File:Tweet backup, John Amherst.png

A series of tweets from Jonny Sims, @jonnywaistcoat, reading in full:

There is also something the RQ ops update mentions that I'd like to take a moment to clarify, as I think it's important: John Amherst the plague creature is not deliberately based on, nor intended to *be* the 18th Century genocide-proponent Baron Jeffery Amherst.

When I was researching colonial atrocities of the British Empire for the Boer War episode, I came across Baron Jeffery Amherst and felt, given the episode was intended to engage with such themes, the name connection worth mentioning. In retrospect I think that was a mistake.

I suppose I must have learned about the historical Amherst at some point in the past, so that when I was naming my ant-covered disease-man in Season 1 the surname sprang to mind, but this was absolutely not conscious or deliberate.

Apparently he actually did have a brother called John, something I learned when discussing the ops update with Anil, but fundamentally The Magnus Archives John Amherst was written as an entirely fictional being, not based on a historical namesake.

While in hindsight my use of historical figures has sometimes been tasteless or insensitive, I would never intentionally use someone directly involved in the real world oppression and genocide of indigenous Americans as a creepy monster and I should have been more careful.