#thread: alice and magnus

[thxoracle]

Closed Starter

"Yes, sir." Alice said with a slight smile. The next few days would be pivotal. Nietzsche said if you stare long enough into the void, the void will look back at you. That’s how Alice felt staring into the letters. Ramblings of a mad man who thought they had some sort of connection, some sort of bond. It was dark, a never ending abyss of gruesome detail. His next letter came like clockwork. 

Dear Alice, 

He always started with ‘Dear Alice’. 

I was so glad to hear back from you. I thought I wouldn’t. There’s a lot of things happening right now that I want to tell you about, but I can’t. Not yet. You’ll have to wait and see. Anyway, I wanted to say that I am sorry for what happened to you. Robert deserved getting his throat slashed. Having something like that be done to you…it’s not easy to get over. And I understand you. I really do.  This letter is shorter than my first. I don’t have much time to write it, but it’ll have to do until my next letter. Until then, keep your head up and I hope to see you very soon.  - The Judge 

As promised, Alice contacted Magnus immediately. The use of ‘I hope to see you very soon’ made some red flags get up for Alice. What did he mean? What was he going to do? Alice waited patiently, thumbs going over one another. As soon as Magnus walked in, the woman extended the letter to him. "Read it."

Cont from here // @rcsegld

[randomfae]

i don't know, magp fellas, but somehow when alice says shit like "i created you and i can destroy you" or "i was born down here and i will die here" i sorta... believe her? like yeah you're obviously joking but are you tho?

lowkey same vibes as gertrude going "of course, gerard! i just happened not to mention the network of sinister tunnels that snake beneath the archive where i keep all my darkest secrets"

[gayformlessblob]

i love how even though we have a lot of varied tmagp designs a lot of people seem to agree that the core tenants of alice dyer are

piercings

bangs

big jacket

big skirt

[milo-the-professional-yapper]

SOMEONE get Jon out of there- my man stopped the apocalypse only to be subjected to reading aloud Reddit threads and blog posts as a digital entity.

Truly a fate worse than death.

[helpimstuckposting]

I like that you can feel Alice’s strings of sanity snapping one by one each episode

[zephyr-zephyr]

7 hours and 18 minutes on this fucking thing, all for Jonny Sims and Alex J Newall’s bastard child of a podcast (affectionate)

Close ups under the cut! DON’T READ CAPTIONS IF YOU DON’T WANT MAGNUS PROTOCOL SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!

In my head this piece is a bunch of burner phones and devices that Alice has from Colin after he goes kayaking and some other bits and bobs that she already had!

Camera with a picture i stole from a BBC article which is meant to be a picture from the Institute ruins that RedCanary took in ep 1! And some Colin discard commands lol

The phone with the picture is a photo i stole from an ebay listing of a replica of the Hellraiser puzzle box and just distorted the fuck out of lmao. It’s meant to be the weird box that RedCanary takes from the Institute ruins! The Nokia has a bit of the resignation email from the woman who worked at The Hilltop Centre and the white phone has forum posts from ep 1 as well!

Thumbtacks and thread from the Conspiracy Cork Board that Alice has in my head (i’m so happy with those thumbtacks) and the phone i think Colin would’ve had after going all “technology is evil” with a message from Alice. I think Alice would’ve kept it.

Phone with a distorted pic of Bonzo, straight from the RQ website, again i just fucked around with the filters until it looked weird. Also an allen wrench (hex key) and some wired headphones cause i think Alice is a wired headphones girlie.

Ipod with the first song on the official Alice Dyer playlist and a floppy disc with “FR3-d1” written on it! Sam mentions the OIAR computers having floppy drives so it felt fitting! It could be info about how Freddy is evil, it could be an instruction manual for it, i’m not sure yet!

[pinkelotjeart]

Ive seen people say the thing following Alice is Bonzo because of Lena’s comment and her being vague on who mr Bonzo is going to kill.

The thing is, I don’t think it is Bonzo. I think it’s [Error], because it would be really tragic if something happened to Alice because Sam’s little investigation. Whatever was in the magnus institute is now following her and that’s going to be Sam’s fault.

Red canary was stalked aswel “Sorry. I know the rules. I’m going to go put it back, okay? So you can call off the dogs. I don’t need any more anonymous DMs calling me a thief or threatening me. (quieter, more poisonous) I can dox people too, you know.”

Same for Einsamenarr “I did something dumb. I did something dumb and I think they are after me. I know that that is not the purpose behind this thread, but I need to write here in case something happens to me.” In the Arg.

Both of them end up paranoid before completely disappearing.

[winter-wise]

Transcripts for each moment under the cut:

Keisha, Alice Isn't Dead s1 e10:

"Fuck the Thistle man!

When he hit me, I hit back. He was stronger than I remembered. It was like being hit by a car. Mass without pity, just brutal physics. But I was hitting, too. Pounding at his face, his chest, biting, throwing myself into him.

I didn't feel pain. I was so full of fear that there wasn't any room for anything else. I fought using every wave of terror inside of me.

The Thistle man laughed when I hit him, and he kept punching, as thoughtless and inhuman as a rock slide on a highway. But I kept hitting too, and he stopped laughing. I clawed at his face, and his skin started to go, and that yellow fat oozed out.

He grunted, growled, flailed at me. He was no longer toying with me; he wanted to destroy me.

But I stayed on my feet. I tore at him with the last of myself, and finally, he was the one that fell, his teeth mashed into his cheek, shouting incoherently.

I went knees-first into his chest. I hit, and hit, and hit...[heavy breathing]

And then he was dead. He was dead! I had done it! I had won!"

Jon Sims, The Magnus Archives s5 e27:

"Jon: Helen… Was that… a lie?

Helen: [Too quickly] No!

Jon: A lie. A genuine untruth. Like a little bit of loose thread, flitting in the breeze.

Helen: Fine. You can go.

[SHIFTING, AND A NEW DOOR OPENS]

There’s the door. Just go!

Jon: Ceaseless Watcher!

Helen: No!

[THROUGH THE INCANTATION, THE HARSH BUZZ OF STATIC MINGLES WITH CREAKING WOODWORK AND CRUMBLING BRICK]

Jon: See this lie, this golden strand of falsehood. Take it in your gaze and pull it, follow through its curves and twists and knots as it unravels all before you.

Helen: No. No! No! No, Archivist! Stop! John, it’s me, it’s Helen. It’s me. I’ve always been your friend. Don’t do this to me. I have always helped you. I have always helped you and lent you doors. Think of all that I have done for you. If you do this, everyone inside me is dead!

Jon: Unweave it now, its fear and its falsehood, its hidden teeth and the ones it wears so proudly.

Helen: You’re no different – You are no different from me! You can’t save anyone!

Jon: Take all that it is and all that it has. It is yours!

Helen: No! NOOOOOO!

[HELEN’S VOICE IS STRETCHED AND VANISHES]"

Carpenter, The Silt Verses s2 e4:

"Helen: (Tensely) There’s an axe buried in the fucking wall, Alf. And writing.

Alf: (Reading aloud) ‘Four’. 

[...]

And instead, we hear a calm, cold voice as CARPENTER cocks her rifle.

Carpenter: (Over the tannoy) Three.

We hear a gunshot over the tannoy - and very faintly, in the background as well. She isn’t far away.

Carpenter: (Over the tannoy)

Two.

[...]

Carpenter: (With absolute venom) How does it feel to know that you’re alone, sister? That nobody’s coming to help you, that there’s no kindness, no mercy left to be had?"

Arthur Lester, Malevolent s6 e1:

"Arthur: Let me out of here, you fucking animals!

John: Push, Arthur! (More impacts.) Break the fucking wood if you have to. I am not dying here.

Arthur (yelling): Let me out! (He growls in determination.)

John: Arthur, if you don’t get us out of here – (More impacts.)

Arthur: I will tear your fucking heart out!

John: Push, god damn it! (Splintering wood. Arthur strains himself.) It’s broken, the wood… break it more! (Arthur yells. More splintering.) Break the fucking lid, Arthur! Yes. The dirt is loose, falling inward but the wood is breaking! (More impacts.) Fuck your bloody knuckles… I don’t care if you break your fist! Get us out of here! (Wood cracking.) There! Get up! Get up! (Something groans nearby. It wheezes persistently.) Him. 

Arthur: Where is he?

John: There’s a man before us. He’s holding a shovel.

Arthur: You motherfu –

John: He buried us alive!

Arthur: You…

John: Grab the shovel. You have it! (The creature wheezes.)

Arthur: You sick… fucking… (A thudding impact.)

John: Yes, Arthur!

Arthur: Fuck you! (He starts to scream in exhilaration. Continued impacts and sounds of gore.)"

[lostwords-found]

So that last post by Alesis Newman, the one that was locked by "BetterTheNew", was dated January 3 2018. Eight months before her previous post.

The police files on Dr Samuel Webber were dated April 3 2009. Eight months before the date in his journal.

Dr Samuel Webber murdered his ex and then was turned into a tree. We don't know what happened to Alesis Newman's ex before she turned herself into some kind of coral creature, but she was taking bereavement leave at the end. Out of death, something is trying to be born. Or reborn...

...Oh yeah, and let's not even go near this other (lonely, eye-encrusted) rabbithole, let alone down it:

Norris read Dr. Webber's case, about a man who murdered his lover rather than lose her and then was trapped alone in a walled garden, in denial about what he had done and eternally haunted by her voice, with only a small piece of himself remaining aware and perpetually terrified but unable to voice its fear. Cool! Yeah. That's definitely... that's definitely not significant or deeply upsetting in any way.

But Chester... Chester read Alesis Newman's case, about a woman who intentionally destroyed herself in the wake of a lover whom she saw as trying to change her into the person he wanted her to be--and replaced herself with something new and inhuman. Something that has her eyes.

And by post 13, using her paralysis computer, Alesis is writing with her eyes. So is that actually her writing? If it's not, when in that sequence of posts did it stop being her? What does "no longer her" actually mean in this context? Certainly, she's becoming something that the Alesis of eight months earlier, the Alesis of the immediately-deleted fourteenth post, would no longer identify with--if some part of her still existed.

Cool. Yeah. That's definitely not significant... or deeply upsetting... in any way.

OK but I said let's not go down that rabbithole, so let's forget I just said any of that and go back to talking about the post dates, yeah?

Yeah.

So, sometimes some of these cases have some interesting correspondences with TMA statements, so there might be something there. Alesis started that thread, opening up to everyone about her journey to creating a better her, on June 20, 2018. I wonder if there were any TMA statements dated June of 2018?

Case #0181206 (June 12, 2018)

Statement of unknown bystander regarding an encounter with The Archivist.

...Oh.

Okay, well, that's... interesting, but not necessarily meaningful. Let's try this: the last date in her transformation/replacement, the last point where maybe there was still something left of the original "her," was September 3, 2018. Anything interesting happen in TMA in September of 2018?

Case #0182509-A (September 25, 2018)

Original recording of events leading to the disappearances of Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood, Alice Tonner and Peter Lukas.

...Ah. Ha. Um. Well, that could also be an interesting coincidence. What about that deleted 14th post that was somehow eight months earlier, back in January? The one with an Alesis who still tried to cry out against the thing she was becoming?

There's nothing in January, but... oh... right.

Case #0170908 (August 7, 2017 )

Statement of Elias Bouchard, regarding the dreams of Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, currently unresponsive.

...

Case #0181502 (February 15, 2018)

Statement of Oliver Banks, regarding his dreams and trying to run away. Statement given directly to Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, currently unresponsive.

...January of 2018, Jonathan Sims was in a coma. September of 2018, the Archivist received the final mark that would enable Jonah's ritual.

January through September of 2018 in the world of Protocol, something was trying to be born into a physical form, replacing Alesis Newman.

Cool, I say through gritted teeth. Yeah. That's definitely not significant, or deeply upsetting, in. any. way.

[composereggwrites]

(art by @snekberry)

A Vivisection of Me (Done by God for all to See)

Chapter 8 - Eat Your Greens

The assistants research, Gerry has to deal with bureaucracy, and a book is burned.

Read This Chapter on Ao3!

Rating: M

Warning: Choose Not To Warn

Fandom: The Magnus Archives

Characters: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood, Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Sasha James, Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Basira Hussain, Gerard Keay

Relationships: Jonathan Sims/Martin Blackwood, Jonathan Sims & Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Martin Blackwood & Sasha James & Jonathan Sims & Tim Stoker, Gerard Keay & Jonathan Sims

Additional Tags: Time Travel Fix-It, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Eyes, Eye Trauma, Jon is: Monstrous, Traumatized, Possessive, and Protective, Aromantic Sasha James, Queerplatonic Sasha James/Tim Stoker, Queerplatonic Gerard Keay/Jonathan Sims, Cannibalism - Eyes Specifically

Summary:

It starts, as many things have, with Daisy.

In the apocalyptic world, Jon takes an eye from her when she dies. As the Pupil, he takes more.

And then. He rewinds the threads.

Jonathan Sims starts again, back to his first day on the job. This time, it will be different.

Ao3: Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | Chapter 8

[fox-guardian]

[ID: A digital sketchpage of Colin Becher from The Magnus Protocol on a gray background. He is a thin white man with a receding hairline and a blonde mullet that is very long in the back, tied into a low ponytail. He also has a mustache, patchy facial hair, body hair, and blue eyes. In four out of five sketches, Colin is wearing silver stud earrings, rectangular glasses with yellow lenses, a yellow t-shirt under a light blue button down, a light brown zip-up hoodie, blue jeans with brown knee patches, blue and white striped socks, brown sneakers, and bracelets including a braided one with pink and burgundy threads. On the right, there's a shoulder-up sketch of Colin with his body facing to the side while he turns his head to the viewer, looking angry. Below that is a far less detailed doodle of him on all fours like some kind of creature. On the far left is a shoulders-up sketch of him leaning against his hand looking tired with one eyebrow raised. Below that is a drawing of him facing away from the viewer on all fours looking under something with a little dark smudge above him denoting annoyance. In the middle is a full-body drawing of him posed as though sitting with one leg bent as he holds a game controller. He is wearing his glasses and earrings, as well as a white crop top that says "slut.exe" in blue text, yellow underwear, and blue and white thigh-high socks. He looks focused but also relatively relaxed. end ID]

~~~~

normal about that IT manager

and yes whenever i draw him with striped socks i need you all to know that they're the programmer socks. alice gave them to him mostly as a joke but he actually loves them and that's one reason they're buds in my mind

[ratboyvince]

The Magnus Protocol - Glitch theory

In light of the current theory/assumption that in The Magnus Protocol, the audio glitches when the characters lie, I’ve been re listening!! And I’m going to be using this post and others to explore what this means for our beloved characters

The glitches aren’t on the transcript, sometimes there will be a direction like (uncertain) or (unconvincing), but thats the best i can do you for, otherwise you will have to take my word

First though, quick clarifications: what exactly is a lie in this context? - this is fairly obvious but i am including it for the avoidance of any doubt what i have gathered is that, in this theory we are assuming a lie is a character saying something they KNOW is not true in attempt to wilfully deceive someone

It is NOT:

A joke, or sarcasm

Believing something but being wrong

Finally, a lot of the lies i have so far are ones that are known to known to be untrue, what i will do is have a list of the blatant lies SO FAR to make my point, to work as support for the theory on this post then leave out any following ones to avoid making it excessively long.

The rest of them will be under the cut and more on a thread, sorted by episode. If i miss any, feel free to say!!

BLATANT LIES (theory support)

1.

Teddy: Colin was just saying how much of a BLAST he’s having (GLITCH) isn’t that right?

Lena: oh really.

Colin: Aye, sure (GLITCH)

Teddy: And how he’d love to take the after party to the Pub (GLITCH)

2.

Gwen: Sam? You okay?

Sam: um. Yeah. (GLITCH)

3.

Sam: cinnamon swirl. Please. (GLITCH)

4.

Gwen: Wait. Did you get me a coffee?

Sam: yeah. (GLITCH)

5.

Celia: Sorry, sorry, there was an emergency at home (GLITCH)

EPISODES 1-11 (where applicable) UNDER THE CUT

Episode 1

Teddy: Nahh, we’ll stay in touch, right?

Alice: Course…(GLITCH)

Alice either did not intend to keep in touch with Teddy, or genuinely just does not believe they will.

* saying she’ll miss him was NOT a lie, so it’s probably the latter

Episode 3

Sam: right, right i get it. Consider me *scared straight* (GLITCH)

He wasn’t taking Alice seriously, underestimating how serious it actually was (maybe even as light payback for her not taking him seriously)

Episode 5

Lena: I am certain that if he finds his current assignment unmanageable he can request assistance (GLITCH) or resign, of course…

She knows what the deal is with Central IT (whatever “the deal” may be), and just refuses to help. Maybe even sets up a little hostility between Lena and Colin?

Episode 7

Alice: listen, if you need to step out for some air-

Celia: no, I’m fine, really (GLITCH)

Celia was infact, not fine, probably because she recognised Chester’s voice as Jon “The Archivist” Sims himself and she’s freaked out

Episode 8

Gertrude: well I’m…sorry, but I don’t think gerry can help you. (GLITCH)

—

Gerry: -And then i left

Sam: and that’s all?

Gerry: Yeah I’m afraid so! (GLITCH)

Gertrude and Gerry know more than they’re letting on, and intentionally not sharing.

*Gerry not remembering most of it being true, means that while he’s probably leaving something out, there’s more he genuinely is lost on

Sam: I…may have given you a quick google

Celia: then…yeah. I’m doing a favour for Georgie. (GLITCH)

She Is Not Doing A Favour For Georgie - the research (teleportation, time travel, different universes) is more personal!

Episode 11

Sam: you keep glancing at the door

Alice: ah. It’s nothing (GLITCH)

—

Alice: it’ll be nothing! I’m just jumpy (GLITCH)

Alice is dismissing her anxiety following the trip to the institute.

Alice: “What have I told you about thinking?“

Sam: “Don’t.”

Alice: “That’s right.” (GLITCH)

Probably meaning that Alice is starting to doubt her own ideas, but is just pushing that uncertainty away because that’s what she does and she’s still more comfortable in ignorance, even if she doesn’t think it’s exactly RIGHT to ignore.

[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.

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

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.

[crochetedblorbos]

"Well, that's the real question, isn't it? Does my desire not to actively promote evil outweigh my fear of disappointing my parents?"

Character Name: Samama “Sam” Khalid

Fandom: The Magnus Protocol [podcast]

Voiced By: Shahan Hamza

Yarn Used: Soles: CraftSmart Value - White Shoes: Loops & Threads Soft Classic - Black Trousers: CraftSmart Value - Cornflower Jumper: CraftSmart Value - Ivy Skin: CraftSmart Value - Coffee Hair: Loops & Threads Soft Classic - Black

Basic pattern here.

Oh, Sam. Talk about being doomed by the narrative…our poor boy. After Episode 29, I was trying so hard to get him finished in time for the finale. Didn’t quite manage it, but I at least got him done before Season 2 starts. And, hey, at least on my side of things Alice can give him a hug. (Side note: I’ve actually had him done for WEEKS, but I messed up his mouth and had to fix it…a thing I definitely forgot to do until now. Which is why I’m posting him several weeks into S2 despite having him done well before the hiatus ended!)

Sam differs from the base pattern as follows:

Shoes: Hey, I remembered the different-colored soles again! Anyway, I figured he would wear basic trainers, so I did them the same way as I did Joseph’s.

Trousers: Sam strikes me as the kind of guy who dresses as casually as he can get away with in the office, unless something big is happening…like, say, a certain big-shot MP coming for an inspection. (Projecting? Me? Onto my blorbos? Surely you jest.) Anyway, I gave him a pair of nice, comfortable light-washed blue jeans.

Jumper: I decided to give Sam a turtleneck, only partly because I only had the jumper yarn with me and didn’t want to stop yet. He just seems like a turtleneck kind of guy. Anyway, the way I did that was to just continue with the shirt color up to where the chin starts, then switch to skin color and do the next round in back loops only.

Head: In the grand tradition of “Ollie overcomplicates everything”, I decided to give Sam curly hair. To do this, I used a popcorn stitch. Basically, for every other stitch on Sam’s scalp, I did four hdc, dropped the last loop, inserted through the first stitch, and pulled the loop through. It’s a cool effect, but good God, it took forever. For the bangs at the front, I decided to give him a few corkscrew curls, which are pretty easy - you just chain however many stitches you want to do, and then do a series of fans up the chain. I did some in sc and some in hdc. It was more or less random, I’m afraid, but I like the effect! I'm not super happy with how his mouth came out, but it's definitely better than my first attempt, and I'm not changing it again.

[blicketdabest33]

I have started the Magnus Protocol

i basically spoiled the entire rest of the magnus archives for myself, so onto the Magnus Protocol!! I shall record my thoughts here.

Episode 1

Damn Alex, calling us out like that. I love Alice already OKAY EVERYTHING OUT THE WINDOW COLIN IS MY FAVORITE NOW HIS ACCENT- They're so fun. Alice, i love you, but Gwen is right. Show the new guy how to do things correctly Colin, you are the best IT guy ever. I will protect you with my life ALEXANDER J NEWALL, WHAT IS THIS GAY SHIT- Colin knows German, is a grumpy IT guy, Scottish (or Irish, can't tell which), AND he's scaring everyone? This is my guy, this is my character. Sam is so nervous, i can't believe it, this man is a walking ball of anxiety!!! It's Jon part 2!!! Also what's his accent? I can't place it. JON SHUT THE FUCK UP GWEN AND SAM WERE BONDING!!!! wait, magnus institute ruins? ...oh shit I know what the deal with it is!!!!! I KNOW!!! IT WAS AN OLD TWINK'S DIVORCE TORTURE HOME!!! Yeah there's no pictures, it's the FUCKING DEAD EYE wait is this a reddit thread? oh my god this IS a reddit thread fire? you mean the apocalypse? VICTORIAN ASSYLUMN HAH YOU HAVE NO IDEA ARCHIVE HE SAID THE THING- Graffiti? oooooooooooooooo... WAIT OMG IS IT THE IT"S OOOOOO IT'S THE ENTITIES HAHAHAHAHAAHAHHJFHJKHDJKFHED THIS IS HILARIOUS WHY IS JON READING THIS ONE IMGONNAEXPLODE DISTORTION??? HMMMMMMM old wooden thing? heh? ooooo doxxer Wait this guy getting tense, eehhhehgjh DM'S WHAT y'all ain't getting those pics, this reddit story is fucked- what AYO CANARIES- JIMMY SOLIDARITY, THAT YOU?!!!! *falls over* oh did he post nudes? OH EW EYES HAHA NAHHHHHHHHH NONONONO HHJSFHJFKJD awwww Gwen, do you actually care? SAM WHAT DO YOU KNOW DID YOU WORK THERE awwwww Alice you care so much!! OH SHIT STATIC HAHAHA aw poor Sam... oh really? Good information for england, i didn't know pubs opened that early either. Sam you'll be eating those words in a couple weeks OH THEY'RE EXES HAHA Alice you're iconic, i love you, please buy a sticker or something AWWWW THAT QUOTE IS SO CUTE- HOLTEIKHLEIHGJEHF oh my god Colin what's happening ahhhh this is just the- NO YOU CAN'T END ON THAT!!!!

[ollieofthebeholder]

I realize this is going to be a very unpopular opinion, but: I don't think Chester and Norris are Jon and Martin. Not from the original TMA, anyway.

In the first place, there's been so much emphasis put on the fact that you don't have to listen to TMA to get TMAGP that I feel like hinging a major plot twist on...something you'd have had to listen to the entirety of TMA to fully understand would be kind of unfair. And they've been calling it a "side-quel", not a "sequel". Besides, the whole beauty of MAG 200 was the ambiguity of the ending, and I can't see Jonny or Alex being keen to give a definite answer now. As they've said, "the text is the text".

In universe, the timing doesn't add up, either. The Eyepocalypse began October of 2018, and while obviously time didn't mean anything after that, I think Jonny said he'd envisioned it as being six to eight months between MAG 160 and MAG 200. Something like that. Either way, we're talking 2019 sometime that...whatever happened, happened. Alice said the voices only started "about a year ago", and the time stamps on the forum thread from TMAGP 001 were all dated 2022. Even if that was a thread that just got locked a couple hours before Chester read it to Sam, it still means the talking started around 2021 at the earliest. You could make an argument that they needed time to recover even a little of themselves, but two years?

I think it's more likely that they were someone involved in The Magnus Institute of this world. That maybe they were part of some study and...didn't come out of it well. That something happened to them relatively recently and they're trying to reach out to someone who can help them, who can fix it.

I dunno. I guess we'll find out. I just feel like it's too early to pin any one theory down as confirmed, and I am worried that if too many older fans get too hung up on the idea of it being JMart - of this being "somewhere else" - and then it turns out not to be them at all, there's going to be a massive fandom outcry about something that never existed outside of people's heads.