The Monument Mythos

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The Monument Mythos is an analog horror web original series featuring a number of Eldritch locations across The United States the viewer is likely to already know as national landmarks.

Available on Mister Manticore’s YouTube channel, and ran from 2020 to 2023. A playlist can be found here.

Tropes used in The Monument Mythos include:
  • Adult Fear: The many deaths from the crowd crush in Cairo resulting from people stampeding into an area with no outlet is a completely realistic and horrifying outcome, with no direct supernatural cause.
  • Alternate History: Many things in the The United States occur differently than in real life. There are multiple universes, and so multiple alternate histories.
  • Apocalypse How: By 2020 Alcatraz has reached west Texas. In the projections land is replaced by a black void, meaning it’s probably not great for those who live there.
  • Big Applesauce: The Libertylurker resided beneath the Statue of Liberty, and a special tree was moved to the Rockefeller Center.
  • Big Head Mode: A non-game example. The Canyonggalan, or Canyon Crown possess huge heads. According to CANYONCROWN they make an area smell like vinegar, which they use to shrink their heads from their large size.
  • Bizarre Alien Biology: A few examples:
    • The corner folk are seemingly capable of traveling between and jumping between planes.
    • Alcatraz Island is capable of extending itself. Exposure to radiation speeds it up through reproduction, and by 2020 it extends to west Texas.
    • The Special Tree the Washington Monument was built around. The monument can bend, and has odd capabilities.
    • Special trees in general seem to be connected with alternate worlds, can sing, and some claim they are more manlike than tree, despite appearances.
  • Body Horror: Riley Tillon had his internal organs folded.
  • Christmas Episode: ROCKEFELLERTREETRAGEDY is a Christmas story, though not a happy one.
  • Conspiracy Theorist: Grasserman thinks that George Washington died, and a double was placed as president.
  • Cool Ship: The Ever Given ship is not only capable of blocking the Suez Canal, it can also stride across Egypt on its massive crab legs when attached to the Suez Canal Crab.
  • Dug Too Deep: John D. Rockefeller resorts to hiring diggers to move a special tree after cutting it down and blasting it with dynamite prove ineffective. It takes them several years to dig out the tree.
  • Eldritch Location: A few examples:
    • Many American National Monuments are this.
    • The Cave beneath the Maize factory. The video showing it ends with a warning not to visit as "they have not been fed in years".
  • Enforced Technology Levels: In MAIZEMOVIEMAKER it is shown that the American government recalled personal computers early on in their development, citing "a risk to American lives and infrastructure", with the last American personal computer being shut down on television in 1990. In 2000 a more primitive looking "Maize Movie Maker" machine is released.
  • Everyone Is Satan in Hell: Those opposing James Dean liken him to Satan, such as with a poster saying "JAMES DEAN IS SATAN" in DEANDEMOCRACY.
  • Giant Enemy Crab: The ship Ever Given, also known as the Suez Canal Crab while they are joined. The Egyptian Military attempts to quarantine those who were in close proximity.
  • Historical Domain Character: Many make an appearance or are referenced.
  • Human Popsicle: Either George Washington or his double is found frozen in the Delaware river on Christmas Eve, as reported on in December 27, 1976 WBOC-TV broadcast.
  • The Juggernaut: The ship Ever Given is not slowed by a number of barricades as it approaches Cairo.
  • Landmarking the Hidden Base: The pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, contains the Libertylurker and effectively a mass grave.
  • Living Statue: A few examples:
    • An odd variety. The American government puts someone inside the Lincoln monument, where they can only peer out of his eyes be fed an odd suit. At least once the wrong person is chosen.
    • The statue of Freedom for the Capital was made with a father’s eyes, and is quite capable of movement.
  • Loads and Loads of Characters: Pulls in many Historical Domain Characters.
  • Monumental Damage: Played with.
    • Typically inverted, bad things happen to people at monuments.
  • In 2000 the Washington Monument is vandalized with Graffiti.
    • On August 7th, 2003 Mount Rushmore is defaced with graffiti.
    • Played straight with Cairo Tower, which is significantly damaged and eventually toppled when the Suez Canal Crab stumbles into it.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In ALCATRAZATTACK radiation therapy is tried on Alcatraz Island. Instead of having a projected movement of landfall in 1995-2000 and subsequent elimination of San Francisco from 2010 to 2050, it created many clones of the island and accelerates the process, reaching west Texas by 2020.
  • Not the Fall That Kills You: Happens off screen in WASHINGTONWORMHOLE. People who enter the Washington Monument are housed to the top of the hollow interior, then dropped.
  • Nuke'Em: At the request of the Egyptian government, and with approval from both Congress and the United Nations security council this is how Hillary Rodham Clinton deals with the Ever Given, using an indirect strike of low yield on the Suez Canal to create waves that would dislodge the ship. It successfully dislodges the ship, leading it to get up on its crab like appendages and leave the canal.
  • Obstructive Bureaucrat: It takes the Americans four years to stop making changes to the plans of the Pedestal for the Statue of Liberty.
  • Our Angels Are Different: The "Air Force One Angel" in AIRFORCEONEANGEL.
  • Our Presidents Are Different: James Dean becomes the 37th president of the United States.
    • John D. Rockefeller is revealed to be a two term president in an alternate world at the end of ROCKEFELLER TREE TRAGEDY.
    • In SUEZCANALCRAB, Hillary Rodham Clinton is president on April 6, 2021.
    • The American president has the authority to designate someone a Lincolnlooker without a trial for as long as they are president.
  • The Plague: The Infection is repeatedly mentioned in graffiti on monuments.
  • President Evil: What a proportionally small number people in universe believe James Dean to be.
  • Rushmore Refacement: Happens to Mount Rushmore at the end of RUSHMOREREVENGE, though it’s more of a distortion of existing heads than an ego-trip.
  • Weaponized Landmark: A few:
    • Confederate Prisoners of War are lead to the unfinished Washington Memorial during the American Civil War.
    • A odd example more about suffering than destruction. The Lincoln Memorial is used as an instrument of torture for one person the President of the United States just doesn’t like.
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