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TMAGP 46 Thoughts: The real evil was capitalism all along

Boy. What do I even do with this one? I will say that this episode leaned way more towards comedy than horror. I laughed at many points and felt afraid at no point, but I do love a bit of horror comedy. Unfortunately, with all the names and the detached tone and format of the case, it was very difficult to follow even with the transcript. Which is a shame, because I found the format clever and interesting, just not very fitting for a podcast. Anyway.

I don't have too many theories about this episode, but a lot of loose threads were tied together. Spoilers below the cut.

As someone who's been writing minutes (albeit for a student organisation and not an objectively evil corporation), I found this episode hilarious. No matter the chaos or the emotions involved, you keep the tone neutral and matter-of-fact. Granted, I never witnessed several murders (three of the same person) during those meetings. But I guess these people are used to gruesome incidents. They had to switch locations three times. I don't know why that's especially funny to me. That, and "forced to resign from the board in Q3 2022, following his death".

So it looks like Elric Capital has been funding all sorts of fucked up (probably alchemy-related) business initiatives. We got a follow-up on both the Zorrotrade app (ep. 13) and the Booth (ep. 36). A representative from the Elric Rehabilitation Initiative was also present at Menke's trial. I'm interested in these "specialist investments". We get names and aliases for two: Teeth and Inside Out. Reminiscent of Needles. I'm guessing Elric Capital has their own little circle of Externals, though I can't begin to imagine what sort of returns they're expecting from them. As of now I'm also convinced that Elric Capital funded the research of the Magnus Institute.

The incident with Mr Adam is a really charming homage to Frankenstein. The name Adam, the doctor calling him "the creature", the whole deal of him being a gentle soul made for love but inspiring only fear and hatred. I love the idea of Frankenstein's monster being brought to the Shark Tank to make his sales pitch with absolutely no clue of how capitalism works.

The business idea was VERY questionable to begin with. Apparently Dr Augustine wanted to just rent out his creation to a person grieving the loss of a loved one, and have Adam take the form of said loved one by having him harvest and wear their remains? Kind of like those horrible AI models of dead people except arguably worse. One of the previous identities Adam mentioned was Arthur Winstead, who was Darla's dead husband in the very first incident we heard in episode 1. So it's cool to know that it connects. And awful to know that Augustine asked Darla to meet her dead husband at the graveyard, where the creature had just finished eating him. Like have some tact and arrange the meetup somewhere else.

Alchemically, I don't have much to break down here. We don't really get a clear picture of how Adam was created. Artificial life brings to mind homunculi again, but those are generally grown, not built. Though the original creature very well could've been grown, and the additions are just that. Corpses, dismemberment and cannibalism are symbolically all very common in alchemy, with the idea being that matter must die, be broken into parts and then be reunited through an act of devouring. But these are also just common themes in horror, so I don't want to read too much into them here.

Outside of the incident, I'm a little sad that this might mean the end to Alice's adventures with Heinrich. But I also think we really need her in the office to fill the weird emptiness with her presence. Also, Celia is being drawn to the portal again. Was Sam not enough to restore the balance, or was Celia's hypothesis wrong to begin with? Did something change? Will Sam experience similar pull towards his home world? Things to ponder on.

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“You should probably tell your superior about that man I killed also” “Oh God I totally forgot about that” LMAOOOO HELLO ???!!

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I hope y'all have been paying attention to your proper nouns because they're all making a comeback this episode.

This is actually, by my reckoning, the fourth time we've encountered Elric Capital and its projects.

In episode 35: Terms and Conditions, Terrance Menke "the Bonzo Butcher" is about to be remanded to the Elric Rehabilitation Initiative.

In the immediate next episode, Elric Capital Ltd. is mentioned as a lead financial backer for the Booth startup - that video conference box that trapped its product reviewer. Consequently, this means that amongst the product's "concerns and delays" is that someone's ear got ripped off. The names of the project leads, [Lila] Bailey and [Chris] Chavez, show up in both places; I have to wonder if it was one of theirs.

Though episode 13: Futures doesn't mention Elric Capital explicitly, the board discusses that episode's app, Zorrotrade, as a previous investment. It seems they were successful in scrubbing their name from the venture.

Finally, you may recall that all the way back in episode 1, we hear the story of a grieving Harriet Winstead, who had paid some sketchy service to hear her departed Arthur again and was met with "some of him". If that wasn't enough of a giveaway, "Adam" says that Arthur Winstead was one of the names he had taken.

In the interest of being thorough, I dug for the other names Adam gave, as well as all of the mentioned board members, anywhere I could. The closest to any matches I could make were that the surname Mitchell (one of the council members) appears twice in the Magnus Institute test subject spreadsheet from the ARG, as does the surname Brown (one of Adam's identities), but that's pretty tenuous. Sadly, I couldn't find traces of Dr. Augustine in any other episode; I'd thought they might be one of the doctors or alchemists we've seen elsewhere.

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I love this new horror: a solely for profit company. Like they're just doing comically evil things like Prison Booth, Profiting Off Of Bets On Bodily Harm and Making A Frankenstein seemingly for the hell of it to make some more money. Also they had two workers called 'Teeth' and 'Inside Out'. Brilliant

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Gerard Keay art that I have done 😁👍

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found this on pinterest, thought of tumblr

part two of 'bonsai's stolen memes'

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Anyway, I end up going to have a talk with the Magnus Institute and run into Jonathan bloody Sims. [...] Anyway point being that job was how I got together with Georgie. SAM But I thought she didn’t work there? MELANIE (uncharacteristically awkward) Uh no. She… had an ex who did. It’s complicated.

incredibly funny to act like this is referring to two separate people

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How the Archivist be hunting Sam

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just realised i never actually posted the magnus archives mug i painted on here (the mugnus archives?), so here she is!!! 👁️☁️🌀📼

thank you to @pestopasta626 for reminding me about it because i straight up forgot skdjskjdks

(btw i very sadly can’t sell these since it’s a hand painted piece so it took a long ass time to do :”)) i’ve briefly looked into producing some of these but im not sure how the legality of it works since tma belongs to rusty quill ofc)

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one(ish) sentence summaries of every magnus archive episode PART 3 (111-154)

HELLO FRIENDS In honor of one of my friends starting tma i am posting the rest of what i have for this series

I'm going to be honest, i wrote all of these like a year and a half ago so i don't even remember if all of them are as accurate as i thought they were at the time so tell me what u guys think ( ALSO IM SORRY IT TOOK ME SO LONG TO POST THESE)

if you guys want more i can be convinced to relisten to the series and finish this and also send me asks i love getting asks

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111. god fuck he just wanted his friends to call him gerry

112. guys I have a great idea for a game it’s called murder tag and there are no downsides I promise

113. sweet dreams goodnight don’t let the carbon monoxide poisoning bite

114. cleaning lady takes a trip to mandela effect land

115. ship cook discovers an infinite meat glitch!

116. oh god the unknowing ritual is fnaf security breach

117. alright guys it’s time to prepare for clown time let’s do a roll call

118. martin burns some stuff and gets traumatized while Jon and the homies are sneaking through an interactive wax museum.

119. ah fuck it’s clown time

120. omg! you were in the archivist’s dream last night! so cool!!

121. dude I’d KILL for a good night’s sleep

122. the worst person you know tells you about their "new philosophical theory" for 24 minutes

123. man is scammed into being the helpless mod for murder reddit

124. old man ruins our austrian mountain trip with impromptu skydiving

125. bagpipe music makes an entire town do a The Purge (2013)

126. man is so shit at sculpting that it literally makes four people loose their minds

127. hey guys… eye am not feeling so well…

128. skinwalker delivery man mourns the loss of his skinwalker delivery husband

129. we needed this rain

130. HOT SINGLES IN YOUR AREA WILL FILL YOUR HOLE WITH MEAT

131. I get the guy who turns peoples’ bones to turn my bones and also tell me the story of how he started turning peoples’ bones

132. MAN OPENS COFFIN. WE ARE VERY WORRIED FOR HIM.

133. My son’s weird boyfriend is a little too invested in my treasure hunt.

134. journalist takes a short and awful trip to dystopia land and it gives both her and adelard decker an existential crisis .

135. let me tell you about our lord and savior: shadow jesus.

136. my boss does a reverse pinocchio.

137. I am saved from the real horrors of war by spooky ghost horrors of war.

138. my dear jonah, it seems my years of fucking around have finally caught up to me, and I am nearing the time in which I will find out.

139. Local cult cooks up an antichrist and then deals with the terrible consequence: parenthood.

140. 17th century homoerotic rivalry between an astronomer and shadow jesus

141. our captain got depressed and then made us all steal a camera

142. hey sorry your archivist got addicted to eating trauma. yeah he’s just watching people on the street now. yeah he’s pulling statements from them like teeth. yeah he’s been showing up in my dreams and he is all eyes.

143. we KILL this evil orb using the power of looking at it too closely

144. math podcast makes man foresee the end of the world

145. gertrude drops the hardest diss track of the century on the desolation / part 2 of local cult’s adventures in parenthood

146. man is stalked by a sneaky door.

147. the archives is stalked by a sneaky spider lady.

148. Security camera guy loves his job so much that he becomes a security camera.

149. weird trash art in the Amazon rainforest bites researcher

150. HOMOPHOBIC SUBURBAN HOUSES

151. have you ever played aquarium tycoon

152. let me introduce you to the world of recreational dirt naps ( I am not asking )

153. evil worm polycule

154. i quit my job and my hot goth wife kills me.

Part 1 | Part 2

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one sentence(ish) summaries of every magnus archive episode PART 2

(eps 61-110) thank u for the funny comments and tags on the last part i love u guys

I HAVE MADE A PART 3

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61. the thrilling sequel to man does not open coffin: man DOES open coffin.

62. surely this doctor can find an easier way to scam people out of money than putting them in a little book.

63. THE DARK ATE MY BROTHER IN LAW.

64. this is possibly the plot of laura croft tomb raider

65. mmm crumchy

66. what's the opposite of an unboxing video

67. as close to a coffeeshop au as you're going to get from this podcast

68. Doctors hate him! Man REFUSES to die from tuberculosis!

69. your college's psych department has the worst idea ever.

70. reverse death note

71. not even death will stop this woman from taking the british subway

72. man doesn't want to be low key racist in his last moments before getting eaten

73. police versus the second coming of dark jesus

74. lady is haunted by an ad for coffee

75. mike crew says "uh fuck it let's just put this guy on a skyscraper forever"

76. ryan from buzzfeed unsolved breaks into a train yard and suffers consequences

77. you're not a enough of a bitch to be my real mom

78. man gets harassed by his cousin and then exorcises him

79. you know that chase scene in scooby doo with the doors

80. stupid idiot motherfucking jurgen leitner

81. i have been personally victimized by the sequel to the hungry hungry caterpillar

82. pov: elias threatens to cancel you

83. mannequin takes matters into its own hands after people don't like its pitch for a new window display

84. a hoarder put newspaper on my friend's face :(

85. hey there's maybe a little man upon these stairs?

86. man gets got by a squiggly thing in the dark.

87. plumber is so oblivious to spooky happenings around him that it possibly saves his life.

88. guys i think this guy likes to dig

89. lesbian investment banker finds a new, less evil job: arson!

90. guy who turns people's bones starts a gym where he promises not to turn your bones! (he is lying)

91. i was stalked by lightning for 10 years and i all i got were these stupid scars

92. jonah magnus is a bad friend // another day another elias slay

93. ocd is no match for purple fuzz

94. let the bodies drop gently to the floor let the bodies drop gently to the floor

95. im so sorry my brain refuses to remember what the war ones were about but i think one guy got gently kissed on the forehead so that's pretty nice.

96. diversity wins! the not-quite-human delivery men who stole your identity and business are maybe gay?

97. man gets gaslighted by an entire town about a hole

98. 🎶mister sandman bring me a dream, actually don't, please stay far from me 🎶

99. another one bites the dust

100. archival assistants face off against the general public (they lose)

101. jon finally levels up high enough to unlock an eldritch horror's tragic backstory

102. LOCAL MAN MARRIES BUG

103. peppa eats a clown and they cover her in concrete instead of congratulating her.

104. pennywise stole my brother's skin

105. it's world war z baby

106. Something Big Is In Space.

107. man is interrogated about the time he saw thomas the train roasts people alive and also sans is there

108. actor is stalked by mask who liked his monologue so much that it tells its mask friends to come watch.

109. sometimes a family is just a serial killer's daughter and that guy who maybe killed some vampires

110. yeah man those spiders be eating

Part 1 | Part 3

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one sentence summaries of every TMA episode

(1-60 i'll add more soon)

part 2 up!

world's most effective anti-smoking PSA

man DOES NOT open coffin. everyone claps.

woman is judgemental towards neighbor even though she has hobbies that are just as weird.

book makes multiple people fall off chair.

man finds bag of teeth and decides he absolutely needs to fuck around and find out.

worm sti.

there was a SCARY MAN in the WAR.

fuck this tree

well at least ted bundy was a great father :)

i'm like 55% sure vampires are real and i'm willing to take those odds

bitches be dying. you're next.

we kill this man because he made the soda too warm.

sorry ur husband's dead. maybe get some help.

Unbox with me ! (GONE WRONG)

hah i'm safe from this one because i have decided to Never Go Into a Cave Ever.

man is so annoying about this spider that even his cat can't be bothered

man's bully finds a book about a Bone Turner and subsequently begins turning people's bones.

this guy sucks at DIY home improvement

aw maybe this priest didn't do anything THAT bad!

oh fuck nevermind

THE SKY ATE MY SON.

the worms stole my identity. i haven't left the house in days.

man beats german children at game of bravery and wins a coin (he later loses this coin)

my ex boyfriend gets casted in the muppets and dies

sorry mom, i've abandoned jesus for a new religion : jesus in the dark.

tall squiggly and HANDsome

old man arm wrestles demon through door knob

the buzzfeed unsolved guys finally catch a ghost but it's their sound tech

immortality but at what cost

working at the big meat factory was so traumatizing it made me vegetarian

i go to america and get almost killed by a furry

well if you love that wasp nest so much why don't you MARRY it (and then she did)

antisocial boat crew bands together to exclude one guy from a midnight party. he dies from the rejection.

bone apple teeth

remember when that norwegian guy threw a tantrum about us not digging a hole? turns out we were right to not dig that hole.

babe come over my parents have taken ill and passed away

man fucks around and it costs him everything

HOMOPHOBIC CHINESE VASE

oh god oh fuck the worms are here

thank you for participating in worms! please rate your wormsperience from 1 to 10.

the wormsperience has left me deeply scarred. i'm going to get lost in a tunnel about it.

🎸music makes me loose control🎸

spooky stories to tell at the next police slumber party

child threatens to run away and join the circus one too many times, and now the circus has come to cash in.

these mosquitoes are mad sus

man frequents local barnes and noble and then dies(?) after liking a book too much.

realtor gets eaten by the backrooms twice. it's a terrible shame.

both me and this weird goth dude have an unsatisfying italy vacation

guy who turns people's bones gets a new job where he continues to turn people's bones.

man who should never be allowed to build prisons builds a prison.

Something Big Is In The Water.

what if u heard me about 15 feet behind you fumbling around and calling out ur name 😳 (and we were both prison guards)

i'm going to be honest i didn't retain anything from this episode except that this guy has the silliest old man voice ever

everybody hates the tax man, including these creepy taxidermy animals

hmmgh. ant house.

so turns out being only 55% sure that vampires are real in my career as a vampire hunter has had some consequences.

the only thing keeping you company in space is your abandonment issues

🎶 the snack that smiles back 🎶 (my husband!)

maybe the real treasure was the house siblings we encased in spider web along the way.

your dead brother wrote books about ancient myths and WHAT

Part 2 | Part 3

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is now a good time to share these tma tweets i’ve been making (implied s4 spoilers warning)

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TMAGP 46 liveblog, spoilers under the cut!!

I hope it’s a Heinrich and Alice episode that would be so cool and sick

Yippee!!

Oh they found the address where Klara held Klaus

Heinrich you asshole lmao

Alice how did you forgor

Heinrich has the braincell. I love him.

Celia you good?

Tbh im kinda glad she’s losing sleep out of guilt, she needs to feel bad about what she did

Loving the Celia and Gwen regret parallels

Elric Capital again?

They’re the company that ran the MLM scheme that turned that one lady’s organs into alchemy metals right?

Holy shit they were involved with Zorrotrade, which was the stock app that let that one dude bet on his own luck

“Non hostile company assets” implies the existence of hostile company assets. Did Elric Capital invest in and/or make monsters?

AND BOOTH? THE SPOOKY VR THING??? HOLY SHIT???

So Elric has something to do with a shit ton of casements. I can’t tell if they’re acting as an investment firm for evil companies or if they’re an evil company creating evil smaller sub-companies (subsidiaries? Idk im not a business guy)

TEETH????

INSIDE OUT?????

Did. Did they play some sort of Video That Kills You in their board meeting lmao

Do we have a casement about the “extractive fried service” mentioned in this casement?

Me when the specialist my company contracted to contribute to our fucked up projects gets Not Them’d (or something similar)

Oh wait it was never the guy in the first place lmao

Imagine being a monster and just. Doing contract work in the place of the dude you’re impersonating.

Ok now we need to search for mentions of Robert Blanc, Michael Egan, Arthur Winstead, and Alistair Brown in previous episodes

Also Richard Kent. Are any of these names Snake Guy? I have a feeling one of them might perchance be Snake Guy.

Ooh the whole concept of Adam is fucked up I like him

Btw Jonny and Alex wrote this episode in 2024 according to the transcript which just goes to show how much effort and time is put into every episode. God I love this podcast.

RIP Adam he didn’t want to do capitalism he just wanted to be loved :(

Ohhhh she’s teleporting again

Lowri’s voice acting is so good

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Sometimes I just giggle to myself about this

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why did the cake is a lie become the like most quoted portal thing when literally everything glados said was funnier