So touch and feel the skin atop your skull to test the limits and extremities of where this canvas comes to rest. In robbed identities and peeling names that you could swear were never yours. The music swells through you. The music vomits from you. The music calls a name that through the tears of half-grasped

memories seems almost and eternally familiar. So dance. Dance to the beat of the thump of the chase of the still and plastic horse hooves, which cannot break from where they are secured by bolts and glue

and eggshell thin reality that paints a visage of sense almost enough to tell you that the nausea that swells and pushes at the limits of your mind is incorrect. There's nothing wrong. The world in which the carousel will twirl

is not the hollow hell you fear. It is the world. Just the world. A world where if you'd wish to have a name it must be stolen, carved, and pulled full bloody from the frame of others who would wish in vain to hold their selfness close. You want a face? Take it. There are so many here, and those who cannot hold them well Whoever chose to give them such a gift must take the blame Knowing they could never keep it in a world of so much thieving strangeness And soon enough they will forget they ever even had one

Rest assured, it's best to step the dance and keep your face secured as much as you are able Just keep running Your feet, or are they just the shoes with emptiness within, will pound upon the creaking wood of Carousel Top, or perhaps the only ground there's ever been, so struggle not to look behind, though can you trust your eyes to tell you quite what it might be that dogs your steps, and see the poor procession of those gory, faceless wretches who have lost possession now of all their treasured once identities to those who are now them.

Like you. You tire of the chase, of course, the fire and all relentless pace of competition, reaching for a name, identity and face as long since worn through all reserves of hard, enduring vigour in you. Yet still you only stay a self while willing on your aching legs that feel like breaking just to keep you forward of the frenzied fray of hazy clawed who-are-yous. So run. Just run.

And listen to the music of your panicked flight from those who long to take what you have stole from those no longer worth a name. Ever onwards forward on the curling path of Medigo round that's twisted, wound, and spinning in its harrowing sound of organ-piping circus tunes that merrily hound the steps of your escape, could you turn a thought and burn your lead on your pursuers and angle-change a charge now perpendicular to your intended line of best retreat and stake it all on one last hope,

your bruised feet pounding to the edge, the boundary. Don't stop the ride, but you still want to get off. But no, for all the dreams of bounding leaping off into the great unknown, you see the ring of broken, mewling wretches who have shown the sting that comes with such rejection of the truth, so seldom spoken yet inside you all, that there is no way off the merry-go-round. And so perhaps the twirling round that pushes all who passenger the carousel might help you stay ahead, and so you seize the rough and peeling pole of ancient wooden horse, ignore the sloughing screaming wood that comes away in clumps, and grip the saddle hard. In hands that should be clean but

now have never seen a day they were not caked in glue and slaked with blood of all the rubberies existence deems the only way to live. Ride away. Just ride away. Up it goes. Down it comes. Hold fast to the joy of the rise, despise all thoughts you might descend, and in the end protest against that fall back down to painted wooden spinning earth with

all the tear-streaked grasping of the mass of gasping still unnamed oppressed. Cry to the horse, go higher, faster, offer painted apples that you think perhaps it might desire, but the frozen face is still the same, the simple cast of equine terror, framed and caught in wood and plastic bulging eyes of fear. Its pace remaining as it ever was, it does not care for coming pains as you are torn. Doesn't it know who you are? No, and soon, neither will you. doesn't it know who you are? No. And soon, neither will you.

Although to call it all is lost is more dramatic yes than has been earned, for those upon this carousel who have not been you already, perhaps they know without a memory how good it is to have a face and name. It's not the same as what you had when first you climbed the brightly painted stairs, but not the worst who you have been. And as the horse drops through the air into the crowd of eager waiting thieves you are, unbowed and yes, afraid, but still the music plays

and turns the world upon its gaudy axis. You will be someone again someday. The hands and fingers reach and breach the gentle veiled complacency and respite that had just been yours upon your mount's ascent, and now the wood is bent and bowed as faceless things who long to be a who pull splinters from the rot of screaming saddle and of rider. you, who feel some mask of sharp and hard identity begin its gentle fracture into jagged shards of names that you once were I'm still Hannah, you try to scream, but are you? no perhaps there's some Veronica as fragments there, or Julian, or Anya

but no you feel the last of names and who you might have been be torn away and borne towards new bodies, new pages, blank, determined to be people. The rotten, ragged rush of fetid fingernails that dig and push and reach around the edges of your face until they scrape against the bone in such a rough, scratched tone that rocks and echoes through the space that was your mind, scratched tone that rocks and echoes through the space that was your mind and when they peel it from you like the skin of an orange the skin of an apple the skin of a pig the skin of a child the skin of a you then comes the briefest flash that surely now it's done so much perhaps the pain will be somewhat lessened there's no way it could hurt as much as you remember.

But it does. And so, of course, you scream and scream and curses foul obscene will tumble garbled over where there once sat other people's lips or yours now gone and teeth that once shone yellowed ivory are crimson in the flowing sanguine flood. And as you lie in agonies and fading dreams of personhood, of knowing who you were and what that might have meant,

you hear the bitter whisper of recriminating seekers who have found the treasure of their eager dreams, but see, it seems there's not enough for all. And so they fall to frantic tearing conflict, just as vicious as it was when it was bearing down on you. You lie there in the fugue of vivid pain and feel that gentle rain from violence overhead, as some fall dead or close as this place lets you lie, for truly thus to die would be too eager an escape. And listen to the ebb and swell of slow melodic wail

that well you know conducts the flowing rhythm laced into this endless faceless dance at last victor breaks away in clinging heartfelt terror of his former comrades sprinting bold and holding to his skull the severed face that was once yours willing it to stick as those who notice try to pick themselves back up and give pursuit to close the gap perhaps you should arise and follow on the things that once you would despise but now have joined. You are, of course, a faceless thing as well, and so should quickly march the pace of those who chase the selfsame prey. But now it is too late. They've gone. Their chase will not abate until their former friend is ripped apart in turn, and you have learned to wait.

For there are many faces out upon the carousel, and many names that you might be. So bide your time a while and wait the coming of another one whose fate and face might sit upon your grinning carmine skull. So turn with the turn of the merry-go-round And dance to its jolly old song Who'll you be with a name or three And a stranger's face worn wrong End recording. You're joking.

I'm not. So was it any good? What do you mean? Was it a good poem? I don't know. No. You're the poetry expert, Martin, not me. Did it stir any feeling in you?

Yes. Nausea. Because of the horrible things in it. That's not quite what I meant. Then I don't know what you mean, Martin. I'm not a poetry person. I don't get it. I never have. That's fine. I understand. Look, I'm better than I was. I used to think all poetry was bad. Sorry, what? I used to think all poetry was bad.

Sorry, what? I mean, I just thought of... I sort of thought it was pointless. Just write some prose and stop wasting everyone's time. Hmm. What changed? I don't know. I just mellowed on it, I suppose. That's kind of weird. In my defence, there is a lot of bad poetry out there. I guess.

I kind of want to hear that tape now, see how artistic the Stranger actually is. Or just look up, see it for yourself. No, no thanks. I'm trying to avoid thinking about it, actually. Of course. Sorry. How much further? I think we're past the worst of what? she's here my dearest colleague get back I can't believe you decide to pass through my neighbourhood and not say hello

to dear old Sash just ignore it Martin oh you wound me archivist and we used to be so close. I have nothing to say to you. Nothing to say? Were you crushing me, burying me in the foundations of your little temple for a year, and now you have nothing to say?

Lightner did that. And Peter released you. All I've done to you is to not die. Oh, and I would say that is quite rude enough. Leave us alone. I won't warn you again. What have I let you choose this time? Which one of you would I wear next? Martin looks very comfortable. Positively roomy.

Oh, wouldn't you agree, Archivist? John, do we need to run? Oh, yes, Martin. You very much do. I'll even give you a head start. John? You're bold. I'll give you that. Last chance. Desperate for one last morsel of terror from us.

A final sip and then we're gone. Somehow we managed to keep just ahead of you and get away. God forbid you actually catch us. Doesn't bear thinking about. John, what are you talking about? She can't touch us. We're so far beyond her now. She's just like everything else here.

Ruled by the eye. And she hates it. Of course you want to wallow in my shame like your voyeur master. Do you know how it feels to be anonymous and yet known? To have all the sweetest dread I can create tainted by the relentless gaze of that damned eye. I've suffered enough. Pathetic. Martin, let's go.

Not as pathetic as your little friend when I ate her life. What did you say? I'm sorry, John. You were wrong, you know. There is more suffering than you can ever experience. So much more. The horror of your victims. Their constant, senseless

agony. Feel it now. Understand it. You have drawn out so much despair, and now, finally, it's your turn. Ceaseless Watcher, turn your gaze upon this wretched thing.

No! No! Please, no! No! Please, no! No! Whoa! What was that? I destroyed it. Killed her. Are you kidding me? You obliterated her!

You smoked her! We should go. What about the merry-go-round? With her gone, is it still a bit... I don't know. Yes, you do. I don't want to know. We need to go, please. Oh, OK. All right, all right. Lead on. The Magnus Archives is a podcast distributed by Rusty Quill and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Sharealike 4.0 international license. Today's episode was written by Jonathan Sims, produced by Laurie-Anne Davis,

and directed by Alexander J. Newell. It featured Alexander J. Newell as Martin Blackwood, Jonathan Sims as The Archivist, and Evelyn Hewitt as Not Sashler. To subscribe, buy merchandise, or join our Patreon, visit RustyQuill.com. Rate and review us online,

tweet us at TheRustyQuill, visit us on Facebook, or email us via mail at RustyQuill.com. Join our community on the Discord via the website, or on Reddit at r slash the Magnus Archives. Thanks for listening. Hi everyone, Alex here. I'd just like to take a moment to thank some of our patrons. To be continued... Thank you all. We really appreciate your support. If you'd like to join them, go to www.patreon.com forward slash Rusty Quill and take a look at our rewards.

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