cherrywine27 - Tumblr blog

[cherrywine27]

Pov: you’re Sam

[cherrywine27]

would u love me if i was a text to speech computer software?

[cherrywine27]

I know he’s kind of a polarizing character, but I have to say, Elias Bouchard truly is Iconic. When you hear the twist of “the boring middle manager was actually secretly an evil eldritch monster the whole time!” you sort of assume that the boring middle manager persona was just a facade, but no, he really does seem to just enjoy dull administrative work. He’s both exactly as boring as he seems on the surface and profoundly fucked up in ways you couldn’t imagine. He’s practically omniscient and playing 4-D chess with everyone, but he responds to even slight hiccups in his elaborate scheme with acts of extreme violence. He beats an old man to death with a metal pipe and when someone brings it up later he goes, “Yeah I may have overreacted there.” His employees are constantly trying to murder him. He broke out of prison just so he could give a dramatic monologue. He had a weird gay thing going on with seemingly every man he met in the past 200 years. He loves scheduling.

[cherrywine27]

I love this so much! This absolutely the creepiest Jon I have seen. And poor Martin just looking so resigned

Pov one of the spooky computer guys sent you an email, good luck Sam

[cherrywine27]

The reason why TMA and TMagP frighten me so badly is because I listened to TMagP5 and my conclusion was "Damm that sounds like a good horror movie". I would not survive the horrors. We can't all be Joshua Gillespie, somebody has to be that stupid horror blogger.

[cherrywine27]

Ok. This is a thing I've thought about a lot...

We are so unfair to Orpheus. Yeah, sure, reading about it from the perspective of Edith Hamilton's Mythology (yes, I'm old) of course we think we'd do better.

But honestly?????

You are bringing something out of the underworld, sight unseen, into the "real" world... If Orpheus hadn't looked we all know that he would have pulled an actual demon into the world of the living, right?

"if i was orpheus i would simply not turn around" yes you would. if you were orpheus and you loved eurydice, you would. to love someone is to turn around. to love someone is to look at them. whichever version of the myth — he hears her stumble, he can't hear her at all, he thinks he's been tricked — he turns around because he loves her. that's why it's a tragedy. because he loves her enough to save her. because he loves her so much he can't save her. because he will always, always turn around. "if i was orpheus i would simply —" you wouldn't be orpheus. you wouldn't be brave enough to walk into the underworld and save the person you love. be serious

[cherrywine27]

"the magnus protocol had a whole ARG beforehand? what?"

yes! it did!

"oh so I need to have participated in this whole big thing to actually understand the podcast?"

not at all! from the official post-mortem put out by RQ, "while the ARG was not something that was necessary to participate in to understand the magnus protocol, it was designed to contain a wealth of background story and context that would enrich any player's listening experience."

"a wealth of background context that would enrich my listening experience 👀👀👀 how can I learn about this?"

SO glad you asked. sadly, many of the materials made for the arg have been taken down since the game ended 😔 (ex., the official OIAR, magnus institute, and bonzoland websites. though @strangehauntsuk is still up!), so we're a bit low on primary sources, but in terms of learning about what happened:

for a starting point, I would really recommend this video by @pinkelotjeart

it's super accessible, it was made in real time as the game progressed and follows the solving and revelation of clues as they happened, it hits all the major points of the mystery and moments of community insanity while eliding some of the nitty gritty puzzle grinding, 10/10 would recommend.

here's the official summary put out by RQ, and I'd recommend reading through this once you've already gotten a basic handle on the flow of the story and the basic connections between major clues and events. it's got some fun behind-the-scenes info and lays out the thought process behind the puzzles in simple terms

here's the full masterdoc of all puzzles and resolutions put together in the statement remains discord server. masterdoc my absolute BELOVED, masterdoc my bethrothed, masterdoc my soul mate. I'd recommend this as a second port of call after the above video as it either contains all details about the puzzles or links to other expanded docs that do.

here's the narrative summary doc that lays out all the plot and lore discovered in three pages of plain prose. if you just want to get to the good bits as fast as you can and get blasted directly in the face by contextless lore bombs, this is the doc for you. if you don't want to start with the video, I'd say this is another good entry point.

once you've got the lay of the land, some of the game materials that I found particularly interesting include:

the in-universe east germany expat usenet forum, with all content translated into english. most of it is irrelevant space filler with occasional extremely sus lore, but I still found it fun to read through. love to soak in some fictional forum drama.

chdb.xlsx, the spreadsheet of the names of all the children the protocol 'verse magnus institute was studying/experimenting on. EDIT: here is a version of the sheet without any annotations and with all of the names in their original order, kudos to @theboombutton for catching that the commonly shared copy had the order swapped around.

klaus.xls, a (very corrupted) spreadsheet with what looks like the classifications of a bunch of old OIAR cases.

EDIT: have a few more saved materials from the game that I forgot to include.

an in-universe audio ad to apply to the OIAR that ran before archives episodes and kicked off the whole game.

an in-universe video ad to apply to the OIAR, this one is an official upload that's still up from the game itself. you can subscribe to the OIAR's official youtube channel today, if you so chose.

the robo-voicemail greeting from the OIAR's phone line.

once you start poking around in these documents, you'll find a bunch of links to others with further information, the materials I've included here just contain what I feel to be the most relevant details to getting a broad feel for the whole game. once again, huge shout out to the statement remains server, I was barely in there as the ARG was in progress and only ducked my head in every so often to find links like these. true mvps of the fandom.

[cherrywine27]

As a mom to two kids who do not have straight-forward paths to follow... I wish more adults in the world had this approach <3 <3 <3

Also if you regularly work with kids/teens I cannot stress how important it is that you know someone who's like really into lame emo junk. There was a girl my dad was working with who just flat out refused to talk to adults or anyone at all and one day I was there and I saw her wearing a homemade bracelet that had beads that said YLDNDAHFHHACYCSYCDAYDKK and since I was also once a 14 year old making niche homemade mcr merch I was like "oh my god you like dnd Audrey Hepburn Fangoria Harry Houdini and croquet you cant swim you can't dance and you dont know karate!!!" and she looked at me like I'd said literal magic words and now we talk about music all the time

[cherrywine27]

Also if you regularly work with kids/teens I cannot stress how important it is that you know someone who's like really into lame emo junk. There was a girl my dad was working with who just flat out refused to talk to adults or anyone at all and one day I was there and I saw her wearing a homemade bracelet that had beads that said YLDNDAHFHHACYCSYCDAYDKK and since I was also once a 14 year old making niche homemade mcr merch I was like "oh my god you like dnd Audrey Hepburn Fangoria Harry Houdini and croquet you cant swim you can't dance and you dont know karate!!!" and she looked at me like I'd said literal magic words and now we talk about music all the time

[cherrywine27]

hes soooo bitchy please. i need him and its terminal.

[cherrywine27]

RQ knew exactly what they were doing when they made this little shit

(pose reference by aquesart on tiktok)

[cherrywine27]

Ok, look, this is my beta (not even beta, really, but certain fun) theory, but hear me out...

Celia.

Yes, I know (and believe me I believe), but what if????

Why does Celia know enough to make knowing comments about the Archives (knowing enough to make the TMA fandom lose their collective sh... er... minds?) Why is she making snarky comments about tape recorders and manila folders when she apparently doesn't remember anything that might tie those into her experience?

What if...

What if Celia is just a TMA fan from OUR universe who managed to find her way through the rift at Hill Top Road into the The Magnus Protocol?

[cherrywine27]

Pov one of the spooky computer guys sent you an email, good luck Sam

[cherrywine27]

I just can’t get over how much I love that Needles picked up a whole neurosis just because Alex was mean

So while listening to Episode 6's case, I remembered that during the early premiere stream Jonny and Alex talked about Needles a bit. So I figured I'd put them together to make a nice little intro for Needles because I fell in love with him immediately.

[cherrywine27]

akjcjajrkcg

[cherrywine27]

jmart season 4 pining hehe

[cherrywine27]

He's all eyes. He's all eyes.