About

The Monument Mythos is an alternate history analog horror series of mockumentaries created by Eve Casanas (Manticore) that tell the story of an alternative United States where strange and often disturbing anomalies are connected to historical monuments around the country, such as the Statue of Liberty or Mount Rushmore

The series currently has three seasons and two side stories set within the universe. However in June 2024, Eve Casanas deleted Season 3 and Modern Day. The missing series can be found in Alice Naylor’s archive channel. ^[1]

Timelines

Deanverse

The Deanverse is the name for the mainline universe where American actor James Dean becomes President of the United States during the 1968 Presidential Election instead of Nixon. Season I covers the disappearance of immigrants near the Statue of Liberty, the Presidential campaign of the eponymous individual, a wormhole under the Washington Monument, the existence of alternate universes, the past presidency of John Rockefeller and a living statue of Freedom.

Season 2 focuses on the formation of the Maize company and how technology diverged from out timeline, an incident involving a creature in the Suez Canal, the rise of an Anti-Dean movement, strange events surrounding the excavation of the Pyramids and an attempted January 6 like coup against Dean which was disrupted by the living Armed Freedom, seemingly having taken a will of its own .

Season 3 focuses on a continental sized Horned Serpent underneath the United States and the retracting of the country, based on a conspiracy going as far back as Washington's American War of Independence, and the world-altering circumstances surrounding the Lovecraftian entities which become all the more invested in mortal lives for their own reasons.

Nixonverse

Nixon is President like in our timeline, yet the story takes grander strides as the president embraces newfound cosmic powers, following arcs related to Alcatraz, the Moon Landings and the Korean War. "The Great Division" of timelines grants access to this epoch closer to real history, with the main exception of humanity encountering a trio of superheroes over the course of the Twentieth century: The D-Day Knight, the Last Son of Alcatraz, and the Queen of the Lunarians. Ed Dwight is selected for the Apollo moon landings, becoming one of the first to encounter the alien Lunarians. the Spin off Series ran from May 14 to August 13, 2022. A compilation film, The Absolute Nixonverse, which added new sections and removed certain sections from the original series, was released on October 1, 2023, on the Dwight Comics YouTube channel.

Modern Day

A third spin-off series titled The Modern Day, set in an alternate timeline in which English actor Robert Pattinson won the 2024 United States presidential election, ran from September 1, 2023, to February 29, 2024, with multiple episodes being released out of order. The series explored political subject matter much more directly than its sister series, including criticism of several political candidates, the political and social division caused by the United States' two-party system, and the dangers of nuclear weaponry. The series, along with season three of The Monument Mythos, was eventually removed from Casanas' YouTube channel for personal reasons.

Reception and Fandom

Nestor Kok of F Newsmagazine described the series in positive terms in 2022, writing: "There is nary an analog horror series, let alone a YouTube web series of any genre, that comes close to matching the scope and ambition of "The Monument Mythos". According to Joe Hoeffner of Collider in 2023, the series was among the most popular entries into the genre, alongside Local 58, Gemini Home Entertainment, and The Mandela Catalogue, all of which have "increasingly elaborate backstories and mythologies, usually parceled out one cryptic piece at a time"; however, he singled out The Monument Mythos as being particularly engaging for its narrative puzzles. At the same time, he commented that the approach risks becoming clichéd. Tilly Lawton of Pocket Tactics classified the series as a type of an alternate reality game, albeit one with a "[narrative] that [doesn't] alter regardless of player participation" (using the novel term "unfiction"). According to the author in 2022, a community of followers was gathering in the series' Discord server, where various thematic events were organized.

References

^[1] “Alice Taylor’s Archive Channel” :https://www.youtube.com/@alicenaylor1042

^[2] “The Monster’s Beneath Us: The Monument Mythos” :https://youtu.be/pUZuD61AkA0?si=ICtwJg4kXzRERNgB

^[2] “Nixonverse Antiverse” :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbZL3GezKuY