Web Video / THE MONUMENT MYTHOS

E PLURIBUS UNUM

"THE TREE OF LIBERTY MUST BE REFRESHED FROM TIME TO TIME WITH THE BLOOD OF PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS."

—Thomas Jefferson

The Monument Mythos is an Analog Horror series created by Alex Casanas/Mister Manticore who also created CORNERFOLKLORE, The Trinity Desk Project, and The Ningen. Combining the concept of analog horror with Alternate History, the series takes the form of Mockumentary videos focused around an America where things took a slightly different course, and where bizarre and unexplainable events occur near national landmarks like the Statue of Liberty or Mount Rushmore.

The series spans three seasons and two side series (denoted with the "A MONUMENT MYTHOS STORY" subtitle). In early February of 2024, it was officially announced that the series would conclude on February 22nd with the finale of The Modern Day, with a coda following on February 29th, 2024.

Videos in the series are:

Main Series

Season 1

• "CORNERFOLK," a video documenting a man's obsession over a mysterious presence in his home.
• "LIBERTYLURKER," a look into the Statue of Liberty and the disappearances of immigrants that occurred near it.
• "LINCOLNLOOKER," a video focusing on a tradition involving the President of the United States.
• "RUSHMOREREVENGE," a video documenting a week-long examination of Mount Rushmore following threats of an "infection."
• "ALCATRAZATTACK," a brief summary of the layout of Alcatraz, as well analyzing the threat it poses.
• "AIRFORCEONEANGEL," a video recapping an incident involving the apparent hijacking of Air Force One.
• "DEANDEMOCRACY," a look back on the presidential campaign of the 37th president of the United States, James Dean.
• "WASHINGTONWORMHOLE," a video focusing on the history of the Washington Monument.
• "DELAWAREDOUBLE," a news report about a strange occurrence in the Delaware River.
• "ROCKEFELLERTREETRAGEDY," a pair of perspectives on the disaster that occurred at the Rockefeller Center on Christmas.
• "CANYONCROWN," a video explaining a family's visit to the Grand Canyon.
• "FREEDOMFALLER," a video focusing on the transportation of the Statue of Freedom from Italy to the United States.

Season 2

• "CORNERGIRL," a message from Alex's "inspiration".
• "MAIZEMOVIEMAKER," a video focusing on the formation of a company known as Maize, as well as the mass spread of personal computers in the 70s.
• "SUEZCANALCRAB," a video looking into an attempt to free the Ever Given from the Suez Canal.
• "FALLENFATHER," a video in which the creator (the same one as in CANYONCROWN) encounters a squirrel and reflects.
• "DEANDISASTER," a look back on a previous tragedy which was enacted by anarchists attempting to demonize President Dean.
• "GIZAGUARDIAN," a video which talks about the formation of "Giza Glass," a strange material found only in Egypt.
• "ROCKEFELLERREVELATION," a summary of the key events of the "Rockefeller Revelation" and theories of the President's ultimate fate.
• "STARRYSPHINX," a video that focuses on the excavation of the Pyramids in Egypt.
• "WASHINGTONWONDERLAND," a story told by Virginia of what happened to her.
• "AIRFORCEONEFALLENANGEL," a video that details the fate of the Air Force One Angel.
• "LIBERTYLURKERS," a collection of interviews revealing the true reason why the Statue of Liberty and its sisters were constructed.
• "ALCATRAZAPOCALYPSE," a series of messages from the end of the world.

Season 3

• "MISTERMANTICORE", an introduction to the titular Mister Manticore.
• "WASHINGTONWANDERER", a recorded phone call regarding the nature of Wonderland.
• "MONUMENTMYTHOLOGY", a legend describing a possible origin of the Horned Serpent.
• "ANGELASHES", a glimpsed conversation in the aftermath of a disaster.
• "MUSKMARS", an account of Elon Musk's forays into TWTTR ownership and Mars colonization.
• "AFTERANGEL", a new perspective on the fateful events of February 22nd, 2022.
• "GOLDENGATEGIRL", two phone conversations and an unexpected campaign announcement.
• "DEANDEVIL", a federal warning about a familiar face, and the confrontation that followed.
• "CTHONAUTC", a series of drawings depicting a special child in Wonderland.
• "CLIFTCHAOS", a documentary about mysterious activities on Liberty Island following a celebrity's sudden disappearance.
• "ARNOLDSONALONE", a series of wood engravings that tell the story of the special child.
• "FREEDOMFOREVER", the story of a more perfect union.

The Nixonverse

• "THE LAST SON OF ALCATRAZ," a look into the history of a rather remarkable man.
• "THE D-DAY KNIGHT," a story of an old figure's exploits and a treatise on the nature of free will.
• "THE QUEEN OF THE LUNARIANS," a story of an encounter between the first men on the moon and a bizarre woman.
• "JESUS IN VIETNAM," an exploration of Christianity in the Nixonverse.
• "THE MISSING EYE OF JESUS CHRIST," the reveal of how the remarkable man and other figures in the Nixonverse are connected.
• "THE HOUSE IN THE OCEAN," a video compilating a series of familiar urban legends.
• "SEA OF THE LAST SON," the revelation of what happened to the remarkable man after the Vietnam War.
• "THE D-DAY KNIGHT RETURNS," a video about the death of a language, the origin of the remarkable man, and the return of an old figure.
• "D-DAY KNIGHTFALL," the aftermath of the return of an old figure.
• "NIXON IS GOD," where a great power reveals itself.
• "THE ED DWIGHT PARADOX," where an old figure strikes and a story ends.
• "THE ABSOLUTE NIXONVERSE," a Compilation Movie with extra edits and new footage.

The Modern Day

• "AMERICA ATTACK", a look into one Operation Seed and how it relates to various monuments.
• "THE SPECIAL TREE", accounts from some familiar figures, and an update on Operation Seed.
• "DEBATE DEMON", an investigation into an anomalous entity's effects on politics throughout the last couple of decades.
• "PRESIDENT PATTINSON", a look into the Presidential campaign of an unlikely candidate.
• "THE MONUMENT MONSTER", a statement from former president Donald Trump, and an analysis of drawings related to the presidency.
• "VIRGINIA'S WINTER WONDERLAND", an investigation into Virginia's early life and subsequent development.
• "THE MURDER OF MICKEY MOUSE", a story about a boy who thought he could rule the world.
• "FOOTAGE OF FINAL TRUMP RALLY", various recordings documenting the last days of a former president's life.
• "ALCATRAZ, ALWAYS", the record of a cthonaut's fateful trip to a certain island.
• "THE TRINITY DESK PROJECT", the return of an old friend.
• "CORNERWORLD", the belated conclusion to a familiar story.
• "A Monument Mythos", a post-script.

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This series provides examples of:

Tropes present in the main series

• Action Politician: Downplayed with James Dean. While he doesn't directly kick ass, he openly goes against any dissidents of his presidential campaign by helping fix powerlines in the Southeastern states in DEANDEMOCRACY as well as attempting to fix the carbon monoxide problems and the blaring sirens in DEANDISASTER.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: Almost every video title makes use of alliteration: "DEANDISASTER," "ROCKEFELLERTREETRAGEDY," "STARRYSPHINX," etc. The only exceptions to this rule are CORNERFOLK and CORNERGIRL (due to only becoming Monument Mythos episodes retroactively via Canon Welding).
• Admiring the Abomination: Riley Tillon and implicitly, the inspiration for him become extremely obsessed with the Cornerfolk and the Cornerworld, up to the point they lose their job over their investigation of them and find themselves unable to stop dreaming about the Cornerworld.
• All Caps: The titles of the videos are stylized using all caps and no spacing between words.
• Allohistorical Allusion: The ADA storms the Capitol on January 6th (1977).
• Alternate History: The series focuses not only on horror elements, but also how different the universe of the Monument Mythos is to ours. Besides what's discussed under Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman, there are many other differences too.
  • Martin Luther King Jr. survived an assassination attempt back in April 1968, as did Robert Kennedy.
  • The Great Depression is avoided entirely due to Rockefeller's dealings with the Germans, who was the United States president at the time.
  • Hillary Clinton is president of the United States in 2021, and during that same revelation, she elects to resolve the incident regarding the stuck and obstructive Ever Given by using nuclear force in the Suez Canal to dislodge the ship.
  • President Dean nationalized the USA's entire tech industry under the Department of Technology which later morphed into Maize Machines. After a mysterious incident, all personal computers were banned. As a result, commercial technology is far more primitive in this timeline. TWTTR and Maize Movie Maker still exist, however, thanks to special machines designed to facilitate them. On the other hand, this universe has access to technology not at all realized in ours, with tech like heat rays being viable weapons in World War One, and refined and vehicle mounted versions are issued to riot police in the modern age.
  • Helen Keller would eventually get her hearing back, as she is one of the people seen in DEANDISASTER getting the special hearing implants once deaf people unaffiliated with the air siren scheme became eligible to receive them.
  • In ROCKFELLERTREETRAGEDY, Rockefeller's "very easy questions about American history" he asks Virginia and her friends reveals that America declared independence in 1786, Lincoln's iconic hat was a bowler hat and George Washington chopped down an apple tree. That last detail turns out to be VERY important later on.
  • In AIRFORCEONEFALLENANGEL it's briefly mentioned that Al Gore is the president, meaning he won the 2000 election. Additionally, since 2003, the United States of America is now legally called the United Zones of America, which is divided into three states, and it's mentioned that a similar albeit unsuccessful unification happened in 1980.
  • LIBERTYLURKERS reveals that Washington actually attempted to chop down a Special Tree and was transformed into the Horned Serpent as a result of prolonged exposure to the dimensional interregnum that Virginia Arnoldson and the rest of the Washington Absentees spent time in.
  • LIBERTYLURKERS also establishes that Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia (also known as the Statue of Progress), a planned predecessor to the Statue of Liberty meant to sit at the mouth of the Suez Canal, was built in their timeline instead of the Port Said Lighthouse. It appears to have been intended as a slaughterhouse for the Horned Serpent just like the Statue of Liberty.
  • Even more so for LIBERTYLURKERS, a "Book of Ferdinand 29:3" is mentioned by the ADA. Within The Bible, there is no such thing as a "Book of Ferdinand," revealing that alternate history even applies to the religion of the world of the Monument Mythos.
  • In a similar vein to James Dean becoming President, as of GOLDENGATEGIRL Montgomery Clift becomes President of the United States due to Dean abdicating from the elections out of sheer grief from his sister's suicide.
• Ambiguous Situation: Most of the information we have from the Cornerworld are merely theoretical and/or fictionalized in CORNERFOLK, leaving it unclear what's real and what's not.
• Ancient Astronauts: Played with, it turns out that neither aliens nor anomalies ever built Pyramids after all. They built The Sphinx instead. If they exist at all, since STARRYSPHINX is one of the two episodes made by the ADA. However, MUSKMARS reveals that there were pyramids on Mars, but whether or not the Sphinx ever existed remains to be seen.
• Angelic Abomination: The titular being in AIRFORCEONEANGEL is described as being like an angel, despite hardly looking the part.
• Animalistic Abomination: The Suez Canal Crab and the Horned Serpent both apply for this, with the Suez Canal Crab being a gigantic crustacean with the Ever Given on top of it, while the Horned Serpent is a colossal electricity-producing snake that is large enough to cross the United States from West to East.
• Another Story for Another Time: Part of GIZAGUARDIAN describes how Flinders Petrie managed to get samples of Giza Glass for the British Museum, only for him to accidentally separate his head from his body via the glass. Petrie's head begins to transform before the documentary moves on with the story, saying, "But the fate of Flinders Petrie is a tale for another day."
• Apocalypse How: ALCATRAZAPOCALYPSE shows off a Class X-4 apocalypse, with the Horned Serpent free, its first course of action is to rip reality apart by freeing an infinity of Special Trees into the universe, creating the Cornerworlds. Most of the survivors of this event, dubbed the Great Division, transform into the Cornerfolk. In Season 3, it is ultimately undone thanks to the Air Force One Angel.
• Apocalyptic Log:
  • Nina Crawford's diary is this, as she ends up being killed and fused into Freedom.
  • Riley Tillon documents his Sanity Slippage in video, he eventually tries to travel to the Cornerworld and ends up with his organs folded in many axes. As of 2020, he is under the care of his close friends.
  • ALCATRAZAPOCALYPSE consists entirely of these, showcasing the last messages and moments of multiple recurring characters and monsters from the series, followed by satellite footage of the destruction of Earth itself.
• Arc Number: Three. The United States is split up into three zones, the Special Tree told Virginia three times to return in three years, the Special Tree seen in WASHINGTONWORMHOLE has three tips on the top of it, the Tree in ROCKEFELLERTREETRAGEDY took three years to dig up, the Libertylurker is ultimately known by three different names, Leonard Morlin discovered after three days that the United States had been absorbed and replaced by Alcatraz, and in ancient mythology, three World Eggs were created and three serpents tricked three men into helping them attain godhood.
• Arc Symbol:
  • Electricity seems to be a major symbol for disaster or anomalies in the series. For example, the Giza Glass is created by lightning, the Horned Serpent has electrical attributes, the Starry Sphinx assaults the camera with lightning in GIZAGUARDIAN, the Special Trees produce lightning when they transport people to other dimensions, and the lightning that creates Giza Glass kills gods in MONUMENTMYTHOLOGY.
  • Amusingly enough, actual Arcs. More specifically, things bending and bowing to form an Arc. The lights that composed the Starry Sphinx seemingly did exactly that before taking out the cameras, and more importantly, the Special Trees always bend over like this before they start sparking and warping space around them, even if they have to bend the whole structure they're in to do so.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Entities classified as "True Forces of Mass Destruction" include the Horned Serpent, the Great Sphinx of Giza, the Special Tree-containing Pyramids... and humanity, designated as such by President Dean as a result of climate change.
• Batman Gambit: Used by the Dean administration following DEANDISASTER, as they know that the Anti-Dean Association won't miss an occasion to boast about how they hate James Dean and his presidency, making them easy targets for arrestation and replacement by their Alternate Universe counterparts.
• Benevolent Precursors: The Ancient Egyptians. The pharaohs were aware of the threat of the Special Trees and did everything they could to subvert and contain them, using guardians armed with Giza Glass blades to "trim" them, building pyramids that extend infinitely downward to contain them, and either built or worked with the Sphinx to assist in containment and produce more glass. This is later revealed to be a complete lie...maybe.
• Black-and-Gray Morality:
  • On one hand, there's the US government, which actively sacrifices its own citizens to the anomalies, the president can trap someone of their choice inside the Lincoln memorial for their whole term/s, and let's not get into what they did with the Crowns. On the other hand, there's ADA, who, while opposing the government, uses other malicious tactics like TV hijackings, committing an act of terrorism using air sirens, which deafened a large portion of the population, as well as indirectly causing the deaths of thousands by encouraging them to go to Egypt to reclaim their lost property, all the while there's a giant abomination there.
  • Played with by the end of Season 2, where the trope still applies... but with the roles flipped, the US government being the gray and the ADA being the black. The story about the Lincolnlookers, as well as certain other details, turn out to have been partially exaggerated by the ADA to discredit the US government and make them look bad; while the government certainly aren't flawless, they seem closer to Well Intentioned Extremists doing what's necessary to appease the various eldritch horrors beneath America, whereas certain branches of the ADA are an outright Apocalypse Cult deliberately attempting to divide the USA again by using the Angel against the Horned Serpent consequences be damned.
• The Blank: What appears to be a faceless Secret Service agent can be seen standing behind James Dean in DEANDISASTER. The animation for Operation Thunderbird in ALCATRAZAPOCALYPSE implies that it is an android, one of several technological advances made by the Department of Technology.
• Botanical Abomination: The "Special Trees" are this. They're tall, branchless trees with the ability to teleport people to other dimensions by bending themselves to make a gateway. ROCKEFELLERTREETRAGEDY states that they aren't trees at all.
• Call-Back:
  • Two photographs from ROCKEFELLERTREETRAGEDY depicting the Air Force One Angel stalking Rockefeller are shown at the end of ROCKEFELLEREVELATION. If you look at them in the former video, you can see they're present there, too.
  • The end of WASHINGTONWONDERLAND follows up on the end of WASHINGTONWORMHOLE, with the Washington Monument being broken and the absentees awakening outside it. The monument is shown to still be broken in WASHINGTONWONDERER, though the Special Tree is nowhere in sight.
  • AIRFORCEONEFALLENANGEL shows the United Zones of America being named for the three monuments the Air Force One Angel infected in Season 1; the Alcatraz Zone for Alcatraz Island, the Rushmore Zone for Mount Rushmore, and the Washington Zone for the Washington Monument.
  • LIBERTYLURKERS features an interview with Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi that repeats the initial interview from LIBERTYLURKER, before he admits the truth behind the Statue of Liberty's pedestal.
  • When James Dean crashes Air Force Two into Howard Melrose's plane in DEANDEVIL, a drawing of a car crash is shown; this same drawing appeared in The Nixonverse in THE LAST SON OF ALCATRAZ to represent James Dean's fatal car crash.
• Canon Welding:
  • Two of the series' episodes, CORNERFOLK and CORNERGIRL, began as their own seemingly unrelated series by Alex Casanas titled CORNERFOLKLORE. The season 2 finale, ALCATRAZAPOCALYPSE, revealed The Monument Mythos to be a stealth prequel to this series. Eventually, the two videos were relabeled as The Monument Mythos episodes, fully welding the two series together.
  • MISTERMANTICORE was an unrelated short film predating The Monument Mythos, but was later added to Season 3 much like the Cornerfolk videos were. Despite this, the video had little relevance to the series until FREEDOMFOREVER, where the Union becomes the Mister Manticore constellation after destroying the Martian Serpent.
• Cassandra Truth: The Government didn't even try to buy Maya Arnoldson's silence when she was accidentally made a Lincolnlooker, because they knew the idea of each president picking someone to imprison in Lincoln's monument for the entirety of their term would sound too ridiculous to believe. It took actual but manufactured by the ADA recorded proof for people to start believing it.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: Multiple times throughout the series is it made clear that humanity treats the current horrors plaguing the world like natural disasters more than a cosmic horror story, from LIBERTYLURKER stating that anyone whose family members disappeared on Ellis Island may be entitled to financial compensation, to the rather normal treatment Maya is given upon appearing in CANYONCROWN, to the fact that TWTTR users have more anger towards the American government for unleashing the Suez Canal Crab than fear for the crab itself in SUEZCANALCRAB.
• Conveniently Interrupted Document: In ROCKEFELLERTREETRAGEDY a portion of one of the Virginia in Wonderland segment (i.e., the one scene actually taking place in "Wonderland") is cut short before Virginia could describe her initial encounter with the man she would call Everett. WASHINGTONWONDERLAND would eventually depict the event uncompromised.
• Cool Plane:
  • As shown in ALCATRAZAPOCALYPSE, the United Zones Air Force makes use of stopped rotor wing "X-Wing Warrior" helicopters that seem to be based on Sikorsky x-wing concepts, particularly in carrying a captured Freedom to the Babylon Forest.
  • Just to accentuate the Alternate History setting, supersonic airliners like the Concorde appear in SUEZCANALCRAB as well as Air Force Two in DEANDEVIL.
  • Crossing with Cool Starship, the U.S.S George Washington from CTHONAUTC is a delta-winged Space Plane that transports cthonauts to serpent metastructures, in particular the Martian Serpent Metastructure.
• Cosmic Horror Story: If it wasn't evident as soon as the first video, later videos make it clear that something with the world itself is wrong. There are nigh indestructible trees that act as gateways to different dimensions. Human sacrifice is performed daily to satiate anomalies near national monuments. A special glass exists that allows the cutting of human flesh while the cut pieces remain alive and well. Human history is extremely altered due to the existence of these anomalies as well, making everything feel off as more alterations become evident.
• Cosmic Retcon: Season 3 comes about via one of these, as shown in ANGELASHES and AFTERANGEL. After the events of ALCATRAZAPOCALYPSE, the Angel scatters their particles throughout time and space, influencing their past self into letting Freedom kill them instead of fighting back as they originally had. As a result, the Great Division is prevented.
• Creation Myth: MONUMENTMYTHOLOGY gives one for the Horned Serpent, in which a being called "Serpent" lays three "World Eggs" (one of which is Earth) and creates numerous gods and animals; In time, three serpents tricked their way into godhood and inhabited each World Egg, though only Earth's serpent survived while the others died to extreme temperatures. MUSKMARS shows it's not entirely myth, as Elon Musk ends up releasing the Martian Serpent into space.
• Dead Person Impersonation: The men who found the titular body in DELAWAREDOUBLE believe this to have been the case with George Washington, with the body found in the river being the real Washington and a lookalike having taken his place in history to avoid discouraging the fledgling nation. It seems their theory was correct (or at least someone in the government didn't want them talking about it for whatever reason), because the journal that aired the news story shut down the very next day.
• Death of a Child: In FREEDOMFALLER Nina Crawford runs away from home to find her father and is brutally torn apart and incorporated into the Statue of Freedom.
• Different States of America: By 2003, the United States of America is now legally called the United Zones of America which is divided into three zones called "Alcatraz Zone," "Rushmore Zone" and "Washington Zone", with it being mentioned that the original state borders are not expected to be restored within the century.
• Dimensional Traveller:
  • The Cornerfolk are this, using corners to travel between the Cornerworld and multiple realities, mainly Two-Dimensional ones. And as revealed later, Alex's Inspiration is able to do this as well.
  • The Special Trees are able to inflict this on people, sending them into an alternate universe similar to but distinctly different from their home world. One traveller the series focuses on is Virginia, while DEANDISASTER strongly suggests several ADA members in custody were swapped out for more agreeable counterparts from alternate realities.
• Divided States of America: The Advocates for the Division of America want to accomplish this by using The Angel as a walking atom bomb against the Horned Serpent in order to create a thousand states. They accomplish it in ALCATRAZAPOCALYPSE, where the clash between Freedom and the Angel releases such energy it breaks the "shell" breaks and frees the Horned Serpent, causing the End of the World as We Know It.
• Eagle Land: The Deanverse's America is an obvious Type 2, being a place where disturbing and often grotesque anomalies can claim the lives of many at any given moment and can be treated as commonplace, to the point where having a loved one go missing around the Statue of Liberty can have one be entitled to compensation.
• Early-Bird Cameo: The 20th Washington Absentees were first featured in WASHINGTONWORMHOLE. One of them, specifically the woman in the middle, is revealed in WASHINGTONWONDERLAND to be an adult Virginia Arnoldson, who was officially introduced in ROCKERFELLERTREETRAGEDY.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The original cut of LIBERTYLURKER featured much more of the Libertylurker emerging from the pedestal, before it was cut down to a brief Freeze-Frame Bonus to better preserve the mood. Likewise, LINCOLNLOOKER could be considered a victim of this, as it was originally a standalone video which was uploaded before The Monument Mythos crystallized into a full-blown series. As a result, it was a rough fit for the continued story and completely disappeared until the very last video of Season 2, where parts of its legitimacy are called into question.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After three seasons of unspeakable suffering and tragedy, the men of the Angel, Thomas and Nina Crawford of the Statue of Freedom, and Everett Arnoldson finally find peace after defeating the Martian Serpent.
• Eldritch Abomination:
  • The "True Forces of Mass Destruction," alluded to in multiple videos but not yet fully explained, appear to be this. The various entities that crop up around the monuments- including the Horned Serpent, Great Sphinx of Giza, and the "Special Tree"- are examples; the Suez Canal Crab was being considered for this title as well.
  • James Dean confuses the issue a bit by applying the label to more mundane threats like global climate change and human life, indicating that it could be more of a general threat descriptor than one specifically for anomalous threats.
• Eldritch Location:
  • In the little that we see of it, the Cornerworld seems to be this. It's entirely made out of, well, corners. It doesn't seem to be very kind to the human body, as it's shown it'll fold your organs into axes and likely turn you into worshipping them.
  • Alcatraz doubles as this, being a single celled organism that also functions as an island. By 2020, Alcatraz has multiplied and consumed most of the West of the United States, only stopping at the Western parts of Texas. Even worse, by 2022, it has replaced the entirety of the United States with copies made by itself, all the way to the buildings, the populace and down to the subatomic level.
  • Giza, where the Sphinx is currently surrounded by thousands of pyramids, each with an unknown number of "Special Trees" within, provided they're not an ADA hoax.
  • As of WASHINGTONWONDERLAND, the "forests of the Washington Zone" (filled with "Special Trees") may also be considered to be this.
  • The entire Deanverse becomes this at the end of ALCATRAZAPOCALYPSE. After the Horned Serpent breaks free from the Earth, its first course of action is to somehow turn the entire universe into the Cornerworld from CORNERFOLKLORE.
• The Ending Changes Everything: The season 2 finale, ALCATRAZAPOCALYPSE, upends the entire series by seeing the destruction of the universe we've been watching this whole time. Further, the revelation that Leonard Morlin was kidnapped and forced to contribute to ADA propaganda, and the connections between him, Howard Melrose and the Arnoldson family, calls into question the validity of almost everything we've seen in the series so far. The only confirmed thing still confirmed about Leonard is his relationship with Virginia Arnoldson and that Everett was their unborn son.
• Evil Reactionary: It's implied that this may be the true reason for the founding of the ADA, with their founders and supporters being primarily elderly conservative southerners and their opposition being the incredibly progressive James Dean. The confession of Leonard Morlin effectively removes most of the more benevolent justifications for their crimes, leaving them as either this trope or an Apocalypse Cult.
• Evil States of America: The very first episode revealing that countless innocent immigrants are routinely sacrificed to the Eldritch Abomination underneath the Statue of Liberty with only a matter-of-fact assurance of compensation should give a good indication of this America's moral compass.
• Evil Tainted the Place: The Deanverse becomes the Cornerworld as an aftermath of the Great Division.
• Fate Worse than Death: John D. Rockefeller describes the results of the Rockefeller Tree Tragedy (in the aptly named video ROCKEFELLERTREETRAGEDY) as this, stating that he would've preferred the children to have died in the incident rather than suffer their true circumstances, being swapped into a parallel universe where everything they know is wrong, their parents do not recognize or accept them as their own children, and they don't even share the same basic anatomy as other humans.
  John D. Rockefeller: I was grateful that every life involved had been spared. A death at the Centre would have weighed heavily on my mind for some time. But when I encountered the results of the childrens' medical examinations, I wished that a death had occurred in place of the unfatho-
• Fantasy Landmark Equivalent: The entire premise of the series. There are dozens of national landmarks in the USA and abroad that are home to some form of Eldritch Abomination; the first episode, "LIBERTYLURKER", details an alternate version of the Statue of Liberty which eats immigrants on Ellis Island and has a massive waste containment tank. Later episodes imply that the titular Liberty Lurker is none other than George Washington, twisted due to his time in Wonderland.
• Fictional Social Network: TWTTR is this, being an obvious alternate history version of Twitter.
• Flayed Alive: After Freedom ends up fully covering herself in flesh, the men in Gibraltar are forced to pull away ever single bit of her flesh in order to make her a presentable statue for the Americans.
• Flesh Golem: Freedom ends up as this after killing Nina, and is shown doing it again during the anti-Dean riots in 1971.
• Forbidden Fruit: Referenced by name in the ADA video "The Sinking Man and the Forbidden Fruit" in LIBERTYLURKERS. The video implies that the Special Tree acted as this to George Washington, even depicting it as an apple tree.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In RUSHMOREREVENGE, the only head in the Rushmore Monument without having become infected is George Washington's, alluding to the ADA's worshipping to him, or rather, what came to be of him.
  • In CANYONCROWN, during their trip to the Grand Canyon, Lauren Arnoldson jokingly says that her little brother, Quinn, will fly, and that they will both die. As it turns out, they both died by falling off of "two flying balloons" in the same canyon in ALCATRAZAPOCALYPSE.
  • FALLENFATHER reveals that two Canyon Crowns followed the remaining Arnoldsons home from their trip to the Great Canyon, and apparently brought Mr. Squirrel with them through unknown means. ALCATRAZAPOCALYPSE heavily implies that these two were none other than Nathaniel and Maya Arnoldson in their Canyon Crown form trying to have a family reunion.
  • WASHINGTONWONDERLAND reveals the existence of the "Wonderland Climbers," people who tried to climb the Special Trees, resulting in their bodies being heavily deformed, with the enlargement of body parts and the growing of horns being the most notable. It is later revealed that the Horned Serpent is none other than George Washington, who got stuck in the Wonderland and tried to escape by climbing, thus becoming a climber.
  • WASHINGTONWONDERLAND also reveals the existence of a "Washington Zone," which despite its name is the package the Angel dropped on the Statue of Liberty. The reason of it being named "Washington Zone" and not something like "Liberty Zone" is revealed two episodes later: After a failed attempt of escaping Wonderland, George Washington became the Horned Serpent, whose head was contained in the Statue of Liberty.
  • ALCATRAZAPOCALYPSE also reveals that the Cornerfolk are none other than the survivors of the Deanverse after the Great Division. This doesn't seem as unforeseen as some fans make it out to be, seeing how both the Cornerfolk and the Special Trees share multiple similarities. They are both transdimensional species who can travel through arcs, or corners in the Cornerfolk's case, and their homeworld can result in visitors being disfigured into Transhuman Abominations and obtaining the ability to travel through dimensions themselves, such in the case of George Washington and the inspiration for Riley Tillon.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: A strange non-human figure can be seen in the background of two photos in ROCKEFELLERTREETRAGEDY. Those same photos reappear in ROCKEFELLERREVELATION, which points out where they are and reveals just what it really is.
• The Fundamentalist: The ADA leans in this direction, particularly early on and in their incarnation as the Advocates, using Christian iconography and symbolism in their propaganda and accusing their enemy of being the devil himself.
• Fun with Subtitles: Played for Horror.
  • In CORNERFOLK, you can see that as the subtitles vanish during the presentation of the concept Cornerworld, you can see the words "prison" and "nursery" overlap it.
  • In CORNERGIRL, something similar happens, showing a hidden monologue of the person recording.
    "She was too old for the nursery. Too young for prison. But she made the perfect gift. Watch the corners."
  • In GIZAGUARDIAN, at the direct moment of the video where Freedom cuts off Maya's head (11:53), turning on subtitles puts on a message that simply states "This could be you."
• Giant Enemy Crab: The Suez Canal Crab is this. Possibly subverted on the "enemy" part, in that it's never actually shown doing anything hostile; while there are a great number of casualties attributed to it, these result from the aftermath of it tripping and falling and were not the result of any intentional action on the part of the Crab.
• Gone Horribly Right: The Department of Technology comes up with a plan to permanently dispose of both Freedom and the Air Force One Angel, siccing them on each other in what they refer to as "Mutual Assured Destruction." It is implied that this action ended up meeting the name far more accurately than they could have ever feared, triggering the Great Division, ripping the world apart and releasing the Horned Serpent. ANGELASHES then shows that while Freedom was destroyed, the Angel was not.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Upon receiving evidence that Alcatraz would reach the coastline and become a threat to the mainland by the year 2030, the government attempted to kill it off via radiation. All this did was give it the ability to multiply at a much faster rate, and by 2020 the entities have already eaten their way to west Texas.
• Government Agency of Fiction: In the universe in which the series takes place in, James Dean establishes the United States Department of Technology, a move which unites all major American computer corporations to further improve technological advancement.
• Graffiti of the Resistance: The ADA and The Angel are shown doing this multiple times throughout the series, notably in RUSHMOREREVENGE, WASHINGTONWORMHOLE and MAIZEMOVIEMAKER.
• Greater-Scope Villain: George Washington aka The Horned Serpent serves as this for the first two seasons as the power behind Maize and the ADA.
• The Great Serpent: The Horned Serpent, the Greater-Scope Villain of the series is absolutely massive, with its curved body spanning California and Pennsylvania. ALCATRAZAPOCALYPSE reveals that it's even bigger than that. And MONUMENTMYTHOLOGY implies (and MUSKMARS confirms) that it's not the only one.
• Harmless Electrocution: Somewhat. When Virginia and her ten friends are struck by beams of lightning from the Special Tree in ROCKEFELLERTREETRAGEDY, the energy itself inflicts no physical harm on the children (although it did leave scorch marks on surrounding buildings) and the minor injuries they suffered from the toppling of their human ladder are more immediately apparent. This is somewhat subverted when it turns out the situation the lightning actually put them into is far, far worse than a physical shock would have been.
  • Further subverted in WASHINGTONWONDERLAND, wherein Virginia reports the existence of horrifically mutated corpses she calls the Climbers that she witnessed during her experience in Wonderland/the otherworldly field of Special Trees. It turns out that the Special Trees' energy actually does have physical effects under the specific condition that someone attempts to climb them, in which case their bodies will not only become charred to a crisp, but also stretched upwards in a strange form of spaghettification to the point that they resemble the Trees themselves. It's later revealed in LIBERTYLURKERS that this process is what created the Horned Serpent, and the human victim of the transformation was George Washington.
• Hell Is That Noise: The sounds heard in the Cornerworld consist of various distorted screams. These are presumably caused by Special Trees or by the corners forming the Cornerworld, as similar screams could be heard in Wonderland in LIBERTYLURKERS.
• He Was Right There All Along: ROCKEFELLERREVELATION reveals the Air Force One Angel to have been in both the photo of the first Christmas tree at the Rockefeller Center and in the photo of the Special Tree.
• Human Popsicle: DELAWAREDOUBLE reveals that George Washington actually fell into the Delaware River and was cryogenically frozen for the entire rest of the American Revolution, with a double standing in for him to maintain soldier morale.
• Human Sacrifice: In CORNERGIRL, the person recording the video is apparently sacrificing a girl to the Cornerworld, calling her a "perfect gift" for the Cornerworld despite being "too old for the nursery" and "too young for prison."
• Implicit Prison: Both Alex and his inspiration call the Cornerworld "prison" or "nursery".
• In Memoriam: In-Universe, THE TRINITY DESK PROJECT ends with one for Leonard West Morlin, after he was presumably killed as one of the NASA Front Row seaters.
• Inn Between the Worlds: Riley suspects that his home may act like a place to rest for the Cornerfolk when he's not around, as travelling through dimensions seems to tire them up.
• Innocuously Important Episode: ALCATRAZATTACK seems like a bit of world-building, mostly disconnected from the storylines being set up throughout the rest of Season 1. Then ALCATRAZAPOCALYPSE ties it together to the rest of the mythos, in an appropriately apocalyptic manner.
• iPhony: Although their reach of parallels extends to other corporations like Microsoft and Twitter, Maize Machines as a whole is clearly a parody of Apple. Their name and logo are derived from a simple food item, their founders Rob Careers and Rob Watroba are clear parallels to Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, and they utilize similarly anti-consumer business practices. Even their advertisement for Maize Movie Maker has a familiar sense of philosophical jargon.
  In 2000, we've learned from our mistakes. Control is confidence, and today there are no doubts. With Maize Movie Maker, now you can take control.
• Irony: The Statue of Freedom was made by Thomas Crawford to inspire hope in the enslaved and make them strive for freedom. The United States government uses it (and by extension Thomas himself) to slay any dissidents, and later pit it against the Air Force One Angel – perhaps the only party who wanted the US to stop using anomalies as weapons.
• Kill the God: MONUMENTMYTHOLOGY tells an ancient story of how three serpents trick four gods into giving them godly powers, before using a superweapon named Pyrasma to kill them before they realize the deception. They do this by pretending to be a fifth god, who was decapitated and killed by lightning in Giza.
• Killed Off for Real: ALCATRAZAPOCALYPSE sees about half of the series recurring characters killed off, followed by the entire world's population, aside the small amount who become Cornerfolk. In order: Lauren and Quinn Arnoldson (the former revealed to be the second Doctor Disturbing), Leonard W. Morlin, the entirety of the Advocates for the Division of America, the Angel and Freedom.
• Let's You and Him Fight: How the US Government ultimately disposes of both Freedom and the Air Force One Angel, in a bout of "mutually assured destruction." It then turns out the Angel won handily at first (at the cost of the entire universe), then simply lets Freedom kill them following second-hand intervention from their future self's time-travelling ashes.
• Living Statue:
  • The Statue of Freedom is this, being made alive by the still-living flesh of both Thomas Crawford and his daughter.
  • GIZAGUARDIAN suggests the titular guardians were these as well, as the narration discusses "unusually tall Greco-Egyptian swordsmen" over photos of ancient statues before revealing how Freedom herself took over their role in the Grand Canyon.
  • In MONUMENTMYTHOLOGY's Creation Myth, the three serpents grant life to all statues in the Land of Men after killing the gods with Pyrasma, a powerful statue superweapon humanity was tricked into building for them. It's unclear, however, if Pyrasma was already alive prior to this.
• Magitek: Due to a number of mystical discoveries in the setting, a large amount of tech is either supernatural in nature or implied to be.
  • The Rockefeller airships are effectively indestructible, not due to their construction, but because the gas has been substituted out for the flying heads of Canyon Crowns, which are already established as being able to grow to truly massive sizes. The frame of the airship simply seeks to force them into a certain shape.
  • The Anti-Airship Death Ray is definitely based on some magical properties, containing a lamp that has to be focused through the skull of what may be a horned serpent, has to be mounted atop the Great Pyramid to fire, and disintegrates the seventeen soldiers sent to operate it in such a way that they are effectively left as consciousnesses without form, until they eventually manage to restore their form as one. This tech actually shows up later on as a small scale riot dispersal weapon, which implies that a non-magical alternative was developed at some point (or that the resources needed for it were able to be mass produced.)
  • Possibly everything produced by Maize Technologies, or at least their early computers, seem to have been made using materials or energy from the Horned Serpent underneath the United States. However, this backfired spectacularly on them, resulting in computer tech in this timeline being significantly further behind than in ours.
• Meaningful Echo: The end of ALCATRAZ, ALWAYS features the story from MONUMENTMYTHOLOGY.
• Mineral MacGuffin: The Giza Glass is a rare type of glass created from lightning strikes in Egypt that has the ability to cut off limbs while still allowing their owners to control them.
• Mockumentary: The entire series is in this style, with every episode usually involving information about a certain place or area, alongside various accounts from people of interest.
• Monster Organ Trafficking: While never explicitly stated, it's heavily implied in MAIZEMOVIEMAKER that technology conglomerate Maize Machines was drawing energy from a colossal creature beneath the United States called the Horned Serpent in order to advance their devices, possibly even harvesting physical material from its body. This went well right up until 1980, in which the anomalous nature of their products resulted in what can only be described as a nation-wide temporary apocalypse that we still know next to nothing about.
• Monumental Damage: The Cairo Tower is destroyed by the Suez Canal Crab, killing hundreds of people. Its destruction was accidental however, as the creature unexpectedly tripped and crashed into the tower. While some people managed to get out, rescue efforts retreated because the structural integrity of the tower was compromised.
• Musical Spoiler: At the end of ROCKEFELLERREVELATION, Doctor Disturbing describes the disappearance of John D. Rockefeller and there were only two released photos of the suspect behind it. Moments before the photos were revealed, certain music (i.e., Jackie Gleason's "I'll Be Home For Christmas," as heard in ROCKEFELLERTREETRAGEDY) begins to swell, letting viewers familiar with prior installments of the series know ahead of time that the photos are related to a specific incident already documented.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Rockefeller has this reaction upon realizing how the "Rockefellers" would be used, both in that Germany would use them against America and in that the Americans would use them to bomb innocent Germans in retaliation.
• Mythology Gag: DELAWAREDOUBLE features a character named Michael Tillon, who shares a last name with two other characters from (what were originally) two other Alex Kansas series: Riley Tillon of CORNERFOLKLORE, and Eli Tillon of The House in the Ocean. Somewhat lessened now that both series have been folded into the Monument Mythos.
• No OSHA Compliance: As the Suez Canal Crab approached Cairo, the Cairo Tower's capacity was increased from 700 to 1,000; even reaching 1,200 visitors. Concerns by the staff were dismissed by the tower's manager. And then, the creature slipped and crashed into the tower; causing it to collapse and killing more than 1,100 visitors. The manager managed to survive the collapse.
• Noodle Incident: Several, actually:
  • In LINCOLNLOOKER, what appears to be a Special Tree begins emerging from the Lincoln Memorial. This is never explained or referenced again, and is made even more confusing by the later revelation that the information presented about "Lincolnlooking" was entirely fabricated and read under duress, meaning the practice may not even be real in the first place.
  • In GIZAGUARDIAN Flinders Petrie is indeed stated to have become a Canyon Crown, his tale is treated as being for "another day."
  • In ROCKEFELLERREVELATION, the heat-ray perched atop the pyramid clearly has a Serpent's skull in the lens - considering we later find out the Horned Serpent is not literally a serpent, we have no idea where this came from, or what it even is.
  • SUEZCANALCRAB. That's it. That's the Noodle Incident.
  • AIRFORCEONEFALLENANGEL has "the Unification of 2003," wherein the Angel disrupts the country so terribly, that the government believes their state borders wouldn't be recoverable in the next century. What the Angel did is a complete mystery - as is how whatever it ended up doing messed with the borders in the first place.
• Non-Malicious Monster: Despite being a gigantic monster, the Suez Canal Crab seemingly bears no ill will towards any humans; the only reason anyone died near it was because it tripped and fell over.
• Nothing Is Scarier:
  • The climactic shot of LIBERTYLURKER, which shows the creature's emergence, only shows a tiny portion of the creature before cutting away.
  • The recording of Mt. Rushmore on Saturday in RUSHMOREREVENGE isn't shown at all, due to the lens cap being on.
  • The same applies in GIZAGUARDIAN, where Maya is turned into a Canyon Crown by the Statue of Freedom. Nothing is shown at all besides the audio due to the lens cap being on, leaving the visuals up to the user's imagination.
• Once an Episode: The descriptions for each video offer a comment of some sort, with the format changing each season:
  • Season 1 has notes from an unnamed archivist, sometimes giving extra context to the current video that isn't in the video itself (such as the question of how Air Force One was hijacked in AIRFORCEONEANGEL).
  • Season 2 has statements from Maize, again giving extra context and commentary to the video, with viewers encouraged to use/follow them on TWTTR.
  • Season 3 has Cthonaut Transmissions, short sentences from Cthonaut A related to the video. CLIFTCHAOS and FREEDOMFOREVER break this format, with the former having a longer quote from the video, while the latter adds a statement from Dwight Comics regarding Rod Serling's novel.
• Operation: [Blank]:
  • Operation Pyramid Plasma from ROCKEFELLERREVELATION was a military operation around 1918 instigated as part of a larger project to destroy the German airships known as the Rockefellers. This particular operation was in preparation for a planned flight of one of the Rockefellers over the Great Pyramid of Giza, and involved fitting a 'death ray' on top of said pyramid, generating a destructive energy beam apparently made of the titular 'Pyramid Plasma.' The origin of said plasma is partially hinted at in an earlier episode, STARRYSPHINX.
  • Operation Thunderbird from ALCATRAZAPOCALYPSE was an anomaly neutralization operation that set out to destroy (at least) two disruptive entities; the Air Force One Angel and the Statue of Freedom. It entailed the luring and capture of Freedom, and the transportation of her to the Babylon Forest where the Air Force One Angel was hiding, in the hopes that they would end up destroying each other in battle. Apparently it worked, but perhaps a bit too well, as the energy produced by the Angel ended up destroying the nation, freeing the Horned Serpent which destroyed the planet, and releasing the Cornerworld which pretty much destroyed the whole universe. Although the full outcome of the operation seems very unplanned at first, it's worth looking into how the name 'Thunderbird' originates from a mythological creature/species in indigenous American culture, an avian entity that creates thunder and lightning as it flies. In certain variants of the legend, thunderbirds are the natural enemies of great horned snakes that seek to hurt mankind, which poses the possibility that the operation had a greater scope in mind than just Freedom and the Angel.
• Our Presidents Are Different: President James Dean is treated as a President Sue, being such an awesome, progressive, affable badass that not only did he coast to election, with Nixon agreeing he deserved it to such a point that when it was announced he won the two of them went drag-racing, but when the ADA hijacked America's raid sirens and forced them to blare so loudly that people near them were killed from the pressure, he single-handedly scaled the one near the White House and disabled it at the loss of his own hearing. Not to mention when he gave his Ninety-Day Address, the microphone cut out, but people were so impressed with just watching him silently give the speech that Stanley Kubrick called it the greatest silent film ever made.
• Pyramid Power: The Pyramids are structures that span an infinite amount of length, made to contain the Special Trees. The parts of the pyramids that are viewable are merely the "tips" of the buildings. During World War I, the Great Pyramid was also used as a mounting point for an Anti-Airship Death Ray, with the implication that the mystical power of the structure was needed to make it function correctly. Also, there are identical pyramids on Mars.
• Real After All: MUSKMARS pulls double duty on this in quick succession. First, the photo Musk transmits of a pyramid on Mars, followed by the same location with several gargantuan obelisks in their place, suggests that at least some of the implications of STARRYSPHINX may not have been ADA propaganda after all. Almost immediately after, we witness the Martian Serpent erupting from the glass mine, seemingly confirming at least some elements of the creation myth detailed in MONUMENTMYTHOLOGY.
• Reality-Breaking Paradox: Whatever it is that happened when Freedom and the Air Force One Angel were put against one another was catastrophic in ways that are hard to understand. Mutually assured destruction was expected, and overdone in such a manner that the entire planet was detonated, and the Horned Serpent released into open space... before that was seemingly damaged beyond repair too. The destruction of such a multidimensional entity and the many anchors to its realm that were left on Earth made an utterly incomprehensible mess that scattered Eldritch Locations all over the solar system, and turned surviving humans into corner-hopping multidimensional entities.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman:
  • James Dean, instead of dying in a car crash in 1955, lives and goes on to run for presidency in 1968.
  • John D. Rockefeller, instead of becoming a billionaire, becomes President of the United States.
  • Instead of pioneering animation and creating one of the biggest companies on Earth, Walt Disney stayed in the medical field following World War One and went on to fund the hospital shown caring for Dean in DEANDISASTER.
  • Hillary Clinton ran for office in 2020 and ended up winning.
  • Al Gore ran for office and ended up becoming president, as stated in AIRFORCEONEFALLENANGEL.
  • Elon Musk becomes the first man on Mars in 2023, and establishes a giant Martian glass mine.
  • Instead of hosting the The Twilight Zone, Rod Serling becomes a high-ranking FBI agent trusted with bringing Howard Melrose to justice.
  • Montgomery Clift becomes President in place of James Dean in the Season 3 timeline.
• Ride the Lightning: The Cornerfolk moving between dimensions is shown as a brief flash of an unknown energy appearing from the corners they go in and out from. The origin of this energy is implied to be related to the Special Trees, which flashed electricity whenever they activated.
• Ripped from the Headlines:
  • As an in-universe example, the first episode, CORNERFOLK, is revealed to be inspired by a real person's story, who first appears in CORNERGIRL.
  • Unlike the other episodes, which mostly focus on either historical landmarks or specific events unique to the series's Alternate History, SUEZCANALCRAB focuses specifically on the Ever Given becoming lodged in the Suez Canal, an event which happened in late March 2021, about a month before the video aired.
  • DEANDISASTER featured the ADA attacking the Capitol and was uploaded six months after the January 6th Capitol riots. Another riot (again, on the Capitol) occurs in FREEDOMFALLER, which was uploaded just one month after the January 6th riots.
• Room Full of Crazy: By the end of CORNERFOLK, Riley has been drawing the Cornerworld for weeks and hanged most of his drawings to his room.
• The Runaway: Nina Crawford runs away from home alongside her father's statue in an attempt to find him. It doesn't go very well for her at all.
• Running Gag: One of President James Dean's most notable traits is his love for racing, especially with his close friend and former rival candidate, Richard Nixon. Dean is also notable for his short, straight-to-the-point speeches that often come off as uninspiring for a president, such as his reaction for finding out that a Body Double of George Washington was found alive.
• Rushmore Refacement: Played for Horror in RUSHMOREREVENGE, the entirety of Mount Rushmore is completely altered due to the "infection" that took place over the whole week.
• Schizo Tech: As a result of both access to, and the consequences of misusing supernatural resources, a number of bizarre pieces of tech have appeared so far.
  • ROCKEFELLERREVELATION reveals two noteworthy weapons of war: Rockefeller airships (which are almost impossible to shoot down due to the gases inside being replaced with the mutilated flying heads of Canyon Crowns), and the Anti-Airship Death Ray. While the Rockefellers don't seem to survive to the modern era, miniaturized heat rays are apparently a common riot control device by 2021.
  • DEANDISASTER showcases another two: cochlear hearing implants and medical androids, both common by 1969, with the implants being common into the modern era due to effectively being compulsory for all Americans.
  • On the other end of the tech development scale, computers are shown to be willfully restricted in development, with one being developed in the 1970s and all others since being illegal. Instead, electronic technology seems to be firmly stuck in the 1980s, with crude replacements for modern web apps like the Maize Movie Maker pseudo-computer and the TWTTR-Machine (or T-Machine) pseudo cell phone. Camera technology seems to be just as bad, with reference made to disposable video cameras with poor quality recording.
  • And of course, every once in a while a more general piece of alternate tech appears, like a Concorde jetliner being used to represent a 2021 airliner in SUEZCANALCRAB as well as the supersonic Air Force Two in DEANDEVIL.
  • ALCATRAZAPOCALYPSE, taking place in 2022, implies that the computer technology used by the Department of Technology has advanced just enough to be able to create early computer-generated animation. On the other hand, they still use androids they created from the 1960s to lure Freedom into a trap, who is then air-lifted by an X-Wing helicopter, which is a vehicle concept that never took off in our world due to safety reasons and technological limitations.
  • Taking place in 2023, MUSKMARS shows that there's an American colony on Mars headed by Elon Musk, who owns TWTTR as well as the Musk Mars Mine, which is the largest American monument, yet T-Machines only just recently have a handwriting feature, implying that touchscreens are a recent commercial development unlike in real life where they have been around for years.
  • GOLDENGATEGIRL seems to indicate that portable phones were not only commercially available but commonplace in their 1968, with Eunice Dean calling Howard Melrose from the top of the Golden Gate Bridge and Howard believing that she's calling from a car.
• Series Fauxnale: ALCATRAZAPOCALYPSE feels like the series' end rather than a season finale, as it kills off multiple characters (before The End of the World as We Know It, that is) gives us closure to various plot-points, and ends with the series' main universe exploding. However, when asked about whether this marked the end of the series, Alex replied:
  "'In the end?' Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends."
• Show Within a Show:
  • CORNERFOLK is revealed to be this in the description, although it does say that the folk are in fact real.
  • Doctor Disturbing, who acts as a parody of YouTubers that discuss creepy events in the form of documentaries.
• Slave Race: The Canyon Crowns are sold to Germany by Rockefeller as a slave force, as part of a deal to bolster and improve the United States' economy. Decades later, Crowns are again used as slaves for Elon Musk's Martian operations
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Mixed with Creepy Monotone in CORNERGIRL. During the author's monologue, the voice of a man explaining what corners are can be heard.
• Stealth Prequel: ALCATRAZAPOCALYPSE states that the survivors of the Great Division caused by the ADA are now known as the Cornerfolk, the titular antagonists of another of Alex Casanas' web-series.
• Stylistic Suck: Due to technology being less advanced than it is in our universe, some videos have a low budget feel to them and look like they came out of Windows Movie Maker. Fittingly enough, they are made in an in-universe variant of WMM.
• Switching P.O.V.: ROCKEFELLERTREETRAGEDY is narrated from the perspectives of former president John D. Rockefeller and a young girl named Virginia.
• Thrown Down a Well: The Lincolnlookers from LINCOLNLOOKER are a good example of this, or at least they were. They're said to be specific people that the President chooses to imprison in dark spaces behind Abraham Lincoln masks, simply because they don't like them. While rumours about the existence of Lincolnlookers had existed for some time, no one knew exactly where they were being contained; at least until footage captured by Howard Melrose some time after 1980 confirmed the Lincoln Memorial was a site for Lincolnlookers. Still, imagine how many people prior to that just couldn't be found for years. Things are further thrown off in ALCATRAZAPOCALYPSE when it's confirmed that the interview stating the purpose of Lincolnlookers was scripted and read under duress, meaning we no longer concretely know why (or if) Lincolnlookers exist.
• Time Dilation: The Cornerworld is implied to cause this to its victims. Riley claims that he lost his job due to repeated absences, but he feels like he just left his office just hours ago. It's implied that this quality of the Cornerworld is directly inherited from Wonderland.
• Transhuman Abomination: The Cornerfolk were once the inhabitants of the Deanverse, who were transformed into the Folk after The End of the World as We Know It.
• Transhuman Treachery: After their travel to the Cornerworld, Alex's Inspiration is clearly not well-intended, and willing to sacrifice people to the Cornerworld.
• Was Once a Man: The Canyonggalans, also known as Canyon Crowns, are men and women whose heads have been cut off by the Statue of Freedom. In particular, Maya Arnoldson is revealed to have become one.
• Was Once Human: The Cornerfolk are none other than the survivors of the destruction of the Deanverse.
• Western Terrorists: The ADA (Anti-Dean Association, later the Anti-Device Association) is this, being against Dean and later most devices in general. Maya and Nathaniel Arnoldson were members of it, if MAIZEMOVIEMAKER is anything to go by.
• Wham Episode:
  • AIRFORCEONEFALLENANGEL not only confirms that the Air Force One Angel and the seventeen soldiers are one and the same being, but also sets up ADA^note now known as the Advocates for the Division of America's plan to use it to evict the Horned Serpent.
  • LIBERTYLURKERS even moreso, as it not only states that the Liberty Lurker is in fact George Washington after he was sent to Wonderland, but that he's the Horned Serpent as well.
  • And to round out the end of Season 2, ALCATRAZAPOCALYPSE is the biggest one of all, not only tying together nearly every anomaly in the entire series and depicting what appears to be The End of the World as We Know It, but also officially confirming that the series is part of a Shared Universe with CORNERFOLK, one of the creator's other shows.
• Wham Line: This series has several, tying the various episodes together.
  • From the end of ROCKEFELLERTREETRAGEDY, there's the very last quote from John D. Rockefeller Jr.
  John D. Rockefeller Jr.: Many, including my father, believe that the 1934 Christmas tree vanished. This is untrue. I have seen it wandering in the Plaza on many occasions. And it resembles a man far more than any tree.
  • In LIBERTYLURKERS, the interview with Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi titled "L'authentique Libertylurker" has a massive one tying the events of DELAWAREDOUBLE, MAIZEMOVIEMAKER, and LIBERTYLURKER:
  Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi: People often ask why the pedestal is so disproportionate to the statue, all I can tell them is, "Ask the Americans." But I know why the pedestal is so massive, so tall. I simply cannot bring myself to tell them the truth, I am not strong enough. The truth being that I designed an abattoir ^note a synonym for "slaughterhouse". Just for him. Grant told me that he used to be normal like us. He called him the Horned Serpent, or Hanodaganears. "The devourer of villages." It was the name given to George Washington by the Iroquois. This was no coincidence. Their damned founding father locked up in my foundation."
  • ALCATRAZAPOCALYPSE has several, but easily the biggest comes from the end of the episode, where- after the conflict between Freedom and the Angel brings about the end of the world and the apparent "freeing" of the Special Trees and the Horned Serpent- the final line hits us with one last shock from a completely unexpected direction:
  Survivors of the Great Division are known as Cornerfolk.
  • In addition, the end of the New Delaware Journal's final broadcast gives us an explanation for the series as a whole.
  "Cthonaut A. will receive data.
  He will convey it to you in a THEATRICAL MANNER.
  He will arrive in your world after OUR apocalypse.
  2/22/22 in ours
  10/1/16 in yours"
  • GOLDENGATEGIRL has two. The first, following the tragic last phone call of a young woman, shows that her name is Eunice Dean. Second, we see James Dean saying he no longer wants to run for president, indicating the timeline is changing even more.
  James Dean: "You should run! Everybody loves you!"
  Monty Clift: "Jimmy...Now that's just silly."
  James Dean: "...You're already a better president than I'll ever be."
• Wham Shot:
  • ROCKEFELLERREVELATION shows the figure that apparently killed John D. Rockefeller is none other than the Air Force One Angel.
  • STARRYSPHINX has two. The first one is the Pyramids rising from the ground, revealing that they look exactly like the Washington Monument, another building made to contain the Special Trees. The second is the shot at the end showing the current situation with the Pyramids in Egypt, revealing that the actual number of Pyramids is in the near thousands, with there being countless Special Trees in each and every one.
  • Two from LIBERTYLURKERS:
    • The first is an animated parable produced by the ADA, depicting Washington attempting to cut down his father's prized tree. Washington strikes the tree, but ends up falling through the earth and landing in a parallel world, before his image is stretched into the shape of the Special Trees.
    • This video also contains footage of the in-between dimension that Virginia and the other children were trapped within during their travels.
  • In ANGELASHES, after the conversation between the Angel and Cthonaut A comes to an end, we cut to a shot of the Earth from a remote orbit on February 22nd, 2022, the date of ALCATRAZAPOCALYPSE and when the Great Division took place... and then, without anything visible happening in the footage, the date rolls over to February 23rd, indicating that the Angel somehow succeeded in averting the apocalypse from the Season 2 finale.
  • The reveal of the Martian Serpent Metastructure in CTHONAUTC.
• Would Hurt a Child: The Statue of Freedom brutally tears apart Nina Crawford to mix her into it.
• Your Days Are Numbered: Rockefeller believes this of himself, claiming that he's going to be assassinated sooner rather than later in ROCKEFELLERREVELATION. The men execute a counterattack shortly after this.
• Zeppelins from Another World: The Rockefellers are these, having been made by the Germans in a collaboration with President John D. Rockefeller.

Tropes present in The Nixonverse

• Adaptation Distillation: THE ABSOLUTE NIXONVERSE takes the almost 40 minute long The House in the Ocean video, cuts out all but a few scenes, and weaves those scenes more organically into The Nixonverse's narrative (with the appearance of the Crescent Creatures coinciding with the Lunarian invasion of Earth and the Curse of Babel that follows).
• Adaptation Expansion: THE ABSOLUTE NIXONVERSE recuts the series to have a more coherent, fleshed-out narrative, in particular giving the Queen of the Lunarians a backstory, and adding excerpts from the D-Day Knight's journal to give more insight into his character.
• Aliens Are Bastards: The Lunarians are either this or firm believers in Disproportionate Retribution. While the USA are hardly saints since their very first contact with the titular aliens was to try and shoot their queen and later steal the eye of one of them, the Lunarians retaliate by slowly erasing English and forcing Americans to learn their language instead and have their ships fly above US cities to perform "electrical brain surgery" on people. Not to mention how they turned the Last Son into the Crescent King despite his protests.
• Alternate History: Just like the main series, the Nixonverse has quite a few departures from our world (at least at first):
  • THE D-DAY KNIGHT reveals that, at the very least, America seems to abide by a philosophy of determinism (the belief that all actions are preordained and ultimately out of human control) rather than free will. Alice Avenue, the reporter heard in this video, determines that the Knight is the only being in the Nixonverse who has free will, due to the universe which determined his fate being destroyed, allowing to him saving soldiers that were "destined" to die at Normandy Beach.
  • The layout of the first moon landing is completely different, with Ed Dwight and John Glenn landing instead of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, although Michael Collins still piloted the orbiter. In addition, they were apparently sent to attempt to kill a super being on the lunar surface, and said being evicted John Glenn from reality.
• Apocalypse How:
  • The House in the Ocean ends with a Class X apocalypse at minimum, with C/H/A/S/E The Wandering Robot being manipulated by unknown forces into "voiding" the planet itself, leaving no trace of it.
  • The series ends with what might be considered another Class X-4. While nobody physically dies or suffers pain, the entirety of the Nixonverse as we know it is fictionalized and overwritten by a new reality akin to Real Life.
• Arc Number: Just like the main series, three. The House in the Ocean blasts every three years, the Crescent King takes three "cycles" to arrive on the planet, the Last Son of Alcatraz is ultimately known by three names, and Moon God Nixon produced three beings out of himself.
• Author Avatar: CORNERGIRL reveals that Alex Kansas not only is a canon character to the story, but he also created the first CORNERFOLK video in-universe, with whoever's filming the video being the inspiration for Riley Tillon.
• Become a Real Boy: Appears to be the case for C/H/A/S/E, as the video she is sent to convince her to return to the film set offers that the crew can even transfer her consciousness into a human body after she's done filming, so she can 'better fit among her friends'. Whether or not C/H/A/S/E actually expressed a desire to do so at any point is unknown; it doesn't matter anyway, as she is convinced to completely ignore the video in pursuit of a greater purpose.
• Bittersweet Ending: The Knight sacrifices himself to wipe out the Lunarians and free Earth from their control, but America is covered in Alcatraz matter, and the Crescent King appears to evolve into a new Horned Serpent. To stop this, Nixon fictionalizes himself and the entire series, undoing the calamities Nixon's creations brought about and resulting in a new reality seemingly identical to the real world, in which The Nixonverse is nothing more than a comic book.
• Canon Welding:
  • The House in the Ocean was originally a separate full series of videos, presented as being unrelated to the Mythos. However, it was later deleted and reuploaded as a single video, now serving as the sixth episode of The Nixonverse.
    • THE HOUSE IN THE OCEAN is itself an instance of Canon Welding, bringing in three of Alex's pre-Monument Mythos videos: Little Lanky, The Crescent King, and Chase the Wandering Robot.
  • In SEA OF THE LAST SON, the Last Son of Alcatraz is revealed to be one and the same entity as the Crescent King.
• Chess Motifs: THE ED DWIGHT PARADOX goes for these when representing the Lunarian Queen and the D-Day Knight and their final encounter, representing them both as their respective pieces on a chessboard. And their moves represent how it turns out. The Queen slides right up to the side of the Knight from the edge of the board, where a Knight cannot target it; just escape and get targeted again or move to a spot where it can be captured without much fuss, while the Queen speaks about the Lunarians' prophecy, and what it promises even for the Knight if he joins them. And then the Knight breaks the rules of the game by drifting to another square outside its move, and positions itself right where it can capture the Queen, as the D-Day Knight rejects all prophecy, and reveals what he truly is. The analogy falls apart after this, as an "Alcatraz Checkmate" is declared and the entire board is swallowed by Black much like the Lunarians as a whole are swallowed by Alcatraz matter.
• Compilation Movie: THE ABSOLUTE NIXONVERSE, which compiles the entire series (plus the original The Crescent King short) into a single hour-long video, adjusts the order of videos, and includes a number of edits and new scenes that help give extra context.
• Contrasting Sequel Setting: This spinoff takes place in a parallel universe, the titular Nixonverse, which has a different sort of supernatural horrors. The Deanverse was a Cosmic Horror Story weaved into American history and its many sins, while the Nixonverse is also about America's less-than-benevolent past actions but is tied to a Beware the Superman Religious Horror story.
• Create Your Own Villain: The US government is extremely fearful of the Last Son of Alcatraz, believing that his powers and unreliable nature means he will eventually become a conqueror. At the conclusion of the Korean War, they order the complete atomization of Alaska simply to catch him, then brainwash him and use him as a superweapon. He escapes and tries to live peacefully, only for another group to capture and brainwash him as well. It seems America will soon be facing the very monster they feared, and all they had to do to prevent it was to leave him alone.
• Evil States of America: The United States of the Nixonverse is an even clearer cut example than the main timeline, nuking all of Alaska to take out the Last Son in retaliation for "interfering" in the Korean War, hunting down peaceful beings on the Moon to harvest their body parts, turning said Last Son into a cruel parody of Jesus Christ and unleashing him on Vietnam, and threatening to do the same to the rest of the world in the name of their "God," who is none other than Richard Nixon. Also, they seem to believe heavily in Determinism.
• Foreshadowing:
  • JESUS IN VIETNAM contains the quote "And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature." It isn't until THE MISSING EYE OF JESUS CHRIST we can glance at this with another set of eyes. Jesus Christ is none other than a brainwashed Last Son of Alcatraz, whose main power was Size Shifting.
  • The description of SEA OF THE LAST SON was edited into a rather badly spelled form of English shortly after the episode was released. This foreshadows the Lunarians' destruction of the English language after taking over America through the Crescent King as shown in THE D-DAY KNIGHT RETURNS.
• The Fundamentalist: The US government heavily leans into this, turning the Last Son of Alcatraz into a twisted visage of Christ and unleashing him upon their enemies and using copious amounts of Christian iconography to justify their conquests, all seemingly at the behest of a "God" that was once Richard Nixon.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Richard Nixon serves as this for the miniseries, as it is revealed that he created The D-Day Knight, The Last Son and the Queen of the Lunarians.
• Hourglass Plot: THE NIXONVERSE starts with the Last Son of Alcatraz, a legitimate All-Loving Hero with assumed ties with Alcatraz, and the D-Day Knight, his anti-heroic predecessor who once wore the skull of the Horned Serpent and is therefore assumed to have ties with it, and it ends with the Last Son of Alcatraz suffering a Big Bad Slippage after being brainwashed over and over again into committing atrocious actions and shapeshifting into what is described as the Horned Serpent itself. Whereas the Knight is revealed to be a sentient piece of Alcatraz Matter.
• Irony: Alice Avenue describes the D-Day Knight as the only being with free will, not predestined to follow a set path. As NIXON IS GOD reveals, the Knight as one of "God"'s creations was predestined to follow a set path.
• Like Reality, Unless Noted: Subverted. The Nixonverse was initially introduced in the main series as a barely-changed version of our universe with the exception of the Special Trees, but as the series progressed, we learn that many other anomalies from the Deanverse migrated there after its destruction. Double Subverted in THE ED DWIGHT PARADOX, where it's revealed that the Nixonverse we see in the series was overwritten by a reality near-identical to ours after it becomes fictionalized by Nixon.
• Musical Spoiler: The presence of Jesus bleibet meine Freude as background music often indicates that the video will have major plot/lore significance, whether it is realized at the time or not.
• Mythology Gag: THE ABSOLUTE NIXONVERSE's title sequence is a repurposed "Four Nixons," one of Alex's early pre-Monument Mythos videos.
• Once an Episode: Like The Monument Mythos, each video's description contains extra details relating to it, with each one ending with, "Regards, the Avenues."
• Re-Cut: THE ABSOLUTE NIXONVERSE, which compiles the entire series into a single hour-long video, but changes the order of videos, adds new scenes expanding on details that weren't originally touched on, and omits some extraneous ones; The House in the Ocean in particular is heavily chopped down and integrated more naturally into the storyline.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman:
  • In our world, Ed Dwight was an African-American test pilot who joined the early astronaut program but was controversially blocked from joining NASA. In the "Nixonverse," he's not just an astronaut but the first man on the moon.
  • In addition to the above, a pair of African-American fashion models, Pat Cleveland and Beverly Ann Johnson, are also listed as astronauts. Far more notably, it appears that the Queen of the Lunarians was also an African-American fashion model from the same era, Donyale Luna.
  • The namesake of this trope has an interesting relation with the setting, as in the "Deanverse," Richard Nixon is merely a failed presidential candidate who befriends the winner and regularly races cars with him. Meanwhile, in the "Nixonverse," he is instead this universe's closest analog to the Christian God.
• Schizo Tech: The Nixonverse introduces us to what seems to be a handheld directed energy weapon being used by the crew of the Apollo 11 moon mission.
• Series Fauxnale: "THE ED DWIGHT PARADOX" feels like another series finale rather than a season finale as, in order to save his universe from the destruction that fell the Deanverse, Richard Nixon fictionalizes it by making an alternate universe counterpart of Ed Dwight overwrite his universe’s story into a comic book, hence saving it from The Horned Serpent who is reborn as The Crescent King. Alex previously said that The Nixonverse was intended as the conclusion of The Monument Mythos. However, after a few months' hiatus, Alex returned with Season 3 of the series proper.
• Show Within a Show: Played With. Both the first two seasons of the series and the entirety of The House in the Ocean are treated as nothing but "American Urban Legends." It's revealed to be played straight in the case of The House in the Ocean, which is nothing but a cover story for the Last Son's transformation into the Crescent King created by the U.S. government.
• Stylistic Suck:
  • The description of SEA OF THE LAST SON and the bulk of THE D-DAY KNIGHT RETURNS are written in some badly written English. This is because of the Lunarians destroying the English language after taking over the Crescent King.
• Superhero Horror: Mixes this with the usual Analog Horror motif, to the point that the playlist describes the series as "Analog Superhorror".
• Superman Substitute: In THE LAST SON OF ALCATRAZ, it's revealed that a curious entity who escaped the Great Division became one.
• Wham Episode:
  • JESUS IN VIETNAM is horrifying throughout, and points to America having a truly despicable Christian fundamentalist ideology as its driving force, but near the end we get a revelation of where this ideology may have come from, as well as why this world is called "The Nixonverse": because in this world, Richard Nixon is GOD.
  • NIXON IS GOD follows it up with several reveals about the Nixonverse, including the true origin of the Last Son, the Knight, and the Queen of the Lunarians.
• Wham Line:
  • The Nixonverse was mostly leaning into Beware the Superman at first, going into the Ambiguously Evil nature of the heroes. QUEEN OF THE LUNARIANS starts to take it in a different direction, with a speech of peace from an alien entity being met with this response:
  John Glenn: "Ed, what the hell are you waiting for?! Blast her!"
  • NIXON IS GOD gives us an explanation for how three prominent entities in the Nixonverse are connected.
  Richard Nixon: "I produced three beings out of myself. The Son, the Knight, and the Queen. All three of them are extensions of me.
  • THE ED DWIGHT PARADOX delivers several, all equally story-shattering:
    • The first comes from The D-Day Knight, not just overturning the power balance in one fell swoop but revealing what he truly is in the process.
    The D-Day Knight: There is no prophecy. There is only me. [cue Curb-Stomp Battle]
    • The second is accompanied by video footage of the Crescent King crawling on all fours and weeping before finally standing upright, revealing that his head isn't a crescent moon — they're horns.
    THE HORNED SERPENT LIVES.
    • The Reveal of where, exactly, The Nixonverse's Ed Dwight hails from, and why he is so important in the Nixonverse:
    There will be no physical altercation. I will not bring about an end like that of my own world.
    • One confirming the implications raised in NIXON IS GOD:
    Ed Dwight did not blast himself. It was a cover story. It was Nixon who killed Ed Dwight.
    • And finally, the reveal of how our Ed Dwight connects to everything.
    In our world, Ed Dwight never went to the moon. Instead, he creates monuments.
• Wham Shot:
  • SEA OF THE LAST SON has maybe the single biggest example in the entire series in its final scene: during the "Evolution of the Last Son" in the final scene, the camera pans first past a figure of a man, then a figure of a person in a cape, then to the immense form of Christ on the cross that the Last Son turned into during the Vietnam War... and then further past that to the even more gigantic figure of the Crescent King.
  • THE ED DWIGHT PARADOX closes the series with a dramatic one that reveals the ties between two prominent entities in both the Deanverse and Nixonverse: after the Knight is shown taking out the Lunarians, the video cuts to the Crescent King crawling on all fours. We are then shown him slowly standing up to reveal that his head isn't actually a crescent moon, but rather horns, revealing that he is the Horned Serpent.
• Whole-Plot Reference: THE NIXONVERSE has clear parallels with Flashpoint:
  • Both events start with a super-powered being altering with the timeline, but whereas Flash did it to save his own mother disregarding any consequences the subsequent ripple effect may cause, Nixon did it to see if humanity would approve of a being as powerful as him.
  • Both events see Wonder Woman (or a similar figure) as a queen and start a conflict that quickly escalates and escalates until it causes The End of the World as We Know It.
  • Both events see the US Government attempting to use Superman (or a substitute) as a Person of Mass Destruction against America's enemies. Whereas "Project Superman" in the Flashpoint Timeline failed, the Last Son's brainwashing into an impersonator of Jesus in The Nixonverse succeeded, leading him to turning Vietnam into the 51st state with little to no difficulty.
  • Both events end with the same superpowered entity regretting their decision to tamper with the universe's timeline and making an uneasy sacrifice to finally restore the timeline into what it was originally meant to be.

Tropes present in The Modern Day

• Added Alliterative Appeal: Like The Nixonverse, the series abandons the single word format of the main series, but most of the episode titles still retain alliteration, with the exception of THE SPECIAL TREE, THE TRINITY DESK PROJECT, and CORNERWORLD.
• Apocalyptic Log: FOOTAGE OF FINAL TRUMP RALLY consists of footage of Donald Trump's final rally as it is then hit by a nuclear attack, then a final message broadcasted over television, then two cassette tapes recording Trump's final words.
• Arc Symbol: The spinning wheel from MISTERMANTICORE pops up fairly regularly, seeming to represent some kind of Brown Note. It turns out to be an abstract representation of an Alcatraz atom, and is just as capable of assimilating people as Alcatraz itself.
• Arc Words: "MIRRORS LIE TWICE" is a phrase that repeatedly recurs throughout the series.
• Artistic License – Politics: Despite being British, Robert Pattinson is shown to be the President of the United States in 2024. He claims his parents' military service allowed him to claim US citizenship and thus be eligible for the presidency, though in real life this wouldn't work as Pattinson wouldn't be considered a natural-born United States citizen.
• Book Ends: The final episode ends (The Stinger notwithstanding) the same way the first episode of The Monument Mythos does: with the Liberty Lurker emerging from the Statue of Liberty's pedestal.
• Brown Note: THE SPECIAL TREE features a video with a spinning circle, which is strongly implied to kill those who watch it. Only two people are shown to have seen it and lived: Leonard Morlin (and not without attaining Survivor's Guilt), and Donald Trump (who outright called it "terrible science fiction", though it's implied to be the cause of his always-bleeding eyes).
• Call-Back:
  • In THE SPECIAL TREE, Maya escapes the impending end of the world by travelling through a corner in her wall, just like the Cornerfolk.
  • THE MONUMENT MONSTER shows Robert Pattinson's drawings of monuments that appeared in the main Monument Mythos series, which includes the Statue of Liberty, the Lincoln Memorial, the United States Capitol, the Washington Monument (which is still broken in half), the Golden Gate Bridge, and the pyramids. The titular monster is also shown with its head arcing the same way a Special Tree does.
  • Shortly after the depiction of the Trinity test in THE TRINITY DESK PROJECT, a section from STARRYSPHINX regarding Special Trees being impossible to cut down until 1945 is repeated.
  • When Riley asks Cthonaut A what humanity is made of, the titular creature from MISTERMANTICORE is briefly shown before he answers, evoking the Mister Manticore constellation made of "good people" from the end of FREEDOMFOREVER.
• Canon Welding:
  • The spinning circle from MISTERMANTICORE is used throughout the series as an Arc Symbol, including as part of a lethal video that kills almost anyone who watches it.
  • LIVE FOOTAGE OF A BLACK HOLE was an unrelated short film that predated The Monument Mythos, but was later integrated into ALCATRAZ, ALWAYS.
  • THE TRINITY DESK PROJECT integrates both the eponymous video series and THE AMERICAN ANATOMY into the Deanverse's history — in particular, the titular LIBERTYLUNG is identified as belonging to the Horned Serpent. The Other Oppenheimer isn't included, but parts of it do appear in CORNERWORLD on Riley Tillon's television.
• The Conspiracy: The two major political parties of the United States are revealed to be manipulated from the shadows by two different entities — the Republicans by the Debate Demon, and the Democrats by the Monument Monster, each of whom are seen by the sitting President as their boss. It turns out that the two were working together the whole time to incite a global nuclear catastrophe for their boss and creator, Alcatraz, so that it could grow more powerful from the radiation.
• Cool Boat: Cthonaut A's ship in ALCATRAZ, ALWAYS appears to be a submarine with the ability to jump into alternate universes. It's how the Debate Demon and the Monument Monster flee Alcatraz.
• Continuity Nod:
  • One of the sketches of Trump's bunker in ALCATRAZ, ALWAYS depicts mutilated bodies, one of which has a head similar to the Crescent King from The Nixonverse.
  • THE TRINITY DESK PROJECT is distributed by Maize Studios, a subsidiary of Maize from The Monument Mythos.
  • Two Cornerfolk specimens in CORNERWORLD are identified as John D. Rockefeller from "Pattinson-2" (the Deanverse) and John Glenn from "Pattinson-3" (the Nixonverse), both characters who were "evicted from reality" in their respective series.
  • Several of the demon and monster pictures in MISTERMANTICORE (including the titular piece itself) appear in CORNERWORLD as works in Cthonaut A's gallery.
  • Abraham Lincoln is seen with a bowler hat in A Monument Mythos. While Lincoln himself was never a major player in the series' narrative, Virginia's illustrations in ROCKEFELLERTREETRAGEDY show Rockefeller asking the children what hat Lincoln famously wore, with it being a bowler hat in the Deanverse.
• Crapsaccharine World: Robert Pattinson describes his experience in the White House as such in PRESIDENT PATTINSON: no-one is willing to help the President, people are always talking and spreading gossip about them, and the only place where they can have silence is the Oval Office, which he calls "the dirtiest room in the White House" for that exact reason. Tellingly, this is accompanied by him finding a handful of condoms there.
• Dimensional Traveller:
  • Maya Arnoldson becomes one in THE SPECIAL TREE, as she escapes the launch of Operation SEED by hiding in a corner, much like the Cornerfolk. THE TRINITY DESK PROJECT reveals she arrived in the Deanverse, and that at some point her world's Leonard Morlin followed, only to end up at the front row at NASA.
  • By possessing Cthonaut A, the Debate Demon and the Monument Monster escape the Pattinsonverse in ALCATRAZ, ALWAYS before they can be reassimilated by Alcatraz. The episode's end implies they went on to become Tree and Serpent, creating the Deanverse as in MONUMENTMYTHOLOGY.
  • CORNERWORLD sees the return of Riley Tillon from CORNERFOLK, who meticulously arranges another jump into the Cornerworld, only to arrive in Cthonaut A's art gallery.
• The End of the World as We Know It: As a result of President Pattinson being driven mad by the Monument Monster, he launches Operation Seed and causes a worldwide nuclear catastrophe. Despite this, FOOTAGE OF FINAL TRUMP RALLY shows a number of people survived, though Trump's words indicate they're all on borrowed time. ALCATRAZ, ALWAYS reveals that Alcatraz engineered Operation Seed to precisely this end, using the radiation emitted to grow more powerful, though the fate of the world afterwards is left unclear.
• Facial Horror: Blood pours out of Donald Trump's every orifice. The government at first attempted to conceal this from the public by digitally altering his mugshot, but PRESIDENT PATTINSON suggests they've given up on the act, as the photos of Trump have him possessing white pinpricks for eyes, bleeding around the sockets. By the time of his final rally, a TV-MA censor is used to cover his entire head.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: When the eponymous monster is shown at the end of THE MONUMENT MONSTER, a brief "hello viewer" flashes just as it appears. "MIRRORS LIE TWICE" also flashes over the logo from the art film that Trump was shown.
• Hijacked by Ganon: The Debate Demon and the Monument Monster are presented as the overarching antagonists of the series, but a later episode reveals they answer to (and were created by) Alcatraz, in its efforts to become a god.
• Hostile Show Takeover: While most videos in the series are credited to Alex Casanas, every video from THE MONUMENT MONSTER to FOOTAGE OF FINAL TRUMP RALLY is instead credited to the Monument Monster.
• Musical Spoiler: In ALCATRAZ, ALWAYS, the video Cthonaut A sees plays Ozzie Nelson's "Body and Soul", previously used in THE ABSOLUTE NIXONVERSE for the "Nature of Alcatraz Matter" intro. This happens mere moments before an explicit connection is made between the rotating circle symbol and the Alcatraz atom in said intro, and before the Monument Monster and Debate Demon's connection to Alcatraz is revealed.
• Once an Episode: The video descriptions use Snopes-esque examinations on whether urban legends presented in the video are true or false.
• Once More, with Clarity: The ending of ALCATRAZ, ALWAYS repeats the opening of MONUMENTMYTHOLOGY from Season 3 of the main series, with the episode as a whole strongly suggesting that Tree and Serpent were the Debate Demon and the Monument Monster after they fled their universe and took on new identities to hide from Alcatraz.
• Operation: [Blank]: Operation SEED from AMERICA ATTACK.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman:
  • Robert Pattinson becomes the President of the United States in 2024.
  • Ernest Hemingway became a Senator.
  • Like his Deanverse counterpart, Walt Disney became more of a philanthropist than a cartoonist in The Modern Day, opening up an orphanage for children. THE MURDER OF MICKEY MOUSE shows he did, at least, still work in animation for a time.
• Ripped from the Headlines: While not explicitly tying into the news event itself, THE MURDER OF MICKEY MOUSE and its use of Steamboat Willie footage are clearly meant to tie into the fact that its release date (January 1st, 2024) was also the day said cartoon entered the public domain.
• Stealth Sequel: Though the series is largely standalone, towards the end more connections are made to The Monument Mythos series. In particular, ALCATRAZ, ALWAYS hints the series is in fact a prequel to The Monument Mythos, showing the origins of Cthonaut A and the Creation Myth in MONUMENTMYTHOLOGY. However, Riley's meeting with Cthonaut A in CORNERWORLD appears to take place after Season 3 of the main series.
• The Stinger:
  • Following CORNERWORLD's credits, "That Place Unseen" from The Other Oppenheimer is recited, its words now seemingly alluding to Riley and Cthonaut A watching over numerous worlds timelines from the Cornerworld.
  • A Monument Mythos ends with a shot of a calender with February 29 marked as "an invisible day". The video itself was uploaded on February 29th, and is credited to the Croatoan.
• Weaponised Landmark: AMERICA ATTACK reveals that the US Government has a secret weapons program dubbed 'Operation Seed', where they've been modifiying Japan's statues of Kannon to serve as disguised launchers for a specialised "parasite" missile that's small enough to fit inside without any obvious outside modifications. The end of the episode reveals that the USA's been doing this ever since the end of World War II, and has installed missile launch systems in major buildings all over the world, including the Eiffel Tower, Empire State Building, Houses of Parliament, Taj Mahal and even the Capitol itself.
• Wham Line: From the ending of FOOTAGE OF FINAL TRUMP RALLY, after hearing all of the tapes concerning Trump's Uncertain Doom, we get a final hint as to his fate, which in turn signals the return of something that has been conspicuously absent from The Modern Day up until now:
  Alcatraz Island is believed to be the site of Donald Trump's final bunker.

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