Nutcracker's ballad

Due to peer pressure ~*spontaneous curiosity about discovering a new series in a format I’m not familiar with*~, I’ve begun The Magnus Archives!

However! I didn’t dive in without spoilers: I got some live reactions (mostly yelling) from other people, was made to hear the (I’m guessing famous, but I’m not sure that sazandorable isn’t an outlier who shouldn’t be counted) “*PLEASURED EXHALATION*” this summer in a cowardly attempt to drag me into it, survived promises of suffering and terrible characters, “remember this and that aspects you liked in Hannibal? :333”, etc., etc., aaaaand I ended up dirtying my fluffy white tail on my own by reading a few conversations&fics without any Proper And Respectable knowledge of the series yet. It feels super wrong when said like this but it also explains My Situation re: the series: I really really don’t think I’m spoiled about everything, but I’m spoiled for Some Big Stuff and/or know some information here and there – and might also be interpreting them very very incorrectly at the moment. It works fine for me, having the guarantee that a few of tropes and patterns I’m very fond of will be present, having a few outlines and pieces laying around while knowing there is a whole puzzle just waiting to be pieced together, instead of trying to guess things from the blank page /o/
(So, given that it looks like the kind of fandom where the offering you leave at the doorway is a description of your own experience and ridiculous attempts at understanding the situation, to give others the joy of laughing about how far away from the truth you are (and also given that I’m on a sort of tumblr hiatus at the moment), I am going to try to make a few posts about my current impressions/thoughts for batches of episodes? In part so I can come back to them to laugh at myself in a few weeks. In my case, given that I’m spoiled on some things, I know that I have to pay attention to a few elements, but I also have many questions about how they fit and how about this and that works exactly, how they’re linked etc. so. It’s a mix of “I can already notice the irony of this” and “Is my wild mass-guessing totally off or am I onto something.”)

I was promised Big Pictures and suffering, I’m not reaching that yet but I got my first big “AAAAAAAAAAHHH” experience (though a happy one!). … it’s gonna be a fun time, between this and gushing over Sun&Moon’s overall cuteness (“Pikachu is EATING A POKÉBEAN, this is the BEST DAY of my life!!”), uh.




Meta-wise: podcast, currently 3-seasons long (120 episodes) and on hiatus until January. Each episode is 15-25min long, prose is ABSOLUTELY marvelous, images are deliciously eerie, elocution and voice acting is HELLA GREAT. I was promised no sexual violence, and from what I’ve heard so far, it also avoids any ableism that you could have feared given the subject. Audio on the official site (and a lot of podcast providers) and there are official transcripts of (most of ><) the episodes, too! (<- the language is super-clear, and even I (ESL… technically ETL…) am able to hear, though. I also can’t manage to pay attention to the sounds alone, I need to focus on something visual at the same time ;;)


So! Under the cut, overall personal reactions for MAG001 to MAG022 buuut with also big-spoilers-though-I-could-also-be-wrong-about-them-lol perspectives, for things I’m spoiled about, when I’m able to spot them. (And the fact I probably misunderstood a lot of spoilers might also be influencing my current trains of thoughts, so I’ll correct those misunderstanding as I proceed!)


( (It is Long) )