bonzos-number-1-fan

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 39 Thoughts: Meat Dreams

It's a rare Alex and Jonny co-written episode this week. It's also a very short and sweet one, although I am told that's to buy time for some longer episodes that are upcoming. However, it'll also be a short and sweet post from me because the nature of this one does mean I've precious little to say. I thought the episode was pretty good over all. I'm not a huge fan of the statement here but I do think it was well-written and well acted, it just didn't do much for me. As always though, there are a few things to pick at for the show's wider mythos.

Spoilers for TMA , and TMAGP episode 39 below the cut.

This is probably the simplest episode of the show so far. While there are scenes they're all contiguous and, as such, does make this episode fell quite small. Which is good and bad. It gives the episode an air of intimacy — which is apt for the content — but it does also leave little unseen and unsaid which is bad for these things.

I don't have an awful lot to say about this one. I think the takeaways and themes here are either very explicit or will be up to personal interpretation. Meaning you either don't need me to explain, or I cannot explain, the various goings-on in this episode. Although of note the official affix to denote who is a TMA character is now PL [name]. So this was PL Alice, as opposed to regular Alice. PL meaning primeline, as in prime timeline. And talk of the timelines is interesting to me because a prime timeline is a different thing than a prime dimension. Lots of things can change dimension to dimension but a series of timelines suggests some sort of common starting point. Timelines are different because events are different rather than the fundamental nature of things. I don't necessarily think that's the case here given the scope of the changes in regards to things like the Fears but we know the underlying metaphysics are at least compatible. Which might suggest that the only reason things are different in TMAGP is because people did different things. The Fears are different, or non-existent, because they were never fed or never born rather than simply not being a factor of the world. It's hard to know how much any of that will matter but they're at least framing it in terms of choice and consequence rather than a different set of rules from the get go. Although as Sam's appendicitis shows it does appear as though these timelines are trying to converge on some sense of uniformity.

Post-statement Sam and Georgie make it halfway down the road before finally clocking the very statement-y nature of Alice's statement. Which I'm taking to mean that [Error]'s abilities do involve a level of passivity or obfuscation when they're pulling these statements out of people. At least when the tape recorders are the vector. If that isn't the case Georgie has gone from telling the Wardens to be very aware of people statementing to letting Alice monologue for 6 unbroken minutes. I'm curious to know if we'll be seeing more of this sort of thing, or if it's more of a one off. I do also think it's quite odd Sam didn't ask Alice some of the more pressing questions. Sam knows the Magnus Institute is a fairly large deal in both universes. He's got first hand experience with one of them and in the primeline he knows it was the centre of the Change and that the event that ended it is named after it. He knows it turned into a big tower, knows everyone could see the big tower, and knows they blew up the big tower. Given Sam and PL Sam both had appendicitis, and both got together with Alice, you'd think a "weird question: did your Sam ever go to the Magnus Institute and see a dude turn into a skellington?". It might not elucidate anything, what with them being in different places, but it does seem like the sorta thing you'd at least ask about given all that context. But it does seem like they'll be stuck together in the next PL ep, so maybe he'll ask then.

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Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet

DPHW Theory: N/A

CAT# Theory: You know the drill. See episode 34's post for thoughts on this.

R# Theory: N/A

Header talk: See episode 34's post for thoughts on this.

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 38 Thoughts: German Lessons

It's another guest episode this week and much like the last one of those it's only co-guest written. This time it's Jonny and Amber Devereux of Tin Can Audio, who has done a lot of things I'm not familiar with. I thought this episode was really solid though so I'm sure it's great stuff. The statement is very Archives to me, but the rest is very Protocol and it's really picking up pace. Just good stuff all around.

Spoilers for TMA , and TMAGP episode 38 below the cut.

We start as all good things do, talking about Colin. I'm holding out hope for the eventual Colin read incident because I do miss that man in this show. I love that Alice doesn't cave to Celia's bullshit. There isn't much to really dig apart here. The mentions of alchemy and the specific elements aren't particularly meaningful outside of their reinforcement of those themes. But it's plot development which is all good stuff.

While Celia for sure deserves the attitude Gwen deserves better than that though, smh Alice.

ALICE Well, it looks like Freddie was originally made in Berlin, back in the late 80s, maybe early 90s. There’re a lot of references to someone called “Friedrich”, who I think might have been the original programmer.

While it is pretty funny that Friedrich might have named his app after himself in leet, might be worth mentioned that Dr. Welling's first initial is F and we don't know what that stands for currently. He's currently been on the periphery of things but has been their more than just a throwaway character would've been. So there could be some sort of connection there.

ALICE Colin was certainly thought so. He was trying to find out more from a contact over there, some guy called “Heinrich Unheimlich”. GWEN I’m sorry, “Heinrich Unheimlich”? ALICE Yeah. What? GWEN Alice, do you speak any German? ALICE No, not as such. Why? GWEN Unheimlich. It means… Creepy, weird. I don’t think it’s a real name.

This bit is a fairly big deal IMO. If you've read a lot of my stuff you're likely aware of my theory about what DPHW means. If you aren't this is a fairly large hint that I am on the right lines there. Very briefly I think DPHW stands for Death, Pain, Helplessness, and Weird and is a rating system for incidents. The reason I think it's those things is because we know from the ARG that the German version is TSHU. Those meaning Tod, Schmerz, Hilflosigkeit, and Unheimlich. The translations are all pretty direct with the exception of Unheimlich which would generally be more like uncanny rather than weird, but uncanny is also much more in line with Magnus' use of the weird as horror.

On to the incident and, man, I liked this one a lot. Just some good old fashioned weird stuff happening. I don't think it was super creepy or unsettling, it didn't surprise me or have me on the edge of my seat, but it was thoroughly enjoyable through and through. It's a somewhat novel twist on the bogeyman archetype and everyone likes a good bogeyman scary story. It's also very German and as has been made very explicit in this episode that's a big deal for the world building here. It's come up a lot before, and was all over the ARG, and is central to a couple of core mysteries. A German "external" in the form of Mr. Cat Eyes is also exciting to see given the origins of Freddie. Germany clearly has had a lot of problems in the spookem department. There are also some implications here about a network of spooky people doing spooky things so I'm curious if this will come up in the future. The ending gave a "time to join the family business" sort of vibe to me that I'm hoping will come back around.

Mum said that she thought it was an old toy, maybe from East Berlin. I guess maybe it’s because East Berlin was also old.

As I've talked about the ARG before in these but of note here is that a large portion of it was dedicated to an East German diaspora newsgroup, and we (members of StatementRemains+ Discord server, not me personally) ended up traveling to a Berlin bookstore to find some documents. Which is to say they've been playing the long game on this one and if season 3 was a whole new cast of German characters it'd make a lot of sense given its foundations.

For those curious about the rhyme, it's roughly this

Heinrich Unheimlich, will you play with me? Heinrich Unheimlich, are you in the hallways? Heinrich Unheimlich, oh, are you in sight? Heinrich Unheimlich, don't eat my parents.

in English. I was going to make it rhyme but then I ran out of time.

First off, it's great that Alice continues to not buy into Celia's "don't investigate my crimes" bullshit. Secondly, I'm really liking how much this episode is advancing all sorts of threads. Now we've got Gwen following up on that Starkwall offer which is another element from the ARG that now seems like it's pretty vital to the foundation of where the show started. All great stuff.

GWEN Meaning I know the risks! Besides, those are properly vetted externals who have signed an agreement with the British Government to-

Need a loicense to be spooky if you're Bri'ish.

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Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet

Klaus Watch: C'mon this was prime Klaus territory. I've not forgotten about him.

DPHW Theory: 2153 isn't super interesting all in all, although it is also the DPHW of last week's episode. Which is fun. What's actually interesting is that they said the word "Unheimlich" nine times and Gwen translates it was "Weird". Which is further reinforced by the last episode she was in and her talk about balancing W and Mr. Bonzo, who is similarly a bogeyman-esque character. Albeit through a very different lens. I've not had much doubt I was right about this even from ep 2 but it would be wild for me to not get at least a little excited about this like this. It's probably the first major hint that I was on the money outside of how the numbers lined up.

CAT# Theory: My transcript had it as CAT1 so I had a whole thing about it but it's actually meant to be CAT13 which does mean I don't super care.

R# Theory: AB seems a little high. There is some evidence here in the diary and the mother's actual disappearance but nothing obviously weird like with RedCanary's eyes. B seems more apt to me. Assuming I'm right about it, I mean.

Addendum: So apparently my transcript was wrong on this too and it's actually meant to be ABC, assuming that's not an error of some sort (in or out of universe) I'm not 100% sure what to make of that. It's just weird. It's the first time we've seen them break from an apparent scale and implies these are non-exclusive categories, but also it makes there being an S even stranger because you could just add a D for something that falls outside of its scope. Very, very strange indeed. More data required on that one. Or someone can ask Alex about it.

Header talk: Carousel (Toy) -/- Disappearance (Parent) is a pretty explicit description of things. Hard to add much to that one.

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 37 Thoughts: Roommates

We're back with another Tale From The Primeline tm, and another big chunk of exposition. It's a lot of fan service and fairly blatant conversation. None of which is a bad thing, but you know me. So don't hold your breath waiting on me to say anything interesting on this one. Although up top this is the first TMAGP ep reusing a TMA ep title. TMA's Scrutiny was all about the invasiveness of non-consensual statement taking, while this one is sorta about the opposite. So that's a fun bit of metatext if it's intentional. It wouldn't be Magnus without reused names so it could very well not be.

Spoilers for TMA , and TMAGP episode 37 below the cut.

If I had a nickel for every time the main character of a Magnus series moved in with Georgie Barker, I'd have two nickels— which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

I think the statement of this one was very solidly written but I didn't particularly care for it. I understand what it was going for and think it was doing a good job at that but it didn't do much for me. Lucky for me, and for you, I also don't think there is much to actually unpack. We both listened to the same thing so you don't need me restating it, and while it's nice to see an example of people that have been Stockholmed by the Change there isn't a lot to say on it IMO. So we can move along to something I do think is a little more interesting, [Error]'s deeper characterisation. [Error] has thus far been very direct and has had little room for other people doing much of anything that isn't doing what they want. Standard scary monster business really. However, with Ashe she was taken aback and almost empathetic. It's nothing earth shattering or anything but for a character that largely consists of question marks having there be something deeper to them is appreciated. It's hard to know if they'll ever really become a character with motives and goals or if it's all just feeding instincts but it is nice to see all the same.

Additionally, the way [Error] moves seems to be better realised now. Prior to this episode they just sorta emerged but now there is some proper description for it that book ends this statement.

It is dank, derelict and ruined. The Archivist flows through like mustard gas, exploring and formless... The Archivist suddenly coagulates, coalescing into a specter we recognize. Eventually the Archivist slowly dissolves back into the wind and moves on...

A lot of the following conversations don't give much to talk about. I think it's all about what you'd expect from a post-Change society and is all stated as so matter-of-fact that there is little to truly speculate on. Melanie seems to be in a much better place, as you might expect, and thinks of John as a friend. Sam is caught up on all the big stuff in the primeline that'll likely be of use when he gets back to TMAGP's universe. All the information about John isn't likely to be of great merit vis-à-vis Chester as most of, if not all, the tapes that have a sample of his voice are all gone. What is likely to be of use is the information about the Fears. We know from the Q&A that TMA's metaphysics and TMAGP's are compatible so there could be some insight gleaned from there. However there is a more pressing matter that Celia has talked about all this Fear stuff more than once. Eventually all of that is going to have to come out, although I think it's kinda weird it hasn't already. What with all of Sam and Melanie's conversations about their respective dimensions eventually he's going to have to mention the person who the portal actually wanted, who knows more than maybe they should, etc. etc.

SAM and MELANIE are preparing food. SAM is peeling potatoes badly whilst Melanie does all the real cooking.

The man can't ever catch a break.

No Admiral: 0/10

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Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet

DPHW Theory: N/A

CAT# Theory: See episode 34's post for thoughts on this.

R# Theory: N/A

Header talk: See episode 34's post for thoughts on this.

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 36 Thoughts: Breaking the Fourth Wall

Another guest written episode today, but unlike the rest where Alex and Johnny get editing credits, Alex co-wrote this one. I'm assuming that means that Dylan Griggs, presumably best known for Woe.Begone, wrote the incident and that Alex wrote the office sections? Those are quite "technical" this time around and that is his baby. Unfortunately, I'm not really a fan of this one. The incident is just one of those ones that did basically nothing for me. I don't expect them all to be hits though so I'm not too displeased about it, and hopefully this is just me going against the grain and it resonates with the audience at large.

Spoilers for TMA , and TMAGP episode 36 below the cut.

CELIA (To herself) Okay so that would be… Flaying… subsection… Voluntary… cross referenced with Betrayal and-

Oh you know that's going in the doc. Shame we don't get to hear the fucked up flagellation case though, could've been a fun one. Not enough high P incidents either and this is a shoo-in for that but, alas, we are kept from yet more juicy incident. I'm still waiting for Dog, and the eventual incident that's Collector and has that dude from episode 4 in it.

While we can all agree that Celia's betrayal triggered panic attack is very karmic, I do sorta hope this isn't laying the groundwork for her to go save his ass. I like that one of the main cast is basically the villain and I think on the whole it's more interesting if she stays that way. Not that I think it will happen. She's fairly obvious guilt ridden and was seemingly about to, if not confess her sins, confess more than would be prudent to keep that secret. I do really like that Alice is all in on it being basically Hell though. While it's not exactly accurate it is at least in the right ball park. Especially in regards to how the Powers from the Primeline tend to manifest in physical space.

As mentioned in the intro I just really didn't love this one. I don't really have anything bad to say it just one of those ones I listened to but didn't really find anything exciting about. Hopefully I'm just missing a masterpiece though. IDK, something about this one felt disconnect to the rest of it somehow but I'm not really sure I could tell you why. It's not doing anything new or off-theme but something about it doesn't make me go "That's a TMAGP incident", y'know? There is a mention of an Elric Capital Ltd, which is presumably related to last week's Elric Rehabilitation Initiative. That's pretty interesting because I can't recall them name dropping something like that so often. Hopefully it's the start of a trend and we'll get more of the Institute's satellite companies soon enough. Assuming it's one of those, of course. The more exciting bit about this though is that this whole incident is very different than what you'd assume a "Rehabilitation Initiative" involves and so Elric Capital Ltd seems to have a lot going on, which does make me hope they'll end up a major player this season or the next.

It didn’t diminish all at once though, instead it disappeared into a pinpoint like an old CRT monitor.

This is very curious phrasing. We have another unknowable acronym but I think the implication is clear, just like the OIAR monitors DPHWs. Using my immense initialism cracking skills I think CRT is some sort of old DPHW system that didn't take off. Creepy, Revolting, and Terrifying just don't have the same sorta utility. Makes sense why they switched.

ALICE “Salt config manager” and found an “unmonitored orphan process” which-

While Salt/SaltStack is a config manager, and it would have a legitimate use case in the OIAR, this is most likely used to reference salt's importance in alchemy. It's one third of the tria prima and represent concepts like the body, and stability. It also means that Colin has now referenced all three with his dropping of sulphur and mercury in episode 19, Hard Reset.

GWEN Look, I don’t need to know every detail of the thing to be the manager I just need to know how to balance it. So, either tell me how I can increase “W” here or get out.

I don't think there is a lot to say on this other than it's a fairly obvious confirmation that the role of the OIAR, and the Externals as an extension of that, is about balancing the ways the supernatural manifest so no one force becomes too dominant. I believe I talked about this in my episode 13 thoughts, but if not it was somewhere. Probably.

ALICE Good. Now, unless I’m wrong, which, lets be honest, is pretty damn likely, when we cross reference this shortlist for common terms we’ll find out what Freddy thinks you need and that… is… more… The computer pings up a tone. ALICE (confused) Bonzo?

I've been telling people Mr. Bonzo is the answer to all their problems for a while and now it's not a meme. He really is the true main character of this show. When his spin-off happens just know I'll be a hipster about it.

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Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet

DPHW Theory: 2153 is the first DPHW in a while that's made me go "huh". I was expecting more W than this by a fair bit. Like with Architecture (Liminal), but I also couldn't make a strong case for it so it can't be that far off.

CAT# Theory: It's a 3.

R# Theory: I'm getting better at judging these as they go on because it's very B to me. Which I'm taking as a sign I'm right on this whole thing.

Header talk: Entrapment (Virtual) -/- Isolation (Experimentation) is fairly uninteresting as these things go. That is what it is.

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 35 Thoughts: Pen Pals

We're back to what I like to call "the real podcast". More seriously, I'm just happy for more of what this one is about. I'm really enjoy how this series is building out these multiple plot threads and there are a lot of good call backs in this one. This is one of those ones that makes me thing they've got a really really well fleshed out plan about how everything is going to come together.

Spoilers for TMA , and TMAGP episode 35 below the cut.

Starting off pretty simple really, Alice is very upset that she's a dummy and Colin went mad. Just more reinforcement with the Freddie stuff. Nothing much to say about it all in all. Besides, more important things afoot.

It's a Mr. Bonzo episode, baby! Unfortunately, it's mostly about a pretender but any Bonzo is welcome. We get a proper introduction to Terrance Menke (previously spelled Menki), the Bonzo Butcher mentioned in episode 10 Saturday Night. As you may recall from that episode Menke's crime in the Mr. Bonzo costume basically killed off the entire brand, but I don't think there is an awful lot to get into about the specifics of the crime. Not that it means there aren't things to dig into, but what is interesting about it is the mention of his suit growing tighter, and getting slick. As we know eventually, and for some reason, the Mr. Bonzo suit stopped being just a suit. However, Menke's description of his own suit does seem to imply that any suit, even one with the colours back to front, does seem to work as a host for whatever Mr. Bonzo really is. Is Mr. Bonzo born from the concept of Mr. Bonzo and as such is bound to depictions of him, or is it simply something the animating force prefers? Given how prevalent Mr. Bonzo is in this series I'll be shocked if we don't get an answer to at least some of that soon.

The next thing of importance is Allen Stolas from the Elric Rehabilitation Initiative, both of these things are fairly overt references. Stolas is a goetic demon who're mostly commonly associated with the Lesser Book of Solomon, although a lot of its contents is based on the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum. Stolas is a demon prince and his role is that of a teacher of astronomy, herbs, and precious stones. All of which are quite important to alchemy. The name Elric is very likely a reference to Edward and Alphonse Elric, the main characters from Fullmetal Alchemist. Taken together, and with the general emphasis placed on celestial bodies in episode 21 Breaking Ground, then it would seem likely that the Elric Rehabilitation Initiative is another of the Magnus Institute's organisation. Much like with Welling Mutare Materia research program which also incarcerated people.

For more mundane things Strangeways is a fairly interesting pick for this. Its current official name, and what it would be during this incident, is HM Prison Manchester. It's not particularly interesting as prisons go IMO but it being in Manchester, along with TMAGP's Institute, does mean it parallels TMA's Institute and Millbank prison. It also came up very briefly in the ARG as a cracked theory involving triangulating Manchester landmarks.

Overall, I liked this incident a fair bit. It's always interesting to see things like this revisited and more Bonzo never hurt anyone. As with the ep a few back, I still don't love the whole multi-people talking transcript style but it's a fairly minor complaint all in all and with all the information in this ep it's hard to be too annoyed at it.

Back the OIAR crew and there is generally quite a bit to touch on. Some of that's fairly minor, Celia is still trying to link back the incidents to the Fears she's so familiar with. That's something I'm quite interested to see expanded upon. We can infer from the fact it's a sequel that whatever is going on is at least somewhat compatible with TMA's metaphysics and cosmology. Something that was confirmed in the Q&A. How they tie together isn't super clear right now though. At least, not beyond the more basic takes of "X ep is Y Fear". There isn't anything wrong with assigning those things but we've been pretty constantly shown that those classifications aren't a good fit for TMAGP's incidents so I'm eager to see the ways those are good fits. Also, Gwen both being taken about by Alice being somewhat kind, and also having no idea how to actually socialise with the OIAR crew, makes me sad. She deserves better. Probably.

GWEN Not really. It’s just going on and on about how important it is to “balance the books.” Alice, do you know if a guy named William Price ever worked here? ALICE If he did it was before my time. CELIA Hang on… “Bill Price” and he wants to balance the books? That’s got to be a fake name Right?

This deserves quoting because it reads to me as a very intentional bit of manipulation by Celia. This isn't the first time we've heard of William Price, and it's not the first time Celia has either. William Price, as mentioned by Sam in episode 20 Social Stigma, was the head of the OIAR's response department. Now, Alice was in that conversation too but at the time she was pretty over Sam's whole Magnus rabbit hole. Celia was very much pushing him forward though, and has been trying to cover her tracks since. I don't think this will deter Gwen any and I'm ever hungry for more information about what the OIAR is actually doing. The “balance the books.” bit is well in line with how Lena described the OIAR's purpose to Gwen in episode 13 Futures as monitoring the various forces in the world and balancing them as required. And, obviously, balance is a central idea of the show with Celia's explanation of why Sam needs to get booted to the primeline being explained that way, and with the Institutes own rituals requiring it. All of which is largely a continuation of TMA's ideas when it came to the rituals.

ALICE steps out the main door with her headphones in. She walks into a heavy trolly, bashing her shins and knocking a couple of items, including the camcorder we’re listening through. ALICE Ah! Mother-[fucker!] Hmmmm. Ow. What the hell is- Teddy?

Teddy's back, and I swear I thought this was going to end up being a "Teddy is homeless" bit, but it's worse.

ALICE Anything exciting? TEDDY It’s fine. [bzzt]

Poor Teddy. This man deserves better.

ALICE walks off. The Camera zooms in on TEDDY. His tension transitions into fear once she is out of sight. TEDDY (To camera) I’m Sorry! I’m on my way okay? It won’t happen again!

Man, you quit one nightmare job only to end up on the proverbial nightmare fire. Poor Teddy, man. Dude is gonna end up being Freddie's meat puppet and eventual host. It's gonna suck.

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Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet

DPHW Theory: 4778 is more or less what you'd expect. As with other incidents where people die but it's not all about capital D Death you get a bit of that, but lots of killing, incarceration, and fucked up clown men on a war path does get you a lot of PHW.

CAT# Theory: 1 is the same Category as the previous two Mascot incidents. Not much more to say than that.

R# Theory: B is also the same Rank as the previous two Mascot incidents and as with those, it's very B.

Header talk: Mascot (Incarceration) -/- Retaliation (Imposter) is an interesting heading to me in that it reframes what we hear as being all about Mr. Bonzo.

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 34 Thoughts: Burying the Hatchet

This is a very exposition heavy episode but it's not a lot of new information IMO. I think most of the big stuff here is more confirmation of what I would call, potentially arrogantly, obviously inferable information. Which isn't a bad thing but as you're all probably very aware by now I don't really retread the explicit stuff in these. So we'll see what I've got to say.

And, yes, I did forget what day it was on Thursday and then procrastinate this until now. Blame the Spiral. Tomorrow's post will probably be on time.

Spoilers for TMA , and TMAGP episode 34 below the cut.

Okay, so, as I've mentioned, this is all quite explicit. Sam's in TMA London and it's all spooky still. I do love how over everything Georgie is, and it's nice to see her fearlessness expressed as apathy and annoyance. Even with all the blatant info dumping there are a couple of interesting things to pick out from this whole section though. Part of London, presumably the part that was around the Magnus Institute/Panopticon, didn't revert to its pre-Change state but the interesting bit is other parts of the world didn't either. Obviously the Institute, being the epicentre of the Eye's power on Earth, makes sense but what other places didn't change back? Did every Fear have a location like the Panopticon and those all remained? Is it about the domains of powerful avatars? It doesn't seem like the creatures in the London Exclusion Zone are particularly related to the Eye, so is that true of every location still affected? Or is the Square Mile unique in this respect because of the Eye's central position for the Change? A lot of things going on there. I'm not sure any of that will come up to be honest, I think most of that is probably irrelevant, but it's got a lot of world building potential.

The other thing to note is them being called "wardens". The major organisation people would think of for civil defence in the UK would be either the Civil Defence Service (1935–1945) or the Civil Defence Corps (1949–1968). The Civil Defence Service started its life as the Air Raid Precautions Department and then later created the Air Raid Wardens' Service. These wardens were largely responsible for making sure communities were doing what they were meant to as to not get bombed to shit. As the nature of civil service in the UK evolved both during and after the war so did the role of the wardens but it was generally about community organisation and leadership, recon, and reporting. Captain isn't a rank of Warden in any incarnation as far as I'm aware, but the UK also doesn't really have current civil defence either. Which is interesting in so far as the implication that the UK government is treating it like war. At least in the primeline, in TMAGP's time it seems a lot more clandestine than that.

The section with Georgie and Dave I don't have much to add to. It's all something we've seen with [Error] before and in the interest of getting this post done I'm not going to talk out my ass like I might usually do.

Sam and Georgie do some more exposition. Honestly, this is mostly just a last season recap and I've talked about all that before. Obviously Georgie is worried this is John, and I've seen a lot of people wanting it to be, but I think that would probably be the worst thing they could do here. Especially with Chester in the mix doing the whole "John is a monster" thing and having John be all monster feels a little trite to me. I'm fairly sure they're not doing that in either case. Especially when they've cast Beth Eyre as [Error] already, the bait and switch there would feel sorta shitty IMO.

The Gardener's statement was really well done. I know the TMA season 5 statements are contentious but I think there are some incredible bits of short form fiction in there. This one is no different and I think builds upon season 5 wonderfully by subverting the expectations those statements built. In TMA season 5 the statements were pretty aggressively about their Fear. It wasn't often, if at all, that the listener was ever in suspense about what the Fear at play was. This statement initially seems no different. Starts off very Buried but is very clearly a Slaughter domain by the end of it and it's a really interesting one too. Very boiled down to the basic aspects of the Fear. Good stuff, well written, well acted, no notes.

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Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet

DPHW Theory: N/A

CAT# Theory: XXXX, I guess? CATXXXX is actually pretty interesting in that it's basically the only way you can wrongly X out that string. The dates got the correct number of Xs for the maximum length a date can be in the DMYYYY format. CATXXXX doesn't match the maximum length, nor any reasonable combination. It's pretty much the most wrong thing they could've written. Which does, obviously, mean it was directly aimed at me and written out of spite.

R# Theory: N/A

Header talk: ERROR (Unknown Source) is probably the single most interesting heading we've ever seen. Back in the TMAGP universe we've seen that Freddie has no problems with filing incident reports that [Error] has collected. In TMA there was some implication that the audience was the Eye only to then subvert that expectation. The current implication is that our PoV is that of Freddie and this reinforces that, it got a fucked filing but did get a filing, but I do wonder if this is laying the ground work for that sort of twist. It also raises the question about what makes this incident different to any of the others. The obvious reason is that the Gardener is from another dimension but [Error] doesn't seem to be operating any differently. So either the Mechanisms are quite different or is the experience. TMAGP's universe never has a Change, as far as we know, and so hasn't had domains and as such there wouldn't be anything to file this under assuming Freddie can accurately do that. The link between Freddie and [Error]/her tapes, is also interesting too. Is this unique to [Error] or can Freddie do this to anything that's connected via a tear? If it's unique to [Error] is that because of JMJs connection to the Eye, and [Error's] status as an Archivist, or is there something else at play? Like I said, more interesting than Building (Angry).

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 33 Thoughts: WITTY SUBTITLE REDACTED

It's our first guest written episode of the season, and the first since all the way back at 26. I do hope the guys weren't getting lonely. This week's was written by Aaron Blanton. They're the showrunner of What Happened In Skinner, and maybe some other stuff too? Honestly, their web presence kinda sucks so I'm not inclined to go digging. However, it might be worth doing just that given this week's ep was a really good one.

Spoilers for TMA, and TMAGP episode 33 below the cut.

It's straight into the thick of it with Celia listening to another Institute statement. This one briefly mentions Dr. F Welling again, who you'll remember was mentioned in episode 17 with Welling Mutare Materia, briefly in 21, and who Sam saw turn into a skellington in 28. Probably. Welling is likely to be a very important character as we dig into the Institute more in this universe, and I'd be very surprised if we don't get a real appearance by him at some stage. Although they do leave it unclear whether or not the interviewer was Welling himself. In either case another Institute statement means another round of viabilities. Low across the board here, which I think makes a lot of sense in most of the theories I've heard about what these may mean. Given the "potential acquisition risk" there isn't much you can really do with it. Whatever those categories do mean it is more than likely you need some measure of control, Evil Blackpool Pleasure Beach is a hard thing to wrangle.

As for the statement itself, I really liked this one. The format of only hearing one side of it but knowing when the other side is talking was done very effectively IMO. This one was also pretty Archives-y which makes for a nice change of pace. Playing on some of the tropes that series made well-worn. It's a mashup of elements we've seen attributed to a variety of Dread Powers in TMA but very little we've not seen before. Although I do think this one strikes quite an interesting balance in context to the OIAR. It's specific enough that you sorta know what Victoria saw but vague enough that you don't really know what's happening. Transformation is presumably what happened but it doesn't seem particularly cohesive either. The Pleasure Beach didn't stay that way, more than just the pier changed, and it even affected her date. While you could say all those elements transformed it does seem to be lacking something. So it's a case that ends up with a heading you can't really argue with much but equally feels quite incomplete. Not that this is a problem. It's a really good statement.

Alice: Do you know anything about computer codes? Celia: No. Alice: Do you speak German?

I love that Colin is so far off the deep end with the FR3-D1 conspiracies he's learned German to try and understand it. It's not incredibly noteworthy on its own as it's a known quantity but it's not the only reference to German we get.

And speaking of, we've got a brand new voiced character, Brett Larz. He's an American by the sounds of it but the surname is German. Which isn't to say he's German but the connection is likely to be important, at least in terms of weight of references, as the series has been steeped in German before the show even aired. More importantly he's also working for Starkwall, an organisation I'm very eager to learn more about. I don't think this interaction really told us much we didn't already know but hopefully we'll be seeing more of Brett soon.

Gwen: As the new manager it behooves me to check these things and although our current security arrangements are satisfactory [bzzt]

I do wonder if Gwen is going to end up going for this. She's in a tricky spot of knowing fuck all about what she's gotten herself into while also being traumatised about all those monsters. Given she is so keenly aware of how inadequate security is, and deathly afraid of the things that go bump in the night, it'd make sense if she jumps on that. And fast. I'm also really curious to see if we're going to get Lena's side of this. Lena set that meeting up before she was fired so she clearly had some plan for it. With the OIAR's and Stakwall's history it'll be interesting to see how much more of that past we'll see.

Brett: And a secure one for you and your team. We can protect you from whatever comes your way. I guarantee it. [bzzt]

Assuming the static is a lie detector, and detects purposeful lies, Brett knows for sure that whatever is gunning for the OIAR is more than Starkwall can handle. Which does seem pretty likely given what our beloved Mr. Bonzo can manage on his lonesome.

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Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet

DPHW Theory: 2365 all sounds about right to me. Not much to explain there. Pain might be a little higher than I'd expect but not wildly so.

CAT# Theory: 2 is another of those ones that sounds like a great fit for People/Place/Object, as a pier is a place, but it's also full of weird people. Not to mention the leviathan. So even if that is what it ends up being I think it's fundamentally flawed as a system of categorisation as it stands. Even if it's all the place that's doing it the case number and heading then fails to accurately describe what you'd actually be responding to.

I have a 2,000 word outline for an essay on why it's not Subject/Agent/Catalyst from before the season break too. I'm not sure that one is needed now. Low/Low/Low getting 2 doesn't make a great deal of sense IMO. Fairly obviously too.

R# Theory: B is exactly in line with my theory on it. A man did very likely go missing but the nature of said disappearance is outlandish in the face of more mundane explanations.

Header talk: Transformation (Pier) -/- Fear (Void) is a little interesting. I'm not entirely sure that is what this was. All of it just seems a little off to me on this one.

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 32 Thoughts: Spirit of Place

It's a nice simple one this time around but it's a evocatively written statement with some really strong imagery and Also, I'll be honest, I think I've forgotten how I write these things so this might be a break in the usual format. We'll see how it goes.

Spoilers for TMA, and TMAGP episode 32 below the cut.

I really like when Gwen gets to be not a total ass to people. She tries really hard to get some respect and will likely never get any but she's still got a heart underneath it all. It's not the biggest heart but it's something.

A pretty light case all in all. Maybe not tonally, but in terms of content and the context of the content I feel this one is pretty easy going. I think this one could've done with a bit of editing to cut down on so much of the preamble. I don't personally think so much robot-y introduction does it any favours and could see a version of this story that had snappier framing. Usually when they do these sorts of historically set ones I feel the need to add some greater context to them but for this I think it mostly stands on its own. I would think most people would understand this is about the English city of Liverpool its founding and it's history with the slave trade, through to the industrial revolution, the war, and now modern day and how that changed it as a location. Everything discussed is explicit, and there isn't a lot to add to it, outside of its mention of exultations/dancers. Those dancers would be the Calderstones, which are remnants of a megalithic tomb. At some point they were moved and then permanently affixed in place with concrete. Liverpool is also somewhat famously founded with just 7 streets which is what the following description of "six becoming seven" is talking about. Otherwise, yes, Liverpool was deeply entrenched with England's slave trade, got bombed to shit during the war, and is now one of the largest cities in the country.

I do think the personification of the city is interesting though. At least in terms of genii locorum. A genius loci is a simply the spirit of a place, the terminology is from classical Roman religions, but the concept of a place being more than it's construction isn't unique to it. There have been a number of other religious and spiritual beliefs that have a similar concept in them. Similarly, this idea of a place having a spirit is also not unique to this case alone and is something TMAGP has returned to a few times. This is a very overt example of a personality but places like the Millennium Dome, or Forton Service Station have had similar sorts of concepts around them. Roman philosophy and religion is a often very foundational to alchemic philosophy too and while it might be hard to say exactly how relevant all of these things will be there is a lot of connective tissue here at least.

All in all, a solid case with some really strong writing.

Celia: We still don’t even know what it is [bzzt] or whether it’s still a danger. [bzzt]

Ah, mysterious lie-detecting static, how I've missed you so.

Alice: Sorry, I know this isn’t your fault I’m just…

Poor, Alice. She just doesn't know that it's all Celia's fault in about every way it could be. That's gonna suck to find out.

It's really nice that Colin has returned to us. We shouldn't take offense as his new form and should be grateful he's here at all. I'm sure this won't in anyway become a problem in the future so just be glad he's in the office more.

They both react as the hand is schlorped back into the computer.

Get schlorped, bozo

Luke not getting forgotten about is nice too.

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Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet

DPHW Theory: 1475 is interesting. It tracks really well IMO as Here's statement is obviously about their helplessness primarily. It's also about their own pain, and coupled with the general strangeness and the compulsive aspects 1475 is a good fit. However, it's also basically a throwaway filing and so can't really be relied upon to be accurate.

CAT# Theory: 2 is a fun one. Because it would line up with the Person/Place/Object theory, but also with sulphurous soul, the anima, a things emotions and wants if we're talking my initial Tria Prima idea. Which I might return to with the greater context of what is and isn't junk data the Q&A brought up. Again though, it could be junk.

R# Theory: C does happen to line up very well with my idea as this is incredibly either to brush off as mere mental health issues. But, throwaway etc.

Header talk: Building (angry) -/- N/A. I love it. I mean, it's obviously and painfully a bad fit but it is fun.

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 31 Thoughts: Extended Sounds of Brutal Crowbar Damage

And we're back again, after quite a wait, but it's a nice easy one to get back into the swing of things. Nothing explosive happened this episode really but a lot of foundation setting. However we've finally hit the part of the show that is now a sequel to The Magnus Archives. So, if any of you have somehow not listened to that and are interested to hear why things are so fucked, that would be how you go about it.

Spoilers for TMA, and TMP episode 31 below the cut.

I didn't cover it elsewhere so I'm going to start with Season 2's trailer. It's a nice, short, and sweet trailer so there isn't a whole lot to get into. There are a few bits in the transcript that are worth pointing out though. Firstly, it's referred to as the "London Exclusion Zone, Primeline" and "Primeline" doesn't appear anywhere else in this trailer nor episode one. That's likely a portmanteau of Prime and Timeline which I would take to mean this is the universe from Archives. Given the warden's worry about tapes and a few other notable bits of text from the premieres transcript I would say it's all but confirmed. The only other thing I think is worth mentioning here is that the scuttling creatures are described as having "too many legs". Which isn't incredibly relevant but does at least show they're supernatural in some sense.

Okay, onto the episode proper and now we can all say goodbye to the number 3 blorbo, Colin. I'll always remember the way he called me a gobshite because I sent him an email during the ARG, and the way he lost his mind because gays were in the computer. RIP, Colin, rest in processors.

There isn't really a load to say on this ep is general IMO. I think it's all pretty surface level but as with the trailer there are some interesting bits and pieces to pick out of it. In general though, I thought it was a very solid start to a season. Picks up right where things left off and lays a lot of groundwork for what's to come and isn't a load of info dumping.

So there are a couple of things to pick out from Colin's very messy and unearned death. During the long string of "Discard data"s there is one that reads "upload data" in the transcript which is for sulphur. Sulphur being one of the tria prima and an incredibly important element to alchemy. Now, the actual audio does say "discard data" and it might not be anything more than a mistake but it's an interesting coincidence if that's all it is. The elements listed are also in order of abundance in the human body.

hardware damage_crowbar/DPHW 4600

I believe this joke was written purely for me. No one can convince me otherwise. It's going in the masterdoc.

I don't think there is much to say on Gwen's, Alice's, or Celia's showing in the episode. They're all more or less doing "normal" stuff. The only thing I would point out is that Celia does do some lying in the episode without the usual distortions around those in the audio. At least not that I heard.

Sam is bringing the wet cat energy the Primeline was missing since TMA's finale. It's being met with mixed reception. Most of what goes on here is all pretty obvious I think. We meet yet another version of Georgie who is a little more rugged and generally done with everyone's shit. She's introduced in the text as "Georgie P" which I can only assume is Georgie Prime. This is further reinforced by Heidi's statement describing exactly what we saw of London post-Change. With the additional talks of domains and circuses I think it's fairly hard to argue this isn't TMA's universe post-season 5. Which has some fairly strong implications for exactly how that all went down and how much the world both remembers and has changed, but I feel like that might be bet to get into elsewhere. And likely by other people. Them naming a van after Gertrude is very sweet tho.

I think that's about all I've got to say on this one. Nothing to mindblowing and not a lot of crumbs to follow but it's a great start to a season.

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Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet

DPHW Theory: 5555 sounds about right to me. It's not exceptionally spooky in any single sense but is pretty broad spectrum. Pretty standard stuff. Might as well mention that Hardware Damage (Crowbar) being at 4600 also lines up very well.

CAT# Theory: Our very first 123 which is something I've personally been waiting on. I've been very vocal about how I don't think the Person/Place/Object theory makes a lot of sense. However, this is one of the ones I wouldn't argue for there if you want to stretch it to Colin still being a person after "Integration", or you want to say that JMJ also count. Not that I buy the idea any more. Although it should be noted that Johnny says in the Q&A that the first few cases are wrong. Which means if it is P/P/O it should match up perfectly if you start from the bottom until you hit a point where the wrong ones end. I don't think it would from what I recall on my essay about why it's not P/P/O but it might. I was supposed to use the break to do some more work on CAT# but then I didn't. So I've got no real insights into this one.

R# Theory: B lines up pretty well. It would be confirmable that Colin is at least missing, but getting eaten by a server rack isn't particularly likely to be why.

Header talk: Integration (organic) -/- Computer (Hardware) is a fairly standard description IMO. I can't see much to really dig into there.

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 30 Thoughts: Concrete Evidence

Our finale is upon us. Albeit more of a slightly extended episode than it is double-length. It's more like 10 minutes longer than a standard episode and while I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing I do think it sort of sucks to set expectations and then not deliver on it. Especially when it was a Kickstarter stretch goal. I worry the epilogue is going to feel like the last 10 minutes sliced off of this one too. Either way it was a great episode all in all.

Spoilers for episode 30 below the cut.

This episode follows the classic late in a season episode formula. By which I mean lots of it is really explicit about what it means but some bits are the sort of thing I like to pull out and analyse. So a lot of the plot beats aren't things I need to cover but there are lots of quotes I do want to dig into. Starting with Sam and Celia on the train, which is a real culmination of Celia's general game plan so far. While it's made abundantly clear by the end of this episode her manipulation of the characters has been a fairly constant part of her characterisation so far.

CELIA It sounded like you’d have gone anyway. At least this way I can make sure it all goes to plan. SAM (small laugh) There’s a plan? CELIA Besides, you’re not the only one who’s curious.

That quote really sums up her whole deal this season IMO. She's always been pushing characters to do one thing or another. As soon as her intentions are brought up she'll avoid the question and move the conversation on to something else. It's been happening basically since she was introduced and I'm really glad to see it built up into something satisfying.

Man, poor Colin. I was hoping we'd get some sort of escalation of his storyline this episode but it looks like that'll be more of a season 2 affair. Similarly that looks to be where Gwen is headed too. She's finally got the job she's after but as Lena warns, and as we're all well aware, she's woefully unprepared for it. Mr. Bonzo, Ink5oul, Lady Mowbray, and Needles will all likely play larger roles in season 2 because of it.

I'm not going to get into the details much but I did really enjoy the Custodian's statement. Lots of fun vibes and little details with his character all around. I would've liked to see him stick around in all honestly and crop up again. His fate is quite interesting though because it's showing a lot more from [Error]'s abilities than has previously been showcased. She made Drowning Victim drown but her statement was all about drowning so that's not too crazy, this is much more tangentially related and a far more extreme effect on the victim. Hard to know how much that means but it might be worth pointing out.

The Hilltop Centre is a lot different to what I was expecting. It seems much more like a supernatural hub than the prior incidents concerning it let on. I'm wondering if this is unique to this universe or a constant throughout them. Without getting too much into the details it could be fallout from TMA's ending but this wound that Celia talks about strikes me as a little odd in that context. There was seemingly only one of them at Hilltop. Unless the world Celia came from is also where Darrien 3 came from, as he arrived from that point, then that wound is drawing in everyone from other realities. However if that's the case then there are some fairly major questions about the metaphysical underpinnings of it. It got "better" when Sam was thrown in but there are also clearly a lot of other people coming through as the Custodian mentions.

It wasn’t all death though. Sometimes people… arrived. Not often, but every now and then you’d find some thin, emaciated soul wandering around, lost and confused.

It wasn't just Darrien 3 that came through, multiple people arrived in the same manner. A manner we know isn't how Celia got here because her reaction to that incident was that it wasn't the same. So is this wound just an amalgamation of all the imbalances from all the various universes? We know why Celia wants to "balance" this because it's trying to pull her back, hence the "sleepwalking", and it would eventually win out. How it works on a larger scale is sort of hard to say. It seems like it will just be there forever until everyone who's not meant to be in this universe has left. That seems like a very tall order based on what we've seen. Speaking of balance.

The institute, alchemy, all of it. It’s all about balance. Dua prima, four elements, seven planets, it’s all the same. You’ve got to keep things balanced.

This is a very interesting quote. There are two possible interpretations for this and I'm not sure it's intended to be seen that way. Each of the things Celia lists here is either correctly numbered or off by one. So she might be saying that these are things for which balance is important, or she's saying these are unbalanced things and need correcting. Either works well with her point here.

Dua prima is not really actually a thing as such and is both the biggest indicator she's talking in terms of them being off by one, but also the biggest indicator she's not. Paracelsus' tria prima is a fairly important concept in alchemy as a whole and if you've read more than a few of my posts you'll have seen me mention it. In short sulphur, salt, and mercury are representative of three fundamental properties. Combustibility, permanence, and fluidity respectively and in addition represent the body, the soul, and the spirit. Paracelsus didn't arrive at this idea on his own however and it's largely an addition to Jābir ibn Ḥayyān's work. Jābir, or Geber as he's sometimes known, had this theory of metals that stated all metals were a mix of sulphur and mercury. Additionally sulphur is associated with masculine qualities and the sun, while mercury is associated with feminine ones and the moon. It's not ever called dua prima so far as I'm aware but you could reasonably make that argument.

This same logic can be applied to her mention of the four elements in which fire, air, earth, and water would make up a classical set of four but can also be considered off by one as aether is a later yet—still classical—addition. Alchemy has seven "planets" each with a corresponding metal but our modern definition puts seven off by one as we would say there are eight. However with all that being said I'm more inclined to believe she meant these things were balanced as they are. I said that the dua prima was also the best indicator of that and for the reason why we've got to go back to episode 19.

Doing mummy and daddy Stasi proud, I’m sure. Not that anyone cares as long as it all balances, right? Not too much mercury or the world ends, not too much sulfur or we all go mad…

At the time I said this was two of the three primes of tria prima, which it is, but in this context it doesn't appear that the lack of salt was an omission. Salt just might not be a part of it at all. It's fairly hard to say exactly how important this will be though. It certainly seems quite relevant but it's also something they might be making up rather than anything more firmly rooted in existing alchemic lore.

I don’t- when I first awoke I knew nothing, nothing but the dream of things that sliced my who from me with claws like scalpels… They would hunt me and toy with what it meant to be me peeling away my layers first my name, then my memory and then… …and then the fearless one reached in and grasped me, tore me out, leaving my story to fall away like autumn leaves…

I think Celia's statement has very little to get into really, I just wanted to mention that it was a nice detail. Another if you know you know and not a topic I get into here. [Error] also has a line here I think is interesting but it requires getting more into TMA than I care for so I'm going to leave it. I'm not 100% sure what to make of it either as of yet.

And there we have it. Season 1 is wrapped. Well other than the epilogue, What If?, fluff episode, and trailer. I don't have much of a bow to tie on this really other than to say I've really enjoyed this season and I'm excited for where it's going to go next.

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Prediction Follow Up

Celia is going to get [Error]ed and exposition dump about her whole deal. - That happened but the exposition relevant to the show's plot didn't occur via that.

Alice gets got and she's got some secret twisty trauma. - Didn't happen.

Teddy can give her a lift and we'll hear what was on his mind. - Also didn't happen.

Speaking of [Error] it seems likely that Celia is going to reveal at least what she knows about Archivists. - This didn't not happen but also didn't really happen exactly.

With [Error] being this season's antagonist it's likely that she's going to get defeated in the finale. - Kinda sorta maybe.

It could be a gaping maw in realities that sucks our cast off to someplace new. - Got some of our cast at least, so lets say 3.

Hilltop is likely to play some role in defeating [Error] and if I had to hazard a guess I think it's likely we'll see some of the great cosmology at play here - Kinda sorta.

I think we're also going to see a good bit of Gwen going behind Lena's back too... I don't think we'll necessarily see anything major happen but I do think it's a pretty likely hook for season 2. - Yeah, that all basically happened.

Final Score 10/10 - Being incorrect does not impact my self-worth.

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Season 2 Predictions

Honestly, I don't have much to say for this. It's probably going to be still follow the same characters, Sam will deal with whatever new universe he's in, Celia will play dumb but Alice won't buy it, Gwen will fail to deal with her new responsibilities, Teddy will reveal some awful secret, Colin will go further into the deep end, and there will probably be some sort of Magnus-based twist.

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Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet

DPHW Theory: 3366 is a very pleasing set of numbers. This one matches episode 8's Architecture (Liminal) -/- Hunger too which I mention for the thematic symmetry. They're quite different incidents but has some similar elements. Which I think is a good indication of my theory's strength. You'd expect some sort of parallels to be able to be drawn if these numbers were ratings in categories as I've laid out. It's not definitive proof but it's more than I've had to talk about here for a while.

CAT# Theory: CAT2 is another obviously "wrong" one for the Person/Place/Object theory IMO. Hilltop is a place but Hilltop didn't cause it and it didn't happen to Hilltop. [Error] made a dude turn into concrete. Fairly useless to pin that one on the location. I think there are more than enough of these obviously faulty ones that I can stop mentioning it come season 2. Hopefully I'll have my own theory to talk about by then too.

R# Theory: We've finally got our first S. It's been long awaited if only by myself. Generally, I'm very pleased with this. An S on this case is some of the best evidence I've had that I'm correct about the general purpose of Ranks. A still living concrete man is undeniable evidence of the supernatural. No amount of explaining it away changes the fact a man turned into concrete and lived to tell the tale. It's still not 100% certain if Rank is purely about evidence or more about urgency in general but I do think now it's fairly clear that if I'm not entirely correct it's the right path.

Header talk: Transmutation (Human) -/- Isolation (Urban). Very little to talk about on that one but it's interesting to see the continued difference between transformation and transmutation.

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 29 Thoughts: Lost in Translation

We're at the penultimate episode of the season, folks. It's a surprisingly standard episode given what we had for the last one. It's also a very TMA flavoured one at that. This episode, despite being written by Alex, might have taken the top spot for one that feels the most like an Archives ep. Which isn't a bad thing. Or even a good thing. However it is an enjoyable thing and I thought this episode was really well put together on the whole. Also, fun fact for the non-readers; this episode was originally called "Locked In".

Spoilers for episode 29 below the cut.

Sam's not dead. What a shock. Genuinely, I've no real clue why people thought him dying there was a possibility. It would've been probably the least satisfying death possible for a central character. I am so on board with Sam’s death at some point though. Maybe at the end of act 1 or the midpoint of act 2 in season 3. If only to shut up the small contingent of the fanbase upset over their own invented issues about him being the sole main character whom all other characters exist to support. The gang is off to Hilltop to find all that juicy Magnus lore.

I don't think there is much to get into for Lena and Gwen's exchange here but I do think it's set up for her role in the finale. So I'll cover that later.

I really liked this incident. It felt very classically Magnus to me and was just a really solid self-contained story. It's also a really good one for using the format it's in the the benefit of the narrative being told. The structure of it as a diary and how that's used to show something traumatic happening before it's ever spoken of was very well done. The characters being an older couple also is something I think is really clever too. Not just because it helps explain the diary format. I think in a literal sense this episode doesn't need much of my insights. It was all pretty clear exactly what happened. Old couple redid their proposal holiday to tragic results leading to the survivor taking their own life via magic key. Tale as old as time that one is. There are a few language details to talk about though. The husband was called Stanley Locke. Stanley is a brand of locks. I can only assume that was intentional. The other reason them being old is important to the events is I think a younger couple would've just not gone into the locked museum. Because that's what the place is. Zamčené muzeum isn't a *lock *museum, it's a *locked *museum. Google translate would've solved this whole episode then and there. The major thing to actually talk about here is the incident's placement as the penultimate incident. It's not likely to be a randomly placed one and given it's about opening all sorts of barriers I think it's pretty obviously foreshadowing for our finale. Hilltop has more than one thing needing to be opened. The Institute's secrets, and the gap in reality. It also mirrors [Error]'s introduction as the first thing they do is open a padlock.

Teddy's near-confession is the most interesting thing in this whole episode for my money. Mostly because it's such fertile ground for speculation. There are a lot of ways it could go but there are some facts that I think point us in a direction. He still works at Royal Mint Court/was interviewed for a job there. He's still up all night. He's got a big secret he needs to tell Alice that's important to her current circumstances enough to be urgent. Meaning he therefore has new information he didn't have before he left. Which means where he is now is in a place that could provide said information. The OIAR has more going on behind the scenes than we ever see yet is seemingly staffed by a tiny amount of people. Which points to Teddy maybe still just being at the OIAR. Either just moving up in the organisation and the party was a ruse, or he was headhunted after he left and his work fell through. It could also be a company like Starkwall too, if there is any real difference between the two. Some offshoot of the Institute is also a possibility given the link between Newton and the Royal Mint. Or, he's been scooped up by Klaus.

The final scene here doesn't have an awful lot to comment on. It's somewhat curious that [Error] is able to get around so unseen but we do know she can teleport. I'm assuming she's on the train to get Celia's secrets about the Institute. Plenty of time for that too as London to Oxford is about an hour on the train. Not really anywhere for them to hide either so they're probably pretty fucked.

Now the long wait until next week begins.

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What sort of penultimate episode post would be complete without some finale predictions? I think there are a fair few pieces in play here and so there are quite a lot of things to speculate on.

I think there are some fairly obvious things that are likely to happen. Celia is going to get [Error]ed and exposition dump about her whole deal. It's got to come out some time and I think in general the show has been foreshadowing this pretty hard with Gwen and Sam both getting [Error]ed. The other major possibility here is that Alice gets got and she's got some secret twisty trauma. If *Connor is her dead name then she *is on CHDB (the Institute's list of children they tested, see the master sheet below) but I would generally hate that. I mean, they might pull it off but I really don't want Alice to have that backstory. She is the character we know the least about so far though and there have been more than a few hints about the fate of her parents. So it's a strong possibility too IMO. Albeit it does mean that Alice would need to catch up with them somehow. Maybe Teddy can give her a lift and we'll hear what was on his mind. Or it's both as this will be a double-length episode so there is room for that.

Speaking of [Error] it seems likely that Celia is going to reveal at least what she knows about Archivists. With [Error] being this season's antagonist it's likely that she's going to get defeated in the finale and as such we'll lose the best opportunity to learn more about her. Revealing that information after she's dealt with is less impactful. They might end up [Error]ing themselves and given a statement, or villain monologuing. It's curious that they're so obviously capable of speech and have said so little though. So I am expecting something to change there.

Hilltop could go a lot of ways. It could be a gaping maw in realities that sucks our cast off to someplace new. It could be nothing but some clues to the Institute's purpose. I don't have much in the way of anything I'd like it to be either. I generally think it'll be the least interesting bit of the finale. The biggest thing it could answer it won't, that being JMJ, and so I'm content to just let that one play out and not think about it too much. In either case Hilltop is likely to play some role in defeating [Error] and if I had to hazard a guess I think it's likely we'll see some of the great cosmology at play here. Both in terms of TMP itself but I think we'll get some hints at how things have changed from TMA/how TMA's things have changed.

I think we're also going to see a good bit of Gwen going being Lena's back too. Assuming we're not going to jump forward in time at all then Gwen is currently alone in the office and is clearly planning things. I don't think we'll necessarily see anything major happen but I do think it's a pretty likely hook for season 2. Either something to do with Klaus or the other strange emails. It's that or Colin is going to break in and cause some havoc. Gwen is the character I most see going along with him on this too. I think that might be a surprising take to some of you but Gwen is unique in that she doesn't actually give a shit about him, and also wants to ruin Lena's career. Colin wrecking the place while she's not there would certainly do some damage to her job stability.

I'm not too sure we'll see much of the other voiced cast. I can't really see a reason for Lena, Teddy, Ink5oul, or anyone else to get involved in the finale. Although Lena could certainly be a big part of the epilogue assuming any of the Gwen stuff goes down like I expect.

Anyway, lots to look forward to.

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Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet

DPHW Theory: 4254 is unremarkable. At this point I really don't know what it'd take to tip my theory on its head.

CAT# Theory: CAT2 is another funny one for the Person/Place/Object idea. The museum was arguably supernatural but the key was obviously supernatural. So if anything this should be CAT3 or potentially a CAT23 but it's just CAT2. If it is P/P/O I'm going to need a really strong explanation for why it sucks so bad.

R# Theory: Yeah, B sounds good to me. Strong physical evidence of a thing happening but nothing that definitively proves the supernatural. Going into the finale this whole theory seems to be holding pretty well. At least for non-Ss. An S could be a lot of things though so we'll see.

Header talk: Drowning (Subterranean) -/- Key (Metaphor) is somewhat interesting in that Key (Metaphor) can be read as the key itself being entirely metaphorical. I think that's fairly obviously wrong but it's interesting. The meaning is more that the key has the ability to open things in a metaphorical sense. It works on more than just doors, after all. So the key itself is real but it works on a looser interpretation of "opening" than just locks and doors. Beyond just that interpretation there is also the metatextual element that the incident itself is metaphorical for what's to come. Assuming it wasn't randomly placed, that is.

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 28 Thoughts: Spooky Scary Skeleton

We're in the final stretch now. I'm curious to see exactly how things will wrap up but I have a feeling we might see it all unfold in the same night now. As an episode though I've got mixed feelings. Mostly because I'm not really sure I needed to hear much of what happened in this episode's statement. It'll be an episode that will either get better or worse with context for me. If there is a compelling point to this beyond exposition that will shape my feelings on it more than the episode in isolation.

Spoilers for episode 28 below the cut.

This will be a short one, I think. There truly isn't much to comment on IMO. Very explicit and mostly pay offs to a few bits that have happened before.

Trevor is exactly what I was expecting him to be. I've seen some comments about how shockingly different he is but I'm not sure I see it. Sure, his background is different. He's well off now. He's not a better person though, he's still just a ruthless grouchy old man. A treat to have him back. His issue with the contract is a little interesting though. Because, if anything, that proves the opposite of his claim. Presumably Ink5oul didn't actually sign that contract and so isn't actually employed in any capacity but the OIAR. It's not a good look certainly but it's not actually

The data processing and amalgamation tools are locked into a 24-hour cycle

This isn't quite the explanation I was expecting but it makes about as much sense as anything else does really.

It's nice to see Gwen selling out Lena and fulfilling part of her character's promise. Her introduction is basically "I'm going to take your job, Lena" and it's nice to see that's not been forgotten in all the trauma. Personally, I'm most interested in how it all relates to Klaus. He's not likely her major source for all the dirt she's got but he is a character I'm very interested in. He was a large part of the ARG and some of the more interesting background detail of the show.

Sam's run in the not one and only Archivist is pretty straightforward. There aren't really many details in the encounter nor the statement itself I think need picking apart. The bits I think are interesting are mostly things I've covered before too so I won't re-tread much of that. Firstly, the tests Sam talks about are a series of developmental and ethical surveys. We're actually fortunate enough to not only know what tests he was subjected to but how he did on them thanks to the ARG. During that we found CHDB which is a spreadsheet of exactly that. Test results from a lot of kids that the Magnus Institute was conducting. I have the whole thing on my masterdoc which can be found here and each column contains and explanation of what the tests are. Gerry and maybe Alice is on there too. Although I hope Alice isn't.

Next up it's Dr. Welling. A character who's shown up a fair bit but we know very little about. He was first mentioned in episode 17 as the namesake of the Welling Mutare Materia research centre that Darrien 3 got locked up in. In episode 21 he's mentioned through as the PoV character complains a lot about him. We don't really know much more beyond this though and I'm expecting he'll play more of a role in season 2.

Finally, it's just the yellow light to talk about really. This is one of those classic alchemical things that we know very little about these days, most source for it are terribly cited, and extant documentation from the era is either vague or treats it as common knowledge so little rigorous explanation exists. There are basically two things this could be, if it's anything, and that's a reference to sulphur or to citrinitas/yellowing. Sulphur is, well, sulphur. In the alchemical context it's part of the tria prima and as such represents the soul. The soul in this context is the Greek psyche rather than an Abrahamic conception. So it's more about emotion and desire. Citrinitas is one of those bits we know incredibly little about. What we do know is that it's one of the classical 4 steps to create the magnum opus, AKA the great work, AKA the philosopher's stone. Often you'll see people talk about a solar light, or a light from the soul, in this context but, again, we don't really know much about it and I'm not sure I've ever seen someone cite a historical source for that.

Outside of that I'm pretty sure everything is pretty clear. Sam's got some fucked up skellington trauma. What's interesting is what this implies about the other compelled statements we've seen. This one is undeniably Sam's own experiences from his own PoV. That didn't appear to the case with Drowning Victim, as the PoV character seemed to die and then they died. It was hard to tell with the autopsy statement but it didn't seem to be the case as they were, y'know, dead. Which seemed to make the inference that when Gwen had her run in that what she was talking about were someone else's experience. Especially when the context of that statement didn't seem to really match her upbringing. With this one being obviously and undeniably Sam's experiences that one could have been Gwen's and might warrant a little more examination.

Also, just to throw this one out there. I wonder if this Archivist represents the rebis.

leaving the tape recorder to flounder in the rain and stop.

That's a fun, albeit strange, visual.

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Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet

DPHW Theory: 2578 is a fairly uninteresting set for this incident. Which is good but there is little to comment on.

CAT# Theory: I've still not sat down and worked through a few of my ideas on these. CAT2 is another of those very strange picks if it's Person/Place/Object. Even if the place itself is supernatural in some capacity there are some more obvious things it could be and so that makes this another mostly useless data point.

R# Theory: B seems about right for my ideas.

Header talk: Transmutation (Human) -/- Ceremony (Academic). They're doing it on purpose. I can feel the malice on these now. I'm attuned to the negative vibes. However, this—even more than Gwen's encounter with Ink5oul—raises the question of how this was filed. Metatextually we've had Alex talk about how the headings are written by these characters but this one doesn't seem to be the case. So this is either meta information or there is someone else filing these.

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 27 Thoughts: Uber Eats

We've broken the guest writer run with another Jonny episode and it's quickly apparent why. Super pleased to hear another Augustus incident. As I mentioned the last time we had one of these I was half expecting it to be the last of the season. Glad to be wrong and glad for another fantastic episode.

Spoilers for episode 27 of TMP and general spoilers of TMA below the cut.

There isn't a whole lot to get into for the opening scene. Lena is obviously very anxious for this visit with the minister. I'm fairly sure that's just Lena being Lena but you never know.

As I've mentioned I'm thrilled for another Augustus episode. Tim Fearon has killed it in every performance and I think the style of incident he gets are some of the most enjoyable. In no small part to the gravitas he lends these older incidents. This is going to be another quote heavy breakdown too as there are a fair few bits to really pull apart in the incident.

I really enjoyed this incident. Just a lot of fun and Augustus incidents are always great. I'm not going to get into the plot of this one too much as I feel that's fairly easy to follow. There are some details to get into all the same though. Firstly, our PoV character is an unnamed Magnus and while it'd be tempting to say it's Jonah you can't rule out the fact that their first name, and gender, wasn't mentioned here. There are also few mentions of the Great Work here too. This is something I talked about it my ep 21 post Y2K [Errors] so I won't repeat myself here. This being set in 1845 is pretty important for a few of the details but it also means it takes place just 14 years after episode 4 and so the stranger with the violin could well be our PoV character, as has been speculated by myself and others. Our Magnus' mention of being at work for 3 decades would also line up well with that timeline.

With all the more general thoughts out of the way it's time for a lot of quote.

While I have no hesitation in accepting N’s recommendation, the particulars of the collapse must be confronted directly.

The only N I think this might be alluding to is Isaac Newton. There is a later reference that, while not directly supporting this idea, reinforces it. Newton would potentially be aligned with the Institutes goals. The Great Work is the goal of alchemy and as we've seen from ep 19 it's something he was invested in. However, this episode takes place in 1845. Newton died in 1727. The "recommendation" could be something foundational to the pursuit and as such laid down before Newton passed the phrasing does make it seem more immediate than that. Which probably means this N isn't Newton, or Newton never quite kicked the bucket. Whether because he's achieved the immortality alchemy promises, or is using more sinister means. It could also be a title that's passed down too. That would be fun.

and thus far are still unable to effect transmutations beyond those endeavours we each undertook alone.

This is a very interesting quote. There are two ways of looking at this to my mind. The first is that the Great Work is simply too vast a topic for any one mind to pursue to fruition. The second is that it's impossible for one man to do it alone because the aspects of the Great Work are governed by separate powers and you can only serve/be claimed by one. If it's the second one then this is a set up anyone familiar with TMA will be very familiar with.

No, I must excise such doubts from my mind. Purification is not only to be found in chemical processes, after all.

This one isn't super important but I did want to mention that purification is the second stage in the traditional four stage process to create the Magnum Opus.

It is strange how the work of natural philosophy attunes ones eye to the things that might be termed unusual.

The quote here isn't important. The way this quote is said very much is and I've not seen anyone mention it at the time of writing. There is an unnatural strain on the word "eye" and it's obviously not a coincidence. Given the text itself doesn't have any strong meaning so I can only conclude that the problem speaking the word is with the speaker rather than the text. While it's not exactly revelatory it's likely the strongest hint we have at who Augustus is: TMA's Jonah Magnus.

our London offices

Not a whole lot to say on this bit other than it's interesting they had these at all. We knew they were snatching up a lot of land but had these been particularly prominent you'd expect them to have been mentioned by now.

Perhaps my recent frustrations with our progress and the increased scrutiny by Boyle’s incessantly meddling inheritors have pressed me to put more significance on this than is warranted

This is our second reference to episode 19. You'll all no doubt remember that Robert Hooke wrote to Robert Boyle in that episode about Newton and referenced the "Protocol" multiple times. It would now appear that my earlier speculation is correct. The histories of the Institute and the Protocol are deeply tied together and that whatever the Protocol, or rather its enactors, grows into the OIAR is connected too.

Archibald Cameron’s notebook, and found it surprisingly legible, if somewhat soiled. It is no great loss to the Institute

Okay, so this one is just bizarre. Archibald Cameron is a fairly important historical figure. He was a very prominent figure in the Jacobite rising of 1745. 100 years before this incident is set. He was the last Jacobite to be executed, in 1753. While that's now viewed as a pretty shitty move it does mean he should be well dead. There isn't really another famous Archibald Cameron that would be alive here either. So this is either the "young" 138 year old Archibald Cameron, or it's just a very odd choice of naming/a mistake. If it's the first that also means our as yet unnamed Magnus is much older than 138 if Doctor Archie is "young". Which could very well be the case if our Magnus is famed alchemist Albertus Magnus. He was born somewhere around 1200.

the rate of digestion, for lack of a better word, seems to be linked to his own levels of fear

Fear makes it hungry. Hunger theorists are either in shambles or elated.

I think that's all the interesting stuff to pick out of this incident. A really fun listen and I can't wait to hear more about

I do always enjoy Gwen and Alice hating each other. It seems like strange emails are back on the menu. Although this time I think it's more likely to be from Klaus, or one of his potential associates like Einsamernarr, than it is another John email. Especially as the address was nonsense and it contained files. It's not the first time he's leaked stuff after all, and not the first time it's been direct to Gwen.

Just… junk. Old paperwork. Nothing important. bzzt Sorry. Already deleted. bzzt

Also Alice mentioned she's trans in text now. It was always canon but now people can't deny it.

Sam and Celia's continued Magnussing doesn't have as much to dig into as you might expect here. It's all pretty explanatory and if it isn't there isn't a load to say. The obvious stuff is Hilltop and Oxford. Celia's fascination with this is obvious as she ends up in or going towards Oxford when she "sleepwalks". The Institute, and other powers, interest seems to be tied to other worlds. The Hilltop Centre is where the charity shop the hard to remember strangers packed full of strange antiques. It's also now confirmed to be where the Magnus Institute's "Outreach Centre" was that scooped up Darrien 3 in episode 17. It's also burned down in either case. It's really nice to see Alice getting more on board with all this too. I thought it was rapidly approaching the point where she wouldn't be able to just do nothing. Totally weird Celia is so concerned about the word "Archivist". Its just a job title for boring nerds.

You also have no idea how much I regret not including a joke about Trevor Herbert being the minister. I wrote a joke about the irony of going from killing blood sucking leeches to being one. I cut it because I already made the better joke about Tories that post and thought it was enough politics.

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Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet

DPHW Theory: 5535 seemed fine but I expected H to be a good bit higher on this. You can, obviously, just not fall for it. It does seem like a hard thing to escape from after it's gotten you though so I'd expect more H here. First one in a long time I've sort of disagreed with.

CAT# Theory: CAT3 is sort of interesting for the "It's not Person/Place/Object" thing. This is another one in the same sorts of realms as Mr. Bonzo or a doll, presumably, where something is ostensibly an object but has some higher level of reasoning. All three are different CAT#s too.

R# Theory: B felt quite high for this one but it's got multiple witnesses who both documented their sightings of it. For one of them they documented it while being victim to it. So that's probably fair.

Header talk: Kidnapping (Carriage) -/- Consumption [Letter]. WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN "[letter]"‽‽‽ Why did formats stop? Why did they start? Why does it not have a crosslink subsection? Can you only have 4 terms in a heading at once?

This was done to spite me, and me alone.

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 26 Thoughts: Sam is awkward. Celia is hot.

Yet another guest writer episodes and this time it's Muna Hussen. She' co-creator and producer on The Silt Verses, and produced and acted in I Am In Eskew. The Silt Verses is a show I can wholeheartedly suggest giving a listen. It's great in just about every way a thing can be. I might leave a pitch for it as an addendum. I Am In Eskew is in the forever pile of things I may one day get to. It's a really well written episode too, I liked this one a lot. It is, unfortunately, another pretty explicit one so I don't expect to have a load to say, but that's not the same as it being bad.

Spoilers for episode 26 below the cut.

Celia and Sam's conversation doesn't have a load of note in it. Yes, they're going to meet Helen but that's for later. The important detail here is how Celia categorises her incidents. Which she does with the least effort imaginable. She's not had any misfiles yet which tells me that either those no longer happen or you just need to get it in the right Section. But more importantly than that it's also a good look at just how little she cares about the job. We've all known she's had ulterior motives from her introduction but it's nice to see ways that is reflected.

Much like the last incident there isn't too too much to rip into for what I talk about. I'm not sure the themes of this one speak to any greater connection and the characters are all new as far as I know. Which only really leaves one detail to talk about. The Archivist or, rather, *an *Archivist as that's the more interesting detail. The Archivist here didn't really do much we've not seen before. The forced running isn't to dissimilar to the forced drowning and Jarrod did seem to be mumbling in classic fashion. No statement to be heard as such but that might just be because of the framing. However, unlike previous run ins with an Archivist they're very much aware that they're not the only one. Whether this leads to something more grand or not is hard to say but it's an interesting detail.

Alice is finally up to episode 11 with the plot. More seriously it's nice to see her piecing things together now. I do wonder if that was Chester's point or not. Gwen was a little weird in this interaction IMO. Alice and Gwen shared a fairly major revelation together, that this ties into, but she seems to have distanced herself a lot from that emotionally already. Which isn't out of character but does come a little fast.

Helen is *very *Helen here. I think of all the returning characters she might have changed the least. At least from where she started. It's lovely to see her back, although I do wonder if maybe they're leaning on these characters a little too much at this stage. It's hard to know if this is one-off fanservice or the way of things going forward. I hope it's the latter because the less of the old cast we get the more of the new cast we'll see. There isn't a huge amount to say here but its good to see them getting more information about the Institute. Also, unfortunately Helen is still a tory. Categorically disproving the "these characters are now living their best life" theory. It's all still hell. I'd also include the transcripts note for the laugh but that's a TMA spoiler and probably one person hasn't seen that show. Besides if you know, you know.

Sam and Celia finally fucked. Good for them. Well, bad for them if TMA is anything to go off for couples in this setting. But, y'know.

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Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet

DPHW Theory: 4463 is pretty normal for this, I think. No major surprises.

CAT# Theory: 1 is a 1. I'll maybe try to write an essay on this before the season ends. No prommies tho.

R# Theory: BC seems about right.

Header talk: Exhaustion (Athletic) -/- Compulsion (Tape). Also very very normal.

I guess I will write that addendum then.

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Addendum: Go listen to The Silt Verses.

It's a horror audio drama that's more or less a world where the modern religious landscape is a polytheistic one, with fabricated corporate gods putting pressure on local ones, outlawed religions, and all sorts of fun stuff. But it's a world where religions, fabricated or otherwise, are also powerful and gods do exist and perform miracles. It follows two worshippers of the Trawler Man, and outlawed god, on their pilgrimage up its great black river. As you might expect things don't go smoothly and soon enough there's a man hunt, run ins with cults stranger than theirs, and all sorts of revelations.

The world building is a real high light too. It's just the right level of "this world is horrific yet treated as mundane". It's worth listening just to see how that's all built on.

I rate it a strong prisoners-buried-alive-in-the-foundations-of-new-construction-projects-to-bless-them/10.

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 25 Thoughts: Tech Support

The fabled mukbang episode is upon us. This is probably the most TMA an episode has been too. Jonny wrote it so that's not a major surprise but it really does feel like the most seamless to slot into TMA of all the episodes so far. It was a great one too. Who doesn't love dinner and a show? No notes.

Spoilers for episode 25 below the cut.

Alice and Sam's interaction is interesting to me for entirely how uninteresting it is. I'm not sure if it's just me but I feel like there has been this run of episodes recently that are sort of coasting in terms of plot progression. That's not a bad thing but it does feel like we're in a bit of a trough between big things right now. Not that this episode doesn't have at least some progression in it. It's just not now, and not next.

The incident was a lot of fun IMO. Really evocative, a great format, a nice solid contained story where no one horrifically dies. Hard to complain about anything that happened here. Just some great Magnus-flavoured horror. Similarly to the last couple I don't know that this is going to have much bearing on later episodes. It doesn't feel like there is much in here we haven't seen before. Obviously the specifics are different but I couldn't point to anything metaphysically unique in this one. It is, of course, the most hunger related one of these we've had in a while. So the Hunger-not-Fear theorist are eating well I'm sure. I don't really buy that. Or, at least, I don't think it's actually all that different than TMA. I think the strongest name we have for them right now is Dread thanks to the capital D Dread from the transcript of Hard Reset. Although it's entirely possible there is more than one category of entity here. If we didn't have German to go off of I'd also say it would be a good theory for what DPHW might mean. Each letter representing an entity, or type of entity, and the influence they have upon any given incident. That's all unrelated to the incident, of course, but I did feel like I should talk about something here.

Poor poor Colin. Cursed by the plot to get institutionalised for being right. Well, for the hammer stuff but that's nearly like being right. What's probably the most tragic part about this is that the team is primed to believe him now. Had he laid out what he knows sans hammer he'd probably have won them over but paranoia is a cruel mistress indeed.

Lena caring more about rules than people is unfortunately attractive. It's incredibly funny to me that the OIAR offices are in such a disarray that the terminals are apparently right next to server racks. I'm going to be interested to see where this goes. Sam standing up to Lena and flatly declaring that things are fucked up in the office should have some sort of payoff but I do sort of worry it might not get mentioned. The compartmentalisation of the OIAR is clearly falling to bits but she didn't seem super worried in this exchange about that. Hopefully we'll get to see more of that in the future.

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Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet

DPHW Theory: 2474 is about where I was expecting it to land. Not a whole lot to add there.

CAT# Theory: At CAT2 this is another one of those that reinforces my belief that if CAT is Person/Place/Object then CAT is a terrible way to grade anything. Obviously the restaurant is a place but there was also clearly someone in the place working with it in some way. That's entirely ignored by putting it in CAT2 and so is discarding information of merit for no real reason. If a team responds to this you'd expect them to want to know that there is a killer cook in the building too.

R# Theory: B seems a little high to me but I also can't really think of a good reason why it shouldn't be B.

Header talk: Food (Gorging) -/- Compulsion (Disgust) is pretty descriptive, so not much to say on that one.

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 24 Thoughts: Teething Problems

Back to back guest writers. This time it's Alex C. Telander from both Ostium, and Circé. Which are, again, shows I have not yet listened to and so can't comment upon. A Norris episode too, sort of, been a very long time since we've had one of those. A really good episode though, if one thin on the ground for the sort of content I write about.

Spoilers for episode 24 below the cut.

Gwen and Lena's interaction wasn't exactly how I was imagining Gwen getting back in the good books going. I do wonder if this is going to be a marked shift in Gwen's characterisation going forward or if it's more of a one-off thing. Another mention of the minister does make me hope we'll meet them soon. I've seen a lot of people expecting this to be Elias but I'd rather it be a new character. Well, that Elias would be new but you understand my point. If it's anyone we've previously "met" I'm expecting it to be Peter Lukas more than Elias.

For the incident proper this is another that doesn't have an awful lot to dig into. I did really enjoy it but when its so explicit and straight forward I don't think there is a lot of value in me just stating what happened in it. The only interesting element of the incident to discuss would've been whether any of this was in her head but the heading does give that away. Other than that it's just the mention of Celia. That's only really interesting for two reasons. Firstly that no one mentioned it after the fact which you'd expect to happen but we also don't get an indication of who listened to this one. Secondly is that Rupert really seemed to like her. With a lot of this incident seemingly being a delusion I'm not actually sure there is much to talk about there either. There really might not be a whole lot wrong with Rupert here and so there isn't any reason to think that this is some sort of sign of anything. So, yeah, not much to say on that one but it was a well written and well performed episode. I really enjoyed it.

The post-incident stuff doesn't have a load to dig into either. The interaction with Sam, Celia, and Alice feels pretty explicit without a lot of subtext or ground for theory crafting. Celia continues to manipulate the whole staff, and Sam and Alice continue to butt heads about the sort of stuff that likely made them break up. Very little to say on Basira showing up either. I'm not really sure why she was in this episode. This one just felt like fan service to me in its current context. Which isn't bad exactly but it's not something that personally excites me.

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Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet

DPHW Theory: 1375 seems about right here.

CAT# Theory: Yeah, 1s are 1s. I'll do something with this once I'm not dying so much.

R# Theory: BC seems about inline with this. It seems a lot more in her head than it is in reality but there is also video evidence of it.

Header talk: Baby (demonic) -/- Delusion (Exhaustion) having this in "Delusion" is interesting in that it's fairly explicitly a statement that not everything she's experiencing is the truth. Given the reactions others in this episode it does sort of seem like very very little of it was.

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 23 Thoughts: Not Not NotThem

After quite the hiatus we're back with another guest writer. This time it's Harlan Guthrie of Malevolent fame. A show I likely won't ever get around to listening to but have heard nothing but good things about. So everyone go check it out if you liked this. This one is very obviously from a guest writer too. Its style and contents are pretty distinct from TMA. Which is not a bad thing by any means and it's a really great episode overall.

Spoilers for episode 23 below the cut.

There isn't a huge amount to dig into in the opening scene. I do like that the paperwork is a continuing process and it's pretty likely there will be some sort of pay of too it. Lena doesn't seem to be lying in this scene either. She really does seem to think that it's a prank. So assuming it's not a prank she doesn't seem to have as tight a grip on the office as she thinks she does. It's also interesting how engrossed it makes Sam but that might just be a character quirk rather than anything greater.

I really liked this incident but, honestly, I really don't have a load to say on this incident. I thought it was a really well written incident but quite explicit as incidents go and not a huge amount to dig into for larger puzzle pieces. It's also always tricky to know what's meaningful to the larger story when there is a guest writer. Jonny and Alex do give input but it's not like we know what that input is. Either way there is only two things I can think to mention here for it. The first is the time discrepancy in the post dates. The penultimate post comes a months after the final post. Which might not really mean much of anything to be honest. This is a doppelganger incident and those have typically had time discrepancies in them but the nature of this one doesn't lead to an easy explanation of that. So it might mean something, or it might be a mistake. I don't think it's a particularly important detail as of yet in either case.

The other bit in the mention of copper. Copper is a planetary metal, along with things like silver and mercury that have recently appeared, but the symbolic nature of those is a tricky subject to get into. Alchemy as a subject is mixed up with a lot of newer takes on things and so any its not always wise to assign too much in the way of importance to that. But that being said copper is the metal of Venus, both the planet and the god. Venus/Aphrodite obviously have some strong connection to this sort of incident. However part of the reason for copper being associated with Venus is copper's role as a metal to make mirrors from. That's a more compelling angle to this one for me. Alesis did pretty literally make their mirror double here.

Newman is a very on the nose name here too.

Sam and Celia's Institute sleuthing has not a whole lot of interest for me either if I'm honest. Basira and Helen are Basira and Helen, not much to say there until we meet them. The version of John and Martin Sam identified is weird though. It's weird in that it doesn't actually make any sense. He said they were "close to the right age" but that doesn't really track. It either means they were born at the right time, or died at the right time. But in either scenario it's sort of just nonsense. If they were born at the right time they died around 10. That's obviously possible but it raises a lot of questions about why Celia would be looking into some 10 year olds. If they died at the right age then they're offset by about 20 years which also doesn't track with anything else we've seen. The only other scenario is that she's not looking for TMP's John and Martin but rather TMA's as that could account for a time discrepancy but if that's the case neither of those ages are the right age. So all of that is probably a red herring.

Gwen and Alice opening up to each other is really nice to see too. Even though they do both hate each other outside of Sam and Alice they're the characters with the most history and it's great to see that having some weight. There isn't anything new here from our perspective, other than [Error] having too many eyes but that's not a big shock, but it's nice that the characters are actually talking about this stuff. It did seem pretty likely that they'd all be having their own insular adventures around the mid-season point but having them all come together like this is a nice thing to see.

I’ve not been “arsey”- bzzt

10/10

Great ep all around.

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Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet

DPHW Theory: 3536 seems pretty normal to me on this one. The more data I get the less I feel like anything comes up that needs explaining in my theory. Beyond the initial shift from my conceptions of these groups as fears to broader thematic elements I think this is proving to be pretty rock solid now. I'll keep this section around but I do think there will be not much of interest in these at this point.

CAT# Theory: 13 is great for my "It's not People/Places/Objects" essay. There wasn't an object in this one. Coral are animals and so count as people, the host is person, the Not Not NotThem also a person. If you say that animals count as objects it creates large problems in the theory. I really should have a sit down to puzzle this one out.

R# Theory: BC is interesting because initially I thought that was a bit low as the most similar case to this format was RedCanary's and that's AB. But that also had a lot more interaction and photos included which would bump it up for my theory there. So this one does actually check out.

Header talk: Transformation (Dysmorphic) -/- Doppleganger (Infection) is very peculiar. Daria's incident has a very similar header but Dysmorphic was the crosslink and Full was the subsection. Hard to know if it means anything but it's interesting in some sense of the word.