The Thing About Simon Fairchild In The Magnus Archives - The Thing That's Fascinating To Me - Is That

The thing about Simon Fairchild in The Magnus Archives - the thing that's fascinating to me - is that he didn't have to do anything wicked to become an Avatar. He did wicked things later, once he'd become an Avatar, but to achieve Avatarship in the first place, all he had to do was make beautiful art of the Vast and fall in love with it.

And it seems as though the Vast fell in love back such that when he fell, the Vast couldn't bear to see him perish, and so he flew.

Simon goes on and on about how insignificant he is, but the literal god of the insignificance of humanity is invested in him, personally.

The other fascinating thing about Simon is that despite almost certainly having been raised Catholic and experiencing his miracle in a literal Catholic Church, he does not attribute his salvation to the Christian God. I wonder what drove that realization?

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sorlian

9 months ago

any time an announcer says if [athlete] medals it’ll be the first medal for [country] I immediately lose all sense of patriotism and become an [athlete] stan

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sorlian

1 month ago

i love that simon fairchild and mike crew have the exact same sense of humor, but simon's obviously way further into it than mike. mike will give you some tea and have a civil conversation with you, you really have to push him to get him to toss you into the vast. with simon, your fate is entirely dependant on how much fun he has talking to you. and they both think your fear is hilarious.

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sorlian

1 month ago

A digital illustration of 14 stamps, each representing one of Smirke's 14 Fears from The Magnus Archives. They're all square, black, with rough textures and patchy spots to make them resemble actual hand-made ink stamps.

First is The Hunt. A wide eyed hare stares out at the viewer from behind a dark frame, a single arrow cutting through its throat. Three drops of blood spread out from the exit wound.

Second is The Web. The shape of a spider web is cut out in the negative space of the dark ink.

Third is The Spiral. A simple swirl, like an optical illusion you'd find on a children's toy, outlined in black and white behind a black frame.

Fourth is The Dark. There is nothing to see.

Fifth is The Flesh. A framed diagram of an anatomically correct human heart.

Sixth is The Vast. A grid slopes down the square, widening and darkening towards the bottom. It's not quite clear if the view is from the ground looking up at it, or from the top looking down. Either way, the opposite end fades out of view.

Seventh is The Buried. Crumbling dirt spills down the square in dark pieces, ever so slowly filling the shape.

Eighth is The Corruption. A simple dark background with a cockroach made of the negative space. There's a thin frame, but it's off-kilter, a little diagonal to the rest of the shape.

Ninth is The Stranger. The Comedian and Tragedian theatre masks are set on a dark background, the edges of the masks peeking over the limits of the square.

Tenth is The Lonely. A solitary rowboat sits on a dark ocean, empty. Fog drifts across the water.

Eleventh is The Slaughter. A simple bright, clear blood splatter starting at the corner of a solid dark square.

Twelfth is The End. A single gravestone sits in the center at the end of a hallway. It radiates darkness and contrasts the light background, pulling the eye to it at all times.

Thirteenth is The Desolation. The bottom of the stamp has the appearance of a burned photograph, charred and jagged. What's left has the pattern of melting candle wax.

Fourteenth is The Eye. A simple representation of a human eye in a square frame, with cartoonish eyelashes and a small pupil in the center.

I wanted to mess around with stamp textures and now we're here

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sorlian

1 month ago

you know the hyperfixations bad when you go outside and see clouds and mutter to yourself 'this is just like when simon fairchild-'

thunderstorm warning tonight? thats- thats just like mike crew guys

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sorlian

1 month ago

i really like the little detail that the fairchilds aren't a real family, but rather just a name, whereas the lukases are a biological family, but deeply disconnected from each other. the vast sees no inherent value in names, they hold no meaning and can be given away like a gift to anyone it wants to mark. the lonely sees no value in family bonds, they can be severed at any indication of disloyalty, but are still preferable to chosen bonds.

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sorlian

1 month ago

legitimately my first feminist awakening as a ten year old child was realizing that girls were expected to respect “boy stuff” but boys were never expected to respect “girl stuff”

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sorlian

1 month ago

a charming old man fr

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sorlian

1 month ago

ok ok, so, I just kind of realised that Simon Fairchild is older than planes right? so, can you imagine how excited he was when they were invented? he felt the fresh fear of the wright brothers for those first 12 seconds and went insane.

OR, alternatively, he invented the aeroplane because he was bored of just throwing people from cliffs

ohmygod. he was absolutely fucking ecstatic. overwhelmed with joy. best day of his life. he would force every other avatar onto a plane immediately

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sorlian

1 month ago

[img creds below readmore!]

[buried] / [corruption] / [dark] / [desolation] / [eye] / [flesh] / [hunt] / [lonely] / [slaughter] / [spiral] / [stranger] / [vast] / [web] / [extinction]

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sorlian

9 months ago