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Tma Entities - Blog Posts
I was bored in class and had sticky notes, I just finished the last episode of TMA and I’m actually devastated, I’ve convinced two of my friends to listen to is so that’s a win
So.
It seems to be a rite of passage for all tma enjoyers to obnoxiously assign entities to every piece of media they consume, which is why I present to you another exhibit of this totally normal behaviour, this time for The Spiral.
I am rewatching this little kdrama called 'Bad and Crazy' and for the first half, it doesn't seem like much, although the themes surrounding mental disorder are very much present. The second half however, has a huge focus on subjects like gaslighting, loss of memory, therapeutic malpractice and doors. Lots of doors. I'm not doing it justice, I know, but it has the perfect culmination of doors and mental health issues. You've seen the Distortion make doors appear out of nowhere and you've seen them lie and manipulate and whatnot but have you seen doors INSIDE someone's head? You'll find them here!
It's starting to sound like I'm selling this drama but like, if you love the Spiral, you NEED to watch it. Also it's hilarious and has probably the best characters in kdrama that I have seen. Even if you don't watch kdramas, you'll like this one, it's built different.
Watch it.
You want to.
Presenting 'Cheating Death' with Hansol Vernon Chwe
I've been wracking my brain trying to assign an entity to this
Okay, hear me out, hear me out— Johan Liebert as an avatar of The End
Alright, this is really specific but for quite some time, I've been thinking about what media that I've watched falls under which Magnus entity. I couldn't really categorise anything under The Hunt until I watched the 4th episode of the second season of the anime Mushishi. For context, Mushishi is about these strange creatures that exist alongside all earthly life called Mushi and sometimes when they interact with humans, it causes some weird things to happen. To solve Mushi-related problems, there are some people who specialise in dealing with them (kind of like doctors and scientists) called Mushishi. The protagonist is a Mushishi named Ginko.
Now, the synopsis of the episode that I'm talking about (titled 'The Hand That Caresses The Night') is this:
A young man has the power to lure animals to him using a scent issuing from his hand. He inherited this power from his father, and it makes hunting easier. But it makes the meat from his prey taste foul. More serious is the risk of losing his mind to the power and confusing family with prey. There's a cure, but will the boy be willing to give up his power?
That's the plot but it really doesn't tell you about the atmosphere of this entire episode. It starts with Ginko entering this mountain forest in the evening or night and almost getting hunted by this dude. The animation, the lighting, the music, it all builds this eerie, unsettling vibe which isn't uncommon for Mushishi, but it feels different in this episode. Like, there's always this bittersweet aspect to all episodes but this one is just so... Different. There's this whole thing about the hunter also being a part of the mountain and the reversal of roles (hunter turned hunted) but all in all, it really captures the feeling of The Hunt well.
I could go on but I think you need to watch it to truly understand what I'm talking about. I'm pretty sure there are plenty of other movies or shows that capture The Hunt but since I adore Mushishi, it came as a pleasant surprise that there was such an episode. You should go watch it! And while you're at it, just watch the whole show-
Psst, here's the link: https://hianime.to/watch/mushishi-the-next-chapter-38?ep=1123&ep=1123
Also, if you watch it, you are obligated to listen to the opening and ending. No watcher of Mushishi skips that. Ever.
Pros and cons and dating the avatars of each entity
The Vast
Pros: Literally the best romantic dates ever. Picnicking in the middle of wide-open skies, or giant lakes that stretch on and on forever.
Cons: Kissing at terminal velocity is not as fun as it's cracked up to be.
The Corruption
Pros: Loves you with an intensity. Very clingy. Very touchy-feely.
Cons: You will live in a literal rat's nest.
The Eye
Pros: Knows all your likes and dislikes, knows exactly what you're feeling and what to say and do to make you happy.
Cons: For some reason soon after you start dating them all your computer privacy settings stop working.
The Spiral
Pros: Knife hands! Doors! Corridors! Slowly losing and questioning your sanity the more you spend time with them! Being unsure if they even exist! Fractals! Patterns! What's not to like??
Cons: None!
The Buried
Pros: The blanket forts...... all the blanket forts.......
Cons: Loves the dirt more than they love you.
The Desolation
Pros: Hot.
Cons: Hot.
The Stranger
Pros: They buy so many skin products that your skin will be almost unnaturally smooth after dating them for a few months. Dances with them are great.
Cons: The number of mannequins in the house is starting to get disturbing.
The Dark
Pros: They snap their fingers and the lights instantly go off. Candlelit romance anytime, anywhere.
Cons: There are only so many conversations you can have about the "beauty of the dark sun" until dinner talk grows stale. Will definitely try to convert you to their creepy cult.
The End
Pros: Pulls off the goth aesthetic extremely well, if you're into that.
Cons: Constantly reminds you that you're either going to break up, get married or die, and muses aloud their speculations about which one it'll be. Also, the only album they ever listen to is MCR's Black Parade.
The Flesh
Pros: Very interesting good in bed.
Cons: You will constantly find yourself sighing, "Jason, tell me the truth. Did you cook human meat for dinner AGAIN?!"
The Hunt
Pros: Extremely passionate kisses. Almost ravenous, you could say.
Cons: furry :/
The Slaughter
Pros: cute when they angy!
Cons: You tried to make a "you're not you when you're hungry" joke once and they nearly stabbed your eye out.
The Web
Pros: I mean who doesn't love extra eyes and legs?
Cons: "vriska did nothing wrong"
The Lonely
Pros: Will give you space whenever you need it. Maybe more enthusiastically than you'd want.
Cons: Wants to see you so little you're not even sure whether you're in a relationship anymore. You talk to them once every three weeks. Embarrasses you at the annual Institute party.
Avatar of the corruption
i have a confession to make.
i used to give people lice on purpose.
to everyone who had the misfortune of being my elementary school peer: i’m sorry, it was me.
Statement of Joe Spooky regarding a rude awakening: I just got woken up by a very loud train horn which sounded exactly like a calliope organ and for a second I thought I was gonna die in the Unknowing
🚪 magnus archives entities; THE SPIRAL.
fear of madness, that the world you know is wrong, that your mind is lying to you. Deception, gaslighting, hallucinations, maddening realms & impossible geometry.
mutual 1: i’m soooo sleepy i’m such a #tiredgirl
mutual 2: heads up i found black mold in my bedroom yesterday so posting frequency may decrease
mutual 3: who up for the witching hour
mutual 4: wyd in this situation 🤣🤣 [photo of actively burning building, reverse image search: no results]
mutual 5: the moment you die will feel exactly the same as this one
mutual 6: i need to quit my job
mutual 7: THE WORLD IS ALWAYS ENDING
mutual 8: should i eat pork chops for dinner yes/no
mutual 9: just drove 150 miles for something i bought on facebook marketplace
mutual 10: day 177 since he ghosted me
mutual 11: buy my new album for pay what you want on bandcamp
mutual 12: just got my risperadone refilled 👍🏻
mutual 13: i need to look like [attractive male celebrity] i wonder if i could steal his skin
mutual 14: nothing matters in the world i hope i fall off a building tomorrow
mutual 15: me and who [saw bathroom screenshot]
A combination of my two somewhat niche interests, don't mind if I do
Honkai: Star Rail Aeons as TMA Entities
Hello! Welcome to a peculiar intersection of two current interests of mine. If you're unfamiliar with either of these pieces of media, allow me to offer a brief explanation.
Honkai: Star Rail (referred to as hsr from here on out) is a scifi gacha game in which the universe is presided over by godlike beings known as Aeons. That's about all you really need to know for this post- I'll reference specific characters in a few of my explanations, but that's not Crucial for understanding.
The Magnus Archives (tma) is a podcast distributed by Rusty Quill and licensed under a- wait, sorry, those aren't my notes. Let's try again. The Magnus Archives is a horror fiction podcast wherein a group of archive workers catalogue, and increasingly come into contact with themselves, the inexplicable and horrifying events caused by a group of otherworldly fear entities.
Both the hsr aeons and the tma entities share the obvious similarities of being extradimensional beings who don't often manifest directly in the world, but who hold exceptional power and often inspire mortals to their cause/develop powers in relation to them (avatars in tma, emanators in hsr). I suppose with the knowledge of both groups of beings rattling around in my head it was inevitable that I would start thinking of comparisons between them. Some things don't Completely match up- both the aeons and entities are cosmic beings that don't subscribe to human conceptions of morality, But there are several Aeons that don't really fit neatly into the system of fears. For those, I have either left them without tags or gone into. Things that Could potentially be seen as horrifying/fearful about them, even if not a part of their seeming purposes.
The following list is based solely on my own readings and a few hours of thought yesterday. If you feel I've misunderstood or mistagged your favorite entity or aeon, do please tell me so! I'm under no illusion of this being a perfect list and I would LOVE to hear others' taggings and arguments in favor of such. There are also a few aeons I struggled to come up with a tagging for, so if you have any thoughts on those, please say so. I'd love to chat about it.
Let's begin!
Aha/The Elation - The Stranger
The Stranger was my obvious first thought for this one, because. masks/circus aesthetic, duh. Aha and Nikola Orsinov (for non-tma folks: Nikola is a murderous sentient ringmaster mannequin who is far too delighted about everything) would vibe so hard. But there are ALSO very strong Spiral vibes here. Madness and absurdity and laughing at things you shouldn't and deception of the senses? Aha and Nikola would vibe, but Aha and Michael Distortion would ALSO vibe pretty hard. I think I'm still in team Stranger for this one, in part because there's another Aeon I think fits the Spiral better, BUT I could be convinced either way, really. Let's talk about it.
Ena/The Order - The Web
Gestures vaguely at the puppet strings in my poorly-cropped image above. Ena is not the only Aeon I feel could potentially fit as the Mother of Puppets, as you will see, but. Especially in the direction that we see Sunday take things in hsr- regardless of his noble intentions, there's still a whooole lot of hidden machinations and stripping away of free will going on. Super webbish behavior, that.
Fuli/The Remembrance - The Eye
Fuli isn't quite as... for lack of a term, voyeuristic as we see the Eye to be in tma, but I think out of the entities it's still the best match. Fuli records information- all information, all memories- for the sake of preserving and crystallizing it. Fuli will not let anything be forgotten. THEIR followers form an organization known as the Garden of Recollection, busying themselves with collecting the memories of others- and more radical ones among this number do so by stripping memories from their subjects without asking permission. Doesn't that sound familiar?
HooH/The Equilibrium - The Web (x2)
Another Aeon that, like Fuli, isn't necessary malicious or hoping to inspire fear in the same way that the tma entities do, but. HooH and their followers do not take center stage, and prefer to influence the universe from behind the scenes. The goal of achieving a balanced universe isn't super Web-aligned, but HooH definitely could fit in with the fear of being controlled or influenced unknowingly.
IX/The Nihility - The Vast
IX was a tricky one to pin down, for me. There are a number of entities you could make a case for for THEM- the End, the Lonely, and the Dark were all options I considered. But I ended up landing on the Vast in the end, because in tma this fear covers not just the literal fear of large spaces and falling, but also the existential fear of one's on smallness/the insignificance of humanity. Which fits the Nihility pretty darn well.
Lan/The Hunt - The Hunt (duh)
This is admittedly kind of an obvious one. I am not immune to low-hanging fruit. I do think there could be some aspects of the Slaughter in there as well, if we think about the tma statements of ordinary people being almost casually inspired to brutal violence, and the hell that the Abundance Wars put the Xianzhou Alliance through. But the need to hunt, the commitment to chasing down monsters of the Abundance- still pretty darn Hunt-aligned.
Mythus/The Enigmata - The Spiral
This section is kind of the continuation of my confusion about how to properly tag Aha. INITIALLY I was thinking Spiral for Aha and Stranger for Mythus, swayed in part by the fact that the Stranger's ritual in tma is literally called the Unknowing. The Stranger deals with everything that is uncanny and inhuman, which at first seemed to match pretty well- but further reading has made me switch. Aha is just so Stranger vibes, and Mythus' whole deal is not just the uncanny, but actively obscuring and confusing mortals about what is true.
Nanook/The Destruction - The Desolation
I feel like this one is another somewhat obvious tag? A case could be made for elements of the Slaughter in here as well, but I ultimately feel that the Desolation is more fully aligned with destruction moreso than the (still destructive!) focus on violence that the Slaughter has.
Nous/The Erudition - The Extinction
Nous definitely has some Eye vibes as well and I will not pretend otherwise. But I remain firm in my tag of THEM as the Extinction nonetheless. The Extinction is all about the end of/superseding humanity, especially caused by their own hands. Nous is a giant supercomputer that ascended to Aeonhood and rendered THEIR creator irrelevant/unnecessary. We see Dr. Ratio, a character in hsr, go unrecognized by Nous, despite his brilliant mind, because he is too invested in the betterment of humanity, while Nous is all about looking beyond humanity and solving the universe's questions. This is another count against tagging Nous as the Eye, for me- the Eye does not have any such goals for its watching so much as it kind of just wants to Watch. Everything.
Oroboros/The Voracity - The Hunt (x2)
While the Hunt in hsr more resembles the stuff that happens to avatars of the hunt in tma- like, the need to hunt monsters we see in characters like Trevor Herbert- I feel that Oroboros corresponds to the more animalistic side of the fear- it is a voracious predator, and everything in the universe is its prey.
Qlipoth/The Preservation - The Lonely
HEAR ME OUT. HEAR ME OUT ON THIS ONE. I initially really struggled to tag Qlipoth, and wondered if I might actually have to leave THEM without a tag- until I did some further reading! There's one readable that theorizes that Qlipoth wants to "preserve" planets by isolating them from each other, behind barriers. I think of Belobog, holding out for 700 years behind their walls- blessed by the Preservation, but cut off from the rest of the universe. It's not a perfect tag by any means, but. food for thought.
Tayzzyronth/The Propagation - The Corruption
I feel like this is another fairly self-evident tag! In tma, the Corruption deals with bugs, infestations, and general filth/unhealthiness... extending, on a metaphorical level, to unhealthy companionship. We see multiple statements in tma about people's minds being twisted to the point where they find a sense of home/belonging in a swarm of worms or beetles. Compare this to Tayzzyronth, the last surviving member of THEIR species who birthed a horrific self-replicating swarm of insects so they wouldn't have to be alone. Yeah.
[we have no images of Terminus. no poorly cropped header here!]
Terminus/The Finality - The End
End of existence, death, finality. This one is a relatively easy tag.
Yaoshi/The Abundance - The Flesh
Yaoshi is so fascinating to me (Lan don't come for me) and I really really think. That THEY correspond most strongly to the Flesh. Benevolently granting immortality but at What Cost... ties a little bit into the physical fear of bodies/meat but also the existential/body image aspects of the Flesh fear: wanting to become something better than what you are and escape the confines of a short-lived body… which Yaoshi can do, happily, but which will leave you Changed to the point of being unrecognizable.
Things I couldn't tag! And some concluding thoughts <3
For the Aeons: Akivili/The Trailblaze, Long/The Permanence, Idrila/The Beauty, and Xipe/The Harmony all kind of stumped me. For the fears: I couldn't find any Aeons that I felt corresponded well to the Dark! There were also a number that have elements of the Slaughter in them but none that I feel totally match up with it.
I'd love to hear thoughts on those/on a potential reshuffling of my taggings here. If you stuck this far through my rambling- thank you! Please feel free to subject me to so many rambles in return, I would love to hear them/talk about star rail lore in general. If you haven't listened to tma and have the stomach for horror, I would greatly recommend it. I'm speaking here as someone who does Not generally enjoy either horror or podcasts, but got extreeeeemely sucked into this particular horror podcast.
That's all my thoughts for now. Cheers!