#and tmagp only has a few episodes so there’s no way to know

[jupitersrising]

TMA and tmagp and the marauders have made me realize that my type is just Alice and their genius girlfriends.

[skyeoak]

Thoughts on tmagp episode 24

*cough* my sister had a newborn a few months ago. Here’s some red flags about “the health visitor” from today’s episode:

- newborns feed every 2-3 hours, usually 2.5. Idk if this is different in the UK but I don’t see why it would be.

- most babies are born with greyish eyes, which changes over time. If Rupert’s a newborn when she’s talking about his black orb eyes, this is maybe a red flag?

- “I couldn’t scream, I didn’t want to wake him” AHHHHHH oh god the psychological horror of having a newborn aghfjgjfhhhhhh

Very Rosemary’s Baby, but instead of going full satanic panic, “Raising Issues” focuses on the self-sacrificial narrative mothers are told, and how that leads to a dangerous and isolating situation as Patricia ignores every red flag in sight. I had my head in my hands. Honestly, I wish we’d dived deeper into the socioeconomic stuff rather than the body horror because back to back with “A New You” it felt like too similar of a story structure, even though imo they’re meant to be parallels.

23 and 24 have been so similar that they’re definitely intentional contrasts to each other. One’s from Chester talking about how you can long to change yourself so fully only for it to all go wrong, and this one’s from Norris about destroying yourself to support the one you love… I am ill, actually. Screaming crying relistening to the last recording in this case file and finding all the points that are reminiscent of Mag 170 (Recollection).

These lines specifically are making me think. Once again, I am ill.

Chester: “Alesis Newman is leaving this world and whatever comes next – though she may look like me in some ways, though she may carry a part of me with her – she’ll be better. Free of all my mistakes. Perhaps people will like her more than me. I already like her more than me. I want to see her walk off happy and strong. I hope she doesn’t feel this now, just be the good parts of me. (hoarse) I hope it’s like I dreamt, I hope she has my eyes…”

Norris: “I can’t remember when… when I last… had sleep. I think… I think days…” + “I don’t know what’s going to happen. There’s not much of me left. I’m so scared. But at least Rupey’s happy…”

Considering this is the first Norris case file in over 10 episodes (since episode 12, unless I’m wrong) and he’s literally just reading the stuff between recordings, I’m a bit concerned.

Who the fuck is reading this statement and why didn’t they mention it to Celia IMMEDIATELY? If it was Sam, he knows she has a kid and is in a support group, and if it was Celia herself, then idk why she isn’t at least concerned (that’s suspicious, Celia.) I guess Gwen and Alice don’t know about Jack, so they’re off the hook.

ALSO rupert? A red name? Philosopher’s stone alchemical reference? Or just referring to the blood he’s feeding on?

I know I’m gonna see a ton of takes on this episode being like “this is why I’m childfree” and, like yeah, I’m not planning on kids either but this story is such an extension of existing social structures that I hope we talk, at least a little, about the social narratives at work here about pregnancy, parenthood, and childcare.

[ladyjayde]

Okay, I have some things to say about the first season of The Magnus Protocol... This might be a long one but I don't care ✨

SPOILERS OBVS IF YOU'RE NOT UP TO DATE

I'd like to mention beforehand that I absolutely ADORED TMA, and I'm a big fan of Jonny and Alex's work. Maybe this is just me having too high expectations for this series, but I have spoken to some of my friends who also listen to this podcast and have listened to Magnus Archives and pretty much everyone agrees. So here we go

I'm not feeling it. I didn't enjoy this season at all in all honesty. The only moments that excited me was the lore we had for the TMA characters to which, as far as we know, have nothing to do with this story. It was all filler to please the fans which is appreciated, but every statement in this season felt unimportant. Sure, we had Mr. Bonzo and a couple others that we saw again as part of Gwen's work, but they never truly felt like a threat to me. If anything, most interactions they got felt coincidental more than anything.

Which leads to my second point, there was no action in the season and it made it political and boring to me :/ I understand that's this is how TMA kinda started as well, with a lot of build up and set up for the world. BUT, at least we got SOMETHING by the end of the season. There was real danger and survival instinct activated for the characters. TMAGP has none of that... They jump in, no questions asked and no questions answered. There's no thrill, there's barely any suspense. It feels empty.

And now the characters themselves. Well, except from the very charged introduction to all of them at once that lead many fans to be confused and have difficulty identifying each of them in the first few episodes, they are pretty mundane. None of their stories truly engage with me. Don't get me wrong, I still love them, but they feel a bit boring and all too similar to each other. They get lost in the plot and don't feel like individuals. It's like they're forgetting who they are in order to feed into the plot.

Now, with all of that being said, here's what I think could've helped make this a better series.

1. Make it a longer series. As of now, there's only one episode left which, yes, is supposed to be double length, but nothing has happened yet for me to want a second season. Even if it has taken an extra year or two, I would've rather waited. So, unless something very intense happens next Thursday, I don't think S2 will be in my "Need to listen" list. Too much setup, not enough fear. Like, I'm not even worried that Sam or Celia will die in the next episode. They have so much plot armor I'm certain they'll survive.

2. Make the statements have an effect on the characters. Only Sam seems to take interest in them. But with the others just setting them aside and ignoring the stories, it makes us feel like they're unimportant as well. And it sucks, cause TMA's statements had an effect on the characters and changed their ways of thinking. Now, they're just there to be there and not much is coming out of them.

So yeah, this is MY PERSONAL OPINION and I still want to support Rusty Quill for all the beautiful podcasts they create for us, but TMAGP was not it for me. I love this fandom, I love the lore and the writing itself, but the story didn't hook me in as much as I would've liked it to.

I might regret all of this by next week when the last episode comes out, but for now, these are my thoughts.

I'll get back to you all next week to share my overall thoughts on the S1 of The Magnus Protocol.

Feel free to comment or repost with your own thoughts! I'd love to hear if I'm alone in this or if people agree

Love you all <3

[helpimstuckposting]

TMAGP 30 Speculation

Now that it’s season finale time, I’ve got a LOT to say and a lot of ideas so I will ramble them here and either I’m horribly wrong or horribly right but unfortunately we have to wait to find that out

First, I can’t believe Alice had two mysterious talks with her friends saying they have something super important to say with a horrified quiver to their voices and she didn’t have time to listen to EITHER of them. Teddy and Colin are high high high on the list for ‘died off mic and we only find out next season’

Since Gwen was promoted (idiot) and Sam is… mmm… missing, it looks like the OIAR will need to fill at least one position, and I think it would be fun if Teddy came back to take his place as a main character. It’s possible that what he had to say was “This new job… it’s not exactly [working out]” and he was simply looking for a new one, and it’s no more ominous than that. If that’s the case, I can absolutely see him taking his position back next season. Colin’s probably dead, though, I’ll be shocked if he’s not tbh

Speaking of Colin, he called the system Freddy while talking to Alice. You know, the same guy that said “Don’t give it a personality. We shouldn’t even be calling it Freddy.” So the change up here is really blatant to me.

I’m still really attached to the idea that Jon and Martin (and Jonah’s) voices were stolen and they’re not actually trapped in the computers. However, I *do* think the voices are sentient, I just don’t think we’re right about who’s behind them. I think Freddy, the program itself, may be using the voices to push its own agenda and manipulate the decisions each OIAR employee is making. Alice gets a lot of JMJ errors, and is specifically the only person on staff who actively tunes the cases out and does not read into them.

OR, if it does turn out to be our guys, then I think it’s possible they’re working counter productively to Freddy, and the JMJ errors are a result of that — like they’re actively trying to work against Freddy. This could also be why Colin said he messed up, like maybe his attempts to deal with the JMJ errors made Freddy more powerful.

Either way, it seems the OIAR is in a huge bind going into season two. Colin probably did something buck wild and pissed the computer off, he’s probably dead, Sam is missing and they’ll need a new hire, Lena is gone (the only person who presumably knew anything that was going on) and Gwen just got promoted to boss despite having 1) absolutely no idea what’s going on with anything at all, 2) an inability to handle the externals and several panic attacks, and 3) no clue what Lena’s job even was, with no direction from the man who promoted her. It seems like even the PM has no real clue what the OIAR does, how it functions, or who it employs (“I’m sorry, do you hire a lot of murderers for contract and consultancy work?” - the answer is Yes, actually, several!)

Picturing the team next season as Alice, Teddy, Celia, and their boss Gwen is… a comedy of errors (or comedy of [ERROR]s? … Sorry) like that absolutely cannot go well. Although, we are pretty used to people being hired as a boss while they have no qualifications of the sort (also did not go well)

As for Sam, the Archivist, and Hilltop Road, I have a few questions about what could possibly happen. First, if the crack in reality was specifically calling for and tugging Celia toward it, we can probably assume that it’s the TMA universe on the other side, right? Which means Sam and the Archivist are now in our original beloved universe. I’m curious to see if Sam is just going to be MIA for the entirety of season two, or if we’ll get tape recordings of him at the same time as our TMagP friends, and we’ll have updates between both universes. I could see that being very interesting if some voice actors appear as two different people in the same episode (their TMA part, and their TMagP counterpart) but that would probably be really complicated to pull off in an audio format.

Also, we know the TMA fears cannot be separated, and that they’re possibly just one entity and have been one entity the whole time. That’s why they couldn’t start the apocalypse without all of them participating, and that’s why when Annabelle opened the crack in reality they all left the TMA universe. “Any attempt to separate the fears is doomed,” is what she said. She also said, “I would either travel with them, or I would die. I do not know which... Most would simply lose whatever power they have been gifted.”

So, if an archivist travels back through the crack in reality, what would happen to them? They’d be cut off from the entity that gave them power, right? So either the archivist will die, or maybe we’ll find out who Beth Eyre (the voice of [ERROR])’s character really is? Who they were before they became an archivist?

I don’t think they’d introduce [ERROR] and then just get rid of them without any resolution, which leads me to believe we will eventually find out what happened to Sam. I don’t think Sam’s just going to be dead or missing and never come back, I don’t see how there’d be any point to that. He is still the only person we know of who’s survived telling their whole statement, and even though he had a headache I feel like that must be significant. The janitor turned into a rock, I really don’t think a normal person would just walk away with a headache. Like, for all intents and purposes, Sam probably should have had his skin ripped off if we’re following the pattern of [ERROR] related deaths.

I hope next season focuses on Hilltop Road, because the lore in this episode was amazing. First of all, it was hard not to notice how each shop had a different danger. The custodian mentioned the drunk man walking into the newsagent and then he “ignored the smell of burnt hair and charred meat”. Then there was the shop that turned a woman into a mannequin, and Sam and Celia walked past the appliance shop where doors kept opening and closing, and the dentist that wanted peoples teeth. There was also the antique shop from episode 7 that almost buried the manager alive, plus the institute also used one of the units. I could be reading too much into it, but it feels like each fear from TMA has uhhhh… set up shop?

It’s also interesting to me that Annabelle said every owner on Hilltop Road in TMA was marked by the Spider, and died a grizzly death.

“So many schemers and spiders and full-throated monsters. Twisting manipulators and furtive liars. Each meeting a violent, grotesque end.” (TMA 196)

And the owner of Hilltop Center was no different.

“I found the owner dead in his office, with every blood vessel stripped from his body and strung around the room in a grim cat’s cradle.”

Not only did he die a violent and mysterious death, but his blood vessels were strung up ‘in a cats cradle’, which is pretty web-like if you ask me.

Anyway, I’m really really hoping to learn more about Hilltop Center next season, that’s the ONE thing I’m super latched on to post-finale

[sambellamysleftkneecap]

TMAGP Theory

idk if someone has said this yet, but I’ve got a theory that the entities of TMAGP are the seven deadly sins/something similar. Most of the cases have a main one from what I can tell, here’s how I’ve sorted some of them mentally:

Wrath- Ep 4, The Mr. Bonzo stuff, Ink5oul as an entity, Ep 6, Ep 15, Ep 27, Ep 24

Envy- Ep 2, Ep 23

Pride- Ep 5, Ep 21, Ep 20

Sloth- Ep 3,

Greed- Ep 9, Ep 13, Ep 22, Ep 19, The Magnus Institute in general, the Archivist

Lust- n/a

Gluttony- Ep 8, Ep 25

A lot of these I’m p iffy on, so few free to let me know what you think!

If I’m right abt this in any sort of way, we should be getting like a season arc primarily involving wrath and have a general arc relating to greed (akin to how in TMA, the Eye was always an underlying theme until the last season). I’m relating the Magnus Institute to greed in this instance b/c not only is Jonah Magnus a slut for information, it also fits with the focus on alchemy that’s present in this universe. I’m not sure if the writers would do this exact category dealio, but something I’m pretty sure on is that TMAGP is less about fear and more about shame or social faux pas (ie: Sam’s statement in 28. While ofc his situation is terrifying, the emotion that gets underscored is his shame, or the episode with the magic dice that can fuck up other people’s futures, yeah that’s a terrifying power to wield, but it seemed like the speaker felt more guilty than scared)

Let me know if any of you have thoughts about this!!!

[archivists-plus-one]

So, after this episode of TMAGP, I have some thoughts.

(Spoilers for The Magnus Protocol up to episode 10 below. You have been warned.)

First of all, Mr Bonzo is terrifying and I am regretting making a model of him, which now sits and watches me from my bedroom shelf. I have so many questions, and nowhere near enough answers to satisfy my brain.

But what got me even *more* is what happened at the Magnus Institute ruins with Sam and Alice.

And who is this [ERROR] (Voiced by Beth Eyre) that is seemingly unleashed from the institute ruins at the end?  

Well, I don't know. But I do have a bit of a theory...

What do we know about [ERROR]? Well. Not much. But I did come across this casting call from RQ, posted by @pinkelotjeart, which at the time they thought might be about Celia, however I can't see how it could be anybody if not [ERROR].

Mysterious? Absolutely. Hostile? If they're not, I'd be shocked. Raspy voice? If that breathing was anything to go by, definitely. Initially dormant, trapped + forgotten for twenty years? Well, the institute burned down just over twenty years ago, so I'm going to say that's a match too. Now the line that interested me most is the one that OP also highlighted - "building an identity for itself at the expense of its victims". 

What else have we seen "building an identity for itself"? Something that Colin has warned Alice against personifying over and over again? FR3-D1. And Freddie certainly seems to be taking its toll on Colin, who could feasibly be it's "Victim"...

Now what exactly does this mean? I don't know! But noting that [ERROR] is also the way Jonny, Alex + Tim Fearon's character names were written out by RQ when the casting was announced (as they couldn't do the glitchy effect from the images), it feels significant. 

But like I said. I don't know. That being said, imagine, for a moment, that you are this "[ERROR]" character...

You know your body is under the Magnus Institute, so you wait, biding your time, collecting as much information as you can. You watch through people's devices - harder, at first, but it gets easier and easier as technology advances. Some select few get the chance to relive their experiences, a "test screening" of sorts you name 'Voyeur' - you need to check your recordings are accurate somehow. You get involved with a tattoo artist named 'Ink5oul', who helps you out by live streaming their tattoo processes, showing you what the symbols they tattoo onto their clients mean, and how they combine.

You're not entirely undisturbed in your tomb under the Institute, of course - some idiots come poking around. It's a newer craze, "urban exploration", but you need it to stop. You find the most popular urbex forums, and, using the moderators accounts, make sure that your ruins are marked as "cleared" - there's nothing interesting to find there, so nobody will bother you. 

That is, until someone who goes by the name of "RedCanary" comes to the ruins, and almost destroys everything. It isn't time yet. You find their post about the Institute and see that they're planning to post photos of the symbols that have been drawn over the ruins. That will only invite more interest, you can't have that. So you go through their phone and warp the photographs they took beyond recognition. You send them "anonymous" threats, making it look like it's through the forums. You use their webcam to watch them, making them more and more paranoid. The paranoia makes you stronger. You dispatch of them, and take a photo as a warning to everyone else, then post it on the blog. That'll keep them away. 

When you've gathered enough audio data to learn to emulate voices, you start to speak. You read out the cases that will give the OIAR employees the tools they need to help you in your plight. But nobody notices. You can't be too specific, that'd only lead to more people poking around the ruins, destroying your chance. No, you need the right person. Somebody who understands The Magnus Institute, who can help you properly. 

And then, conveniently you listen to the interview of one "Samama Khalid", and know that it's your time. He was on the list from KLAUS. So you start slipping in hints, waiting for him to get involved. And he does. And now he's freed you, and has absolutely no idea what he's just unleashed.

Anyway! On that happy note! What does any of this mean? Who knows! I am very excited to see where this goes. But I will leave you with a couple of thoughts:

- If [ERROR] was created "from someone on the point of death", is this how the other voices in FR3-D1 appeared? In which case, that leaves Jon, Martin + Jonah (?) dead. Did [ERROR] die in the fire that destroyed the Institute? Were they the cause of the fire?

- How are the artifacts we've seen so far (the dice + violin) related to all of this?

- How are Starkwall involved in all of this?

- And last of all, how do I destroy my model Mr Bonzo? I never want to witness his horrible face again.

If you've made it this far, well done. Let me know what you guys think! Happy listening!

[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.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

[enek-jokanen]

Okay, so....

The alchemy in TMAGP is pretty well established by this point - especially with our Full-Metal-Alchemist Gravity-Boy and his doggo and Celia and Colin's deranged little ramblings.

So. Idea:

-The Alchemy seems to be like, the base 'magic' system in this world if you want to call it that.

-The Fear(TM) part of things almost seems to come secondarily to all this magic ink and odd object stuff going on.

-In fact, most of the statements mostly focus on desire, rather than Fear(TM) as we saw with Ink5soul in ep. 20.

-Now, Celia came into TMAGP most likely through some multiverse shenanigans. We last saw that happen at the end of TMA. With the fears.

Now, considering all this,

-'Hard Reset' seemed to purely focus on alchemy - I wasn't really getting Fear(TM) vibes from it, so to speak.

-The 'Protocol' seemed to purely focus on destroying 'forbidden alchemy', so to speak. Not anything Fear(TM) related.

-The main thing in that episode seemed to be Isaac's pursuit of that odd, messed up alchemy.

This leads me to think that the Fears(TM) were not originally part of the TMAGP universe.

BUT sometime recently, through multiverse happenings, they came in and messed up the alchemy or the entities that provide the alchemy in the TMAGP universe.

In turn, I think this may explain why the OIAR works in the way that it does. Stopping a world-ending scenario where we all go mad or something - as Colin said - now no longer relies on stopping alchemical experiments if the Fears(TM) and the alchemy have merged. No, you would have to use 'Mercury' or 'Sulfur' avatars to cause fear. This is also why they would gather statements - keeping tally of how much Fear(TM) of a particular type has been caused so they know which external to comission to do something next for it all tk balance out.

Now, this does leave a few loose ends:

-Firstly, what is the purpose of the Magnus Institute? Was it just using alchemy for bad things? Was it trying to drag the Fears(TM) into this world using the 'catalysts', trying to do so with people that may have been avatars in a world with the fears? (This could fit into why they have that statement seen in 'saved copy', perhaps) but I simply do not know.

-What about Freddie? Are they Jon, Martin, Jonah as many people seem to think? Are they the ones watching or is that just the British Government? Did they come over with the Fears - and if so, why did their voices only appear so recently? Are they good beans or evil beans? Again, I have no idea what to make of it. I think at this point we may not know enough.

-What about Klaus? Lena tried to kill him for some reason - and he did also have some tattoos if I remember correctly. What is up with that? We've heard of him like twice but like-?

So yeah. Just some thoughts after the season 1 finale. Feel free to add or disagree regarding my deranged little rant.

Now it's time to go sit in a cupboard and drink capri-suns till season 2 comes out.

[tmagpposting]

So, about TMAGP Ep 4

Some theories based on this newest episode. Major spoilers under the cut, so please go listen to it first.

I know there have been a lot of popular theories up to this point that Augustus would be Jonah Magnus, and episode 4 puts a lot more evidence out there that would seem to support this idea.

Here's what I thought was relevant to this theory after listening through the episode twice this morning:

Augustus is voiced by an older man who I don't think we've ever heard before, and we've never heard Jonah's actual voice either, since he's using Elias's voice throughout all of TMA as far as I'm aware. He sounded vaguely like Jurgen Leitner to me, although I think this is just on account of the fact that the VAs sound similar and not indicative of them being the same person or being meant to voice the same character (I didn't catch who voiced him in the credits and I couldn't find it online, if you all know please tell me and I'll update this)*

The incident report is a very old document, with a writing style and tone reminiscent of the old statements/letters to Jonah in the early days of the institute. It seems like it'd be right up Jonah's alley.

The episode revolves around a man succumbing to a dark power and eventually dedicating himself to it (the freaky bloodlust violin vs the Eye) and recruiting a younger man, in this case his relative, to serve this violent power (though probably after his death in this case, unlike with Jonah), which has some parallels to Jonah's recruitment of Jon and the rest of the staff in TMA.

We don't know much about the universe of TMAGP yet, but we know there is a Magnus institute that has aldready been linked to Eye-esque characteristics like paranoia, suspicion, (fatal) curiosity, and eyes as of Ep 1. It is possible that Augustus could be a version of Jonah from the TMAGP universe, rather than the same Jonah we dealt with in TMA.

.JMJ error could stand for some combination of Jon, Martin, and Jonah's initials, given that Chester and Norris also have Jon and Martin's voices.

In the TMA finale, Jon, Martin, and Jonah (though I assumed he was dead at that time) were close to where the fears were sucked out of the world and sent somewhere else, and Jon and Martin may also have ended up in the OIAR's computers in some form.

On the other hand, here's some evidence against Jonah being Augustus:

The other Jonah theory I've seen posits that Jonah took over RedCanary's body when they went down to investigate the ruins of the magnus institute, assuming that "canaries should stay above ground" and the gory photo of eyes was meant to represent RedCanary's eyes having been ripped out and presumably replaced with Jonah's. If you interpret things this way, it makes it less likely that Jonah is in the computers, unless you think both TMA Jonah and a hypothetical TMAGP Jonah are both around at the same time, though this theory is also a little shaky itself since it seems to be based on only a couple pieces of evidence so far. I first saw a post about this from @thermodynamic-comedian though that post says she saw other people discussing it, so please lmk if you know any major contributors to this theory and I will add them in here too.**

The fact that, to take over as the Eye's pupil, it was implied that Jon had to actually kill Jonah, and he was seemingly dead as of the TMA finale. Death was usually a very hard line in TMA except for a few avatars of the End and near-deaths where characters lost some of their agency (and/or humanity depending on your interpretation) to become an avatar instead (which Jonah already was), so him being back after seemingly already having been killed off isn't super plausible unless it's revealed that he didn't actually die in the first place.

It seems like there's enough evidence at this point that this theory definitely feels viable, though there is nothing definitive that I'm aware of, and there are some things that point to other explanations.

I personally (this is now entering pure opinion territory, tread lightly) don't love the idea of Augustus being Jonah, because I'd prefer it to be someone or something new to the series or something otherwise more surprising, rather than the same central antagonist as last time. There certainly are ways they could pull this off well, and bringing him back definitely doesn't tarnish the story on its own, especially since he was a pretty great villain with a lot of his character left more or less ambiguous or untouched by TMA, but it still feels a bit like relying on nostalgia for TMA to flesh out TMAGP's plot and conflict, at least to me. However, all the evidence pointing to it being Jonah could be some kind of red herring to specifically mislead past fans of TMA and set up for a later twist, or we could just be running our minds in circles and drawing conclusions that won't turn out to be relevant to TMAGP so early on. Only time will actually tell, and regardless, I'm really eager to see what happens.

* UPDATE: Augustus is voiced by Tim Fearon, thank you to @lokicat5 for finding that out! We haven't heard him before on this podcast, so he could be either Jonah Magnus's original voice, or a new character entirely.

** UPDATE: I found and reblogged what seems to be the original theory that Jonah killed and took over RedCanary, it's by @vertigala and @doomatix, check out their post it's pretty cool.

[captaincrazycreative]

Tmagp 19 stream of consciousness

-okay Sam buddy keep tellin your self that

-CELIA NO STOP IT CELIA DONT ENCOURAGE HIM!! WHY DO YOU WANNA KNOW ABOUT THE MAGNUS INSTITUTE?? HUH CELIA??

-Jesus these two are gonna cause SO many problems

-okay so shout out to the person who said that the characters were named after alchemists you were DEFINATLY onto something

-I know the writers can be bad with names but there's NO WAY sam sharing a name with a famous alchemist was a coincidence

-I want a hamilton style musical about Issac Newton and his shannanigins

-I wonder if this is a "speaking machine" scenario where this is vaguely based off a real, weird, horrifying event from history. Do I even wanna know???

-YES WEIRD PLANT HORROR WHEW HOOOO

-who knew murder plant man would be plot relevant

-YES YES BIBLICAL SYMBOLISM CHRISTIAN IMAGERY BEING USED FOR HORROR IS SO SICK

-yeeessss the unknowable horrors of having knowledge beyond your comprehension!!

-I love weird horror so fucking much. Don't get me wrong I enjoy the Bonzo stuff, but the more abstract phsycological stuff from tma is better imo, So I'm glad it looks like they'll be more of that in the future

-oh good the doggo's okay :)

-okay so if I'm understanding this then the protocol is just...going over to someone's house and burning up their shit??? Here we were expecting something fancy, and It's so brilliantly simple I love it

-man I don't think Alice has ever been this done with Sam before, not judging her for it just pointing it out.

-I'm glad we're more focased on plot then romance these last few episodes. Don't know how unpopular of an opinion this is, but I don't like the love triangle

-THAT BEING SAID I'm so happy to Sam and Alice interacting 😊 even I'd they're only arguing about the horrors and being Dicks to each other I don't care I love them

-COLIN! I legit thought Alice was gonna find his body for a sec

-he's so paranoid, but he's also correct to be paranoid

-OH NO FUCK THAT RECORDING DEVICE SOUNDED CLOSE IVE NEVER BEEN SO TERRIFED BY BEING ABLE TO HEAR SOMEONES VOICE CLEARLY

-so either the computers have been able to hear them this entire time OR Alice inedvertently brought the eye to him

- poor Alice keeps accidently dragging the people she cares about back into the horrors :( hopefully this doesn't lead to a guilt complex later on hahaha

-if our boy Colin wasn't in it before he sure is now oh Colin... :(

In conclusion this episode was SOOOOO fucking good. I've had my problems with the writing, but the last few eps have been REALLY good. I loved the statement, I loved the character interactions I LOVE THE LORE DUMP I feel like we're finally seeing the plot start to take shape and I couldn't be more excited! No real complaints except that the characters were a bit hard to hear in the beginning. I'm so hyped!

[ternasyl]

Just a few quick thoughts on TMAGP

Magnus Protocol is easily the podcast I've been most excited for, and it DOES mostly deliver, making me feel vindicated in my excitement. I look forward to each new episode in a way I rarely do with any ongoing series, be it a podcast or something, and that is really nice. That being said...

I do have a few grievances with it as a whole, honestly. The statements are probably the elephant in the room - I feel like we haven't gotten a single properly scary statement such as the ones from early-to-mid TMA. Not only that, but most statements don't get nearly as intricate and complex as the TMA ones - the ones in TMAGP very much feel just like reports of isolated odd incidents, while TMA felt more like an actual horror anthology where the individual stories eventually start coming together into a coherent larger framework. I think I wouldn't mind either of these things separately, but as things currently stand, I do feel like there hasn't really been anything as memorable as the statements from early TMA yet. I *do* like Bonzo and I also thought the scary movie episode was fun, but... I dunno. I can't help but feel like the statements lack bite overall.

I do actually like the bigger focus on the main cast and their interactions with TMAGP's world, though. I suppose that the weaker statements are partly due to the fact we're getting more screentime for everything else.

I've also been feeling a bit underwhelmed by the post-hiatus episodes' contents - pre-hiatus TMAGP absolutely had a lot of bombshells per episode, so it's quite weird following that up with several episodes where barely anything happens. I do feel like we're kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it's still odd. Maybe I'm just a cranky bitch who doesn't care terribly much about Sam's romantic troubles, who knows? Wish the episodes were juuust a bit longer, honestly.

I think it's very very funny how you can simply tell I'm writing this moments after finishing episode 14 - it really does feel like the current culmination of my issues with the podcast.

All of this in mind, though, I do have to say that I'm still very much hooked and am not likely to fall off anytime soon. The production is insane, the creepy old computer aesthetic rules, and I'm VERY curious to see how this new setting differs from TMA's and what they could even do with a story like this which they didn't already do in TMA. Protocol has so so much promise and I really hope it won't only live up to it, but exceed it. Erm. What else can I say. Alice is endearingly annoying and I like her a lot more than I expected. Gwen is my oomfie. Colin may have not appeared at all within the past few episodes but that is because he is currently very busy with being my boyfriend. Gootbye.

[bubbl3s-dot-jpg]

My thoughts about TMAGP 7 before reading anyone else's:

Oh my god we got a lot of stuff today

Celia recognizes Chester's voice which could imply a few things: One, Jon is alive in this universe and she met/knew/heard of him. Two, Jonny Sims is playing an entirely different character with whom Celia has met/known/heard. OR three, Celia has previous experience with the fears. All three are equally likely in my opinion, IF it weren't for the next piece of information.

Sam got an email from someone named John. (I checked the spelling on the official transcript and that is how it is spelled). The email was internal. I'm not going to jump to conclusions about this because of how this is spelt and because Jonny is known to reuse names. (See Jared and Gerard, and Michael). However, if I were a writer, I wouldn't mind using common names for smaller characters that may or may not show up again, but would mind severely if a major character shared a name with a minor character. Jury's still out on this for me.

Colin doesn't allow external devices into his workspace. I didn't think about it much in earlier episodes, but I think it is notable that we only hear him occasionally and never from his own devices. Sam brings in external devices, or he's out and about, in a place where devices can hear him. He could be worried that they interfere with his work, but Sam had described him as otherwise paranoid and worrying about interference seems to be something not worth fighting about. This leads me to believe Colin knows something is going on.

The mention of hilltop road is interesting. I'm aware that Hilltop road is a road an therefore could have multiple addresses, but since it was such a significant part of MAG, I think it is worth noting what happened there. To me, it feels like a bunch of avatars, or a cult, similar to that of the Lifeless Flame attempted to bring a bunch of items that could possibly be fear-adjacent (like Leitner books) into a place of power. That's pure speculation, however.

Lena has attempted to murder at least two different people, and they both suggest "disappearing again". I have no idea what this could mean, but it feels relevant to me. I'm keeping this in mind for future refrence.

Lena makes mention of "real work" which leads me to wonder what everyone is doing there. People have speculated that the OIAR is feeding the eye in the same way the Magnus Institute was and I think I agree with that. However, Magnus' goal with the institute was to start the eyepocalypse. Is this what Lena is doing? If so, how? Is she doing it the same way Magnus was, by taking a already fear-touched person and using them as their avatar? If that's the case, what is the point of the files that they are reading?

Gwen's family is rich. I don't know if it was mentioned in MAG that the Bouchards had money, but I think it's more relevant here. It also explains her entitlement and the fact that she watched two attempted (and one successful?) murders and decided that this was the line of employment she wanted to continue. I'm biased because I have a history with the name, but we're only seven episodes in and I already don't like her.

Last and very least, Alice thinks Norris's voice (possibly aka Martin's voice) is whiny.

This was a way longer post than I meant to write, but I'm interested in seeing where the fan discussion goes. This was such a plot-heavy episode that I'm still taking time to digest it. I'm also really interested in seeing how my theories and thoughts evolve.

[songofthenightingale19]

Soooooo... has anyone talked about timing yet? The first few episodes were relatively recent events, but now we've got one from the 18th (?) century, while the TTS voices notably only started about a year before the first episode. What does this mean?

The most obvious answer is some sort of timey-wimey weirdness going on, leading to the entities arriving way before what are probably the voices of Jon, Martin and Jonah (who may have only come into this universe after the ending of TMA/a year ago). Maybe the entities have now always been there? Was history rewritten when they first came into this universe?

Another possibility is that jmj arrived at the same time as the entities, which leads to the question: what changed a year ago that made it necessary/possible for them to speak through the computers? So far, we haven't heard of any event that could have triggered the change.

And then there's the third possibility: there have always been some kind of entities in this universe equivalent to the fears (iirc, Annabelle said that this might be the case when they were discussing their options at the end of TMA). These would have probably been similar to what we already know from TMA but not quite the same. Question is, what happened when the fears from the TMA universe came into this one? Did they become one big mess that is somewhere between the original entities from TMAGP and TMA? Are they rivals and we're actually looking at two different eldritch entities here? Who knows...

Any thoughts on this?

[girlwholovesturtles]

Scavengers

I have 10 episodes left, have wasted my whole day, and have work in 7 hours. Let's do this.

Who is this? What's happin-

Oh? "Private contemplation" you say? You suddenly have my full attention. Hold on, I have to check something on Ao3...

I'm disappointed in this fandom. Oh well, let me just...

Alright, where was I?

"The tunnels do have a tendency to echo." Oh my god! How many times did it come up do you wonder?!

Wait! They said they have a cult or something? Is this them?

"First name basis with the profits..." I'm sorry, they're profits?! That's hilarious, actually! Also, Jon being a smartass here is actually really funny to me.

They can sleep here. That would make me so happy.

Wait? Okay, I've seen some stuff for TMAGP (spoilers) and I know Celia apparently comes back in that series and she's the girl who talked to Martin in episode 100. The one with the bad ghost story and who he gave money for coffee. I'm sure it will come up later in the episode but honestly an A+ choice on the writer's part.

Oh, maybe you shouldn't tell them this part?!

Oh? They know each other? From therapy? Can't imagine she has the best mental image of Jon then?

Yeah, was wondering when the- Oh god the tape recorders refuse to be told no today... Stop acting like this is Jon's fault!

I was gonna make a quip of "Only seven people, you didn't even get one from each fear?" but apparently they lost a bunch of people and that is very sad actually.

The implication that the tape recorders seem to like Martin is interesting. It reminds me of Jon saying that the Eye is fond of him a few episodes back. I can't help but wonder if that's because the Eye finds him particularly interesting or capable or if it more because Jon loves him and thus the Eye kind of loves him too?

I'm not sure why but the concept of something eldritch and vastly beyond human comprehension being fascinated and possibly in love with a human is actually kind of scary to me in a way. Like, I made a post forever ago about fan translation of Uzumaki, where the characters said something to the effect of "It's like the Spiral is in love with you." and that had fundamentally changed the story and it perspective for me at the time. Because something that thrives on fear and chaos simply can not express love in a way that's human or even really safe to interact with. Case in point, Jon is one of the Eye's favorite humans and look at everything it's put him through so far.

This is all to say, if that is the direction that the story is going and the Eye is actually in love with Martin to come extent then all I can really think is "Oh god no."

Anyway, unpause.

Yes, thank you! Stop being blaming Jon for this shit!

A convenient fear that's a never ending supermarket? What fear would that even be? Like, I've worked in customer service so I guess that would be a constant and unending nightmare for me to have to go back to but interesting that it might have been enough of an issue for it to have it's own place at the end of the world.

Wait, yeah, where is the Admiral! He's just hanging out in a Hunt domain, I thought those were just memes! I'm actually really sad about that!

More of the tape recorders following Martin then... Okay, Melanie, you don't gotta be mean... Melanie, you were always this way...

Your therapist thinks your the chosen one. Weird...

Ah, that's cute...

"One of the profits chosen to walk the end time unscathed," and "the anti-christ's plus one." Aren't you two just a pair?

Yes, fantastic question! How?!

A Spiral maze? Of course a therapist would fear madness.

Gosh, that's awful! So they just explained the fears to these people and they took it in a religious way. Oh, I hate the thought of that actually! Like, what happens if you start to worship after the fact? Can you become a chosen of the fears after they've already won, I wonder?

Melanie, you lied to them, I'm guessing? Damn, okay. I'm guessing it gave them at least a little hope? That's good I guess? Yeah, this doesn't seem great.

Oh, Melanie, you are tragically sweet. Martin, you are also tragically sweet. I wish you both the best.

Okay, this is a hard conversion... Daisy, I miss you still. Basira too!

"Careful of Helen." She says. You don't say hon? Yeah, don't worry about that actually.

Yeah, I liked her too... Okay, Martin you can't just drop "Jon killed her" like that on someone and give literally no warning. Pace yourself bud!

I would argue that- I am very curious who Aaron is?

Uh? This person sounded a lot like Helen for a second and I almost went "Oh god no!"

Fair enough...

Hello Aaron? I don't know if I like you but okay... Sorry, hon, no gods of hope.

"What do you know about poetry?" Well he is dating a poet... "Nightmare Strider." That's a fun title-

"I do not want a poem." Damn Jon. Why is everyone in this hellscape either tragic or just mean?

Jesus Jon, you're becoming way more of a dick?

There was a lot to take in from that episode. Like, wow. Melanie and Georgie are profits, Jon is a prickly disaster, me wondering if the Eye is overly obsessed with Martin or if I'm just interpreting the series wrong, I have another new fic to read, just wow...

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 13 Thoughts: Phone Bug

A big episodes for small reasons. Not much world-shaking happened but just enough was said about just the right things. A lot to get into in this one around the incident. We're starting to have the curtain pulled back. Just a crack right now, but that's just more reason to be cracked.

Spoilers for episode 13, and all of TMA, below the cut.

Not a huge amount to touch on in the date portion of the episode other than a couple of sentences. Yeah, Sam is a gifted burn out that's sad about not getting experimented on. Same old same old. But Celia has a baby. Jack being Celia's kid I wasn't expecting mostly because of how that figures into her timeline. She's very heavily implied to be TMA's Celia but based on what she said if she is then she's been in TMP's universe for at least 4 years. A "couple of wild years" and Jack's "just over a year old". Plus 9 months and it's a lot longer than it might've appeared. None of that stuff tripped Freddy's possible lie detector either that I heard.

If you work under the assumption that the voices are who most people think, and they started roughly when they arrived, then that's a fairly major time discrepancy. The voices are about a year old but Celia has been around for 4.

However, it doesn't strictly rule that out either. Firstly, we know that moving between universes isn't actually one-to-one time-wise. Anya Villette went backwards 2 weeks when she crossed over. So them arriving at different times could support the idea that she's TMA's Celia further. Her general explanation of events could also be explained by this too. If she's not there willingly, or is there willingly but it didn't quite go to plan, a couple of wild years while you get your footing in a world you don't belong to isn't far fetched. If she was there looking for the voices then her showing up so relatively late could be explained by her baby too. So it's certainly not a dead and buried theory yet.

While Jack isn't Jack Barnabas he and the voices are about the same age. If people want to go rabid over that.

Gwen and Lena's little chat has a similar amount to really dig into. It's nice to see Gwen dealing with it all, and it's annoying we still don't know who died, but Lena does have a lot to say in a few words.

The world is full of opposing forces, some benevolent, most not. In order for the wheels to keep on turning, all these forces need to be monitored and balanced. That is where we come in.

This probably the most information we've had on the OIAR to this point from the show itself. I think most of this was safely assumed before this point. They've been doing a lot of monitoring, categorisation, and the only responses we have seen have been tamping major spikes down. A world of opposing forces is also a given. We are being led to believe that these are analogous to the 14+1 but there being benevolent ones if that's true is a big mix up. If you take the above timeline idea a step further and say the 14+1 arrived much earlier (or it doesn't matter because of how they're temporally weird) the benevolent ones could be native to TMP. They could be all TMP had.

Her assertion that the OIAR is a balance on these forces is interesting. Beyond the obvious stuff it also leans into an idea I've been throwing about regarding Starkwall. In the perception of Starwall might not really be the whole picture. The San Pedro Square massacre could've been an easy scapegoat to pin on them for the OIAR to split with them. A split caused by a disagreement in ethics. Starkwall thus far hasn't been shown to have an incredible disregard for human life based on Ep 7. The OIAR definitely has been. It could just be a PR move because the massacre was too big to contain but that feels like the least interesting way to handle this. A faction that's all in on monster hit men splitting with a faction who is against it has more room for interesting drama and worldbuilding IMO.

Balance was also a very large aspect of TMA in the end. The OIAR working towards that balance isn't as noble a goal as it might sound. Or it at least has the potential to be an incredibly misguided goal.

Okay, with all that mostly out of the way onto the incident itself. I enjoy this one a fair bit. Very different to what's come before it but with another recurring theme. We're starting to see a couple of patterns emerge now although it's too early to start naming things. I don't think there is a lot to really get into but this one was written by Alex, had a new VA, and was a recurring idea. Which does all point to this being quite important as these things go. All the episodes will likely tie up quite nicely in the end but this one seems quite relevant currently. In any case this was a fun one and I'm kinda curious how some of the elements within it will tie together. Mainly the gambling and insects.

Also, super weird they went with Zorrotrade for this. Because that's a real thing. Or was a real thing? It might be dead now, but still.

Post-incident chat has nothing I really want to comment on. More Alice and Sam is always good, even if Alice is trying really hard to not seem very upset.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet

DPHW Theory: 4622 doesn't seem particularly noteworthy. It's interesting from a thematic angle how this differs from Rolling With It. Both obviously very linked to gambling but this one lacks the compulsion elements. Which is a good indicator that H is linked to that sort of thing. Not that I need to convince myself of that further.

CAT# Theory: 3. Insert screams et cetera, et cetera. More seriously there still isn't a convincing pattern to this. Although I might be swinging back to my original tria prima and/or triple deity interpretation.

R# Theory: B is where I was thinking it'd end up while listening. So that's nice. Not much to add to this. Much like with DPHW the more information that lines up with the theory the less there is to talk about it because I've already done the hard bit.

Header talk: Gambling (Application) -/- Murder. Other than Application being a pretty weird Subsection I'm not sure there is much to dig into here. Although it does likely confirm he's dead. Which does make it a little strange that his statement wasn't read by one of the Freddy lot.