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clawfootcoffin · 22 days

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the drowned woman's poem seemed like a recounting of her time spent in a vast & buried collab oceanic hellscape ??!?!?!?!?!??!?! the drowned woman & alice's encounter being recorded via a fucking tape recorder?!?!?!?!

and, lady m? excuse me? another giant beautiful woman in MY magnus protocol? they really made this show for the Women Lovers

and, finally, lady m finding celia different. hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. if she isnt careful, someone is going to Figure her Out and she'll have plenty of explaining to do

#celia ripley #tmagp #tmagp 15 #tmagp spoilers #not art #talking lots and saying nothing #lady mowbray #oh. i am so going to fucking draw her btw #holy shit #giant beautiful woman with a giant gun? two giant dogs?#jonny and alex know what the people WANT #alice dyer #the magnus protocol #i usually have much more organized thoughts but this episode Threw Me #really really enjoyed the statement too #i think protocol's had nothing but BANGERS so far #i meant buried not lonely oopsies

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lo-fi-charming · 4 months

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so i've been keeping up with TMP as it's airing, which has been fun, it's actually really nice to experience this kind of story weekly since i came into TMA late and listened up to the s4 finale in like, a month or two. i've been enjoying the new characters and statements, and while i was worried i'd have trouble actively listening (my attention span/executive functioning can be really variable when it comes to podcasts), it's been surprisingly easy for me to actually listen to each new ep the day it drops publicly

all this to say im enjoying the show! but i've found myself feeling increasingly frustrated with a couple things i keep seeing when it comes to discussions of it

to me, it seems... there's been a pervasive reluctance to take TMP as what it is. and i do understand that. it'd be stupid to pretend TMP doesn't exist exclusively because of TMA and that show's success, that it's a successor that was pitched as being similar. it's a story being written by the same people (plus guests), in the same universe (roughly), going for about the same tone and maybe themes.

i just feel like it's a bit of a shame, though, that so many folks seem unwilling not to carry TMA with them when they're engaging with TMP

i don't know where or when it was said, but i swear there was a comment made by jonny and/or alex about how TMP will have some commonality with TMA in terms of world-building, but also, people who listened to TMA first may find themselves theorizing in the wrong direction because we're judging things based off what is no longer concrete, reliable information; things are going to work differently in the world of TMP, and since we have preconceived notions on what is relevant or how things work, that's going to influence how we engage with information presented in TMP if we let it. and that's not even considering the fact that they've been explicit in conveying the idea that TMP was written so you can experience it fully without having listened to any of TMA at all!

i'm very much someone who tries to engage with media on its own terms, largely taking things at face value until i'm given reason to suspect otherwise. that's something i'm trying my best to still do with TMP, even though obviously, i've also listened to TMA and am basing some of my thoughts and personal theories on what we know from that

but that's what i mean to say i guess, it's something you have to actively choose to do. and it feels like, just based on what i've been seeing in fandom spaces, that a lot of people are having a bit of an odd time with TMP because of a reluctance to do that?

i think the easiest way to explain what i mean is to point to a general acceptance, already on the level of fanon it seems, to interpret the computer voices as Our Jon and Martin (+ Jonah/Elias, maybe). now obviously we have the actual real world reason why their voices are present in TMP, because of course jonny and alex were going to come back as voices in the show in some way. and i 100% agree it's a perfectly logical conclusion to then interpret their inclusion as being related to Jon and Martin somehow. i'm personally very into the theory that it is in no way them - not in any way that matters - but specifically their voices that have been stolen (by the Web?) as a means to help spread fears in other realities. but that's really not how i've been seeing people play with the concept? it seems largely 1:1. and again, i totally understand where people are coming from with that - especially when you consider how it can be a super fun concept for horror and angst, or even just the fact that folks want an excuse to carry their favorite characters into this new show and still play around with them. i promise i don't mean to bring this up as a means of making anyone feel bad or like, chastised for interpreting things a certain way and playing in the space!

it's the biggest example of what i mean though, and was a huge point of frustration for me when we were first being presented with TMP. it's not just that i don't want the voices to be Jon and Martin proper (i am very into their Ambiguous End, i believe it's best to leave that as a space for fans to play in); in all honesty, i think it's kind of a shame and maybe even a bit boring (im sorry!) to be engaging with TMP this way

and it's not just stuff like that - i've been seeing a fair amount of people expressing frustration and feeling disappointed with how TMP is hitting, but i mean, i feel like that's inevitable when you're going into it expecting More TMA? i saw at least one person basically say "ive been waiting for it to make me feel the way TMA made me feel, and it hasn't yet", and i really just feel like that's setting yourself up to be dissatisfied! beyond the fact that we're only 5 episodes in and the story has barely gotten a chance to happen yet, a huge element of this new show is that it's being approached as a largely collaborative effort, it seems, with lots of guests coming in to help shape the story and more writing and plotting influence that isn't jonny

obviously it's fine to not be super into that! undoubtedly it's a question of taste. but you do have to acknowledge that that's the case and adjust your expectations accordingly, or else you're not going to have a great time

i really like TMA, i had a great time with it, but even if TMP is a sequel to its parent podcast, it's not the same thing - and personally, i don't want it to be! i do hope that's a sentiment that is able to be more widely felt by some fans as we gain more distance from TMA while TMP is airing. i just think more people would be able to enjoy it that way, and come up with more interesting theories and interpretations of things! but those are really just my own personal thoughts

#endlesschatter #tmagp #i just needed to express some of this #it's a bit tricky tho esp with the voices as jmart thing bc a lot of my buddies and pals are playing in that space #and i hate to sound like im vagueing or complaining i swear im not ;lskdjfljk it is truly so unserious in the end #it's just very much not my interpretation or desire to see canonized in any way #though i cant deny some of the arguments made in favor of that interpretation are compelling #and i mean if it's the case in canon! not like im gonna be mad at folks for calling it!!#might not be my favorite angle but could still be plenty fun!#but also yes yeah i just wrote a lot of words down just to say i think it might be nice. if.#the fandom at large didn't try putting a coat of TMA paint over TMP and interpreting everything that happens in a TMA-colored lens

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4stormfly · 4 months

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Why Chester and Norris are probably more than just Jon and Martin’s voices

The ramblings of a madman who really wants his silly little guys back

Spoilers for up to tmagp episode 4

First of all, just because tmagp can be enjoyed without listening to tma, that doesn’t mean none of the characters from tma will come back. All sequels are designed to be enjoyable on their own, it would be bad writing otherwise. You never know where a new listener/viewer/reader will start, so everything needs to be able to be enjoyed by itself so that they continue to consume your content, but that doesn’t stop writers from including characters from the original work. Just look at Marvel movies. You don’t need to have watched every single movie that came before to enjoy Infinity War (I hadn’t, and I still loved Infinity War), but it’s still able to reference things from those previous movies without explaining the entire MCU at the time. Characters can come back from tma and tmagp can still be enjoyable for new listeners. These two things aren’t mutually exclusive.

One of the major theories is that the fears are just using their voices from the tapes. This doesn’t explain Augustus’ voice, though. His voice isn’t anywhere on the tma tapes, unless you want to say he’s a recast for Leitner, which doesn’t really make sense for any other reason than they sound similar. It’s much more likely that Augustus is og Jonah, since he was the only one in the panopticon with Jon and Martin (plus there’s no implication that Elias’s body in the rubble in MAG200, so Jonah could have been sent wherever Jon and Martin went).

As pointed out very often, even though we only have four cases read out by the text to speech voices, they all line up pretty well with the characters they would be. Chester reads the case about the dangers of the Magnus Institute, serving as a warning for what’s to come. Norris reads the cases about love and how easily it is to lose yourself to these fears. Finally, Augustus reads the case from the 18th century about a selfish man willing to use the fears to harm other people in order to get what he wants.

Another thing I don’t see mentioned a lot is the censorship around who Jonny, Alex, and Tim Fearon are playing. When the official cast was revealed, the characters they were playing were censored. On top of that, at the end of each episode, when listing the cast members and who they play, Jonny, Alex, and Tim Fearon are always listed as “additional voices�� rather than as Chester/Norris/Augustus. It just seems like a weird thing to do if they end up being just text to speech programs.

Finally, the first case with “some of” Arthur coming back and Jonny’s statement on it about being careful for what you wish to come back because it’ll come back wrong just parallel the situation too well. It could be a coincidence, but it could also be some great foreshadowing.

#if you can’t tell I really want it to be them #trying to manifest it by writing this all down #tmagp #tmagp spoilers #the magnus protocol #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jonah magnus #tmagp speculation #stormfly rambles

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autismprotocol · 1 month

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TMAG Theory Board Update (EP 11-12)

Hi guys sorry about the late posting I've just started a new quarter of college and its been pretty hectic. also got into my school design BFA program so pretty stoked about that! Anyways lets get into the Episode Breakdowns because even though not a lot of lore related things happened I still have a lot to talk about

For the breakdown I'll separate each by episode in sequential order

What Happened in Episode 11: Marked

Celias Rude Awakening- we jump right into the weirdness straight away with Celia waking up on the side of the interstate. she indicates that this is not a weird occurrence and ends the scene by telling someone named Jack that she's "on her way." If you remember episode 8 after Celia and Sam talk to Gerry and Gertrude, she mentions stuff about wanting help with her own mystery. When Sam asks about it she says she's looking into Time travel, other dimentions and teleportation. Many people have theorized that maybe Celia is just a super heavy sleepwalker, but I think the she teleports random places out of nowhere. This could be a side effect of her reality hopping if this Celia is originally from The archives universe.

As for the identity of Jack I'm not quite sure about that yet. I cross referenced the name Jack with past episodes of TMA. The only thing that came up was Jack Barnabas from the statement about dating Agnes Montague (aka an avatar of the desolation and Jesus-like figure for the cult of the lightless flame) So Unless Celia is secretly Agnes of Agnes reincarnated , I can't find any way to link Barnabas to Celia. (if anyone has a theory feel free to send it my way.)

Sam Lore- this one is pretty minor story-wise but I thought it was interesting. Before the statement for the episode is presented we get some classic Sam and Alice Banter ™ most of it is pretty lighthearted but I noticed Sam mention something that could indicate he might be an amputee.

These could not mean anything and I find it weird that it hasn't been mentioned until now but thought it was kind of cool and I will probably be drawing sam with a prothetic leg in the future cause I really like this head-canon. It also begs to question if he is missing a leg. it might have anything to do with his past as a Magnus institute test subject but then again could just be a fun character detail added by Jonny and/or Alex .

The Statement- Getting into the statement we get another Ink5oul appearance. Also possible Ink5oul identifying as she/they. (and lets be honest being a fear avatar is pretty non binary core). I found this Episode gave me a feeling of a hybrid between the Vast, Buried and the Flesh some people are theorizing that is might be a new entity called the Deep but I think that the fear of the ocean could easily apply to the vast or buried. Not much to say about this story though pretty standard Magnus horror that also gave us a hint to what Ink5oul's goal could be/which entity they serve.

Post Bonzo- Gwen has a debrief with Lena after her first Externals Liason assignment and her meeting with Mr. Bonzo. Undoubtedly Gwen is still pretty shaken from her encounter, even arriving late to work due to sleeplessness. Gwen is able to ask Lena a few questions mainly she wanted to know who's name was written on the letter given to Bonzo

Lena is largely unhelpful but tells Gwen she should have worked it out by now and if not to pay close attention to the case load for the next couple of days. before the latest episode my guess was Klaus because that is the only person mentioned so far that the OIAR intends to kill. but more on that later

Marked- Now were getting to my favorite thing about this episode. This episode title can have two meanings. The first is the more literal interpretation. Tattoos are marking of the body and the case this episode was all about tattoos so easily a good name would be marked. But I believe this is a red herring meant to misguide listeners who have not consumed all 200 episodes of TMA because if you know the world of Magnus Archives the term Marked takes on a entirely different meaning.

In TMA the term marked is used to indicate that somebody has been influenced by one or more or the fears and are one their way to becoming an Avatar. I think this could be a coded way to tell the audience someone in the OIAR has been marked. I have two potential candidates

Alice Dyer- Alice has been having dreams about the Institute after her and Sam's adventure into the ruins. also she mentions feeling like someone's watching her (common to people influenced or fed upon by the Ceaseless Watcher/The Eye) My guess if she is marked it would be by the Eye.

Gwendolyn Bouchard: Probably the most likely culprit. The main way an entitly tends to mark people is through encounters with other avatars. Gwen has just had an encounter with Mr Bonzo last episode who I strongly believe must be an avatar of some sort.

What Happened in Episode 12: Getting Off

Aww Sam!!- Sam asked Celia out and it was adorably awkward. not much to say I just loved this interaction and I'm longing for a new Magnus brand office romance hopefully is wont be an agonizing slowburn that ends tragically like a certain pair of morons from Archives (I love you Jon and Martin but Jesus christ)

It's Bonzo time bitches!!- Probably one of the most gruesome Magnus statement I've ever listened to (good work Alex) Mr Bonzo completely annihilated some poor dude at his bachelor party. Based on the date of the Incident the I can confidently say that whoever Baz (the groom) was he was our mystery person the OIAR sent Mr Bonzo to get rid of. Along with some of the bloodiest imagery we learned a few things about Bonzo. The most interesting detail is that Bonzo has to be summoned by playing his theme song I think the CD of his theme song acts somewhat like the tapes did in TMA by materialising out of nowhere. Also fun fact you know that torn seam that is right down Bonzo's middle? that is actually is his mouth lined with rows sharp teeth so I guess I know that now (so fun) Moral of the story dont f*ck with Mr. Bonzo

Alice knows something: Theres been this recurring audio glitch throughout TMAGP thatnks to a few extremly observent fans we have started to relize that these glitches are not at all random and are actually letting the audience know when a character is lying (i actually reposted somones deepdive into all the istances of this glitch so far if you guys are intrested in knowing more) why i bring this up now is becuase since we know when any charater is lying we also know when they are being truthful if there is no glitch when they say somthing and at the end of this episode this interaction occurs

Alice goes ahead and makes a joke about this to annoy Gwen but the fact theres no audio glitch when she says "I know" means she does actually know who is behind the OIAR and is activly refusing to share it with Gwen or the others. What do you know Alice!?

and that's about it im already loving these next batch of episodes and am so excited to learn more (ERROR has to show up somtime )

thanks to everyone who resonded the poll on the last update I will continue to include drawings into the breakdown even if it takes me a little bit of time to post. anyways I wrote this all in one sitting and I'm about ready to pass out so thanks again and the ask box and comments are always open for discussion and theory crafting.

-Echo

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artificialdaydreamer · 2 years

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For those asking about the TMA 2 stuff, what it would be about, here ya go

JONNY

One of the things that's fun about this particular ending is can do a spin-off in whatever universe might be fun. I would probably do something— It probably’d have to be a prequel and it would be, I think, entirely different characters.

There are some very compelling characters that would be fun to dive into a little bit more people like, oh, you know, Gertrude and Adelard Decker, and that whole, like, previous generation.

The problem with that sort of sequel is that in the original series and, you know, in most original series that have these sort of prequels, the way that the past is dealt with is very deliberate. Gertrude and Decker and Salesa and all this, sort of, previous generation, they are specifically written to be highlighting and contrasting and interacting with the actual story that's being told.

When you start to expand that out into what has to stand as its own story, then that whole aspect starts to collapse a little bit. And in my eyes, the prequel would never be able to be as good as it could be, because it's hamstrung by all this stuff that's in the original series, and the original series would be slightly lessened by the fact that there's all this additional stuff that has been built up that was not in mind when it was written.

So like, I think a lot of the obvious spin-off stuff, probably not particularly interesting to me.

JONNY

And if you ever did get all the answers for all the characters, it's incredibly sterile, it's incredibly boring. It's just this, like, weird, perfect artificial thing that feels incredibly fake.

But yeah, I would probably— I’ve had various thoughts, but I think it would probably be some alternate dimension thing.

Also, you know what? Okay everyone, let's do a series of Joshua Gillespie just not noticing creepy things.

JONNY

Oh, actually thinking about it. I also, like, I am fascinated actually in the world that we have left behind, post-Magnus.

ALEX

See, I'm deliberately dodging giving that answer for the simple reason, it's the one that I think has the actual most potential.

JONNY

I largely want to mention it because I discovered a bunch of post-post-apocalypse memes on Tumblr, which are amazing. They are in-universe memes. Created by people who have come out of all the fear dimensions.

ALEX

Oh, that's such a good idea!

JONNY

And they are astounding! They're so good. There are accounts which are like in- universe posting about someone's like, ‘Oh yeah, I'm having some real problems with like my boyfriend, because he was in space and he was contemplating the bigness of the universe, but I was in a war dimension. I got shot a lot and it's really driving a wedge between us because he's like, “Oh no, mine was really scary.” And I was like, “How many times did you explode?”’

Jonny and Alex on potential spin-offs/sequels. S5 Q&A Part one.

I know there was somewhere in one of the q&as where they said that Jon and Martin’s story was finished but I can’t find it at the moment.

Did find this tho

ALEX

Title of The Magnus Archives 2. Semi-colon 'Snogs Galore'.

#tma #the magnus archives

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ashironie · 3 months

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I don’t have a good feeling about Celia

I tried to post this earlier but it got deleted so fuck

But from so many standpoints she just irks me

-She has the same character archetype as Alice. Many have pointed out their similarities and while this by itself isn’t much (as is everything on this list) with everything else it makes me weirded out

-She just came out of the blue. We had no warning in the episodes before no build up. We were introduced to the concept she was coming and then she came with little fanfare.

-Her introduction to the rest of the cast is a lot different than Sam’s. A lot understated. Maybe Jonny and Alex just didn’t want to do the same thing again but it felt really rushed and weird.

-I cannot see how she can possibly contribute to the plot in any meaningful way if she is just another victim coworker. She was introduced too late to have her death feel like anything but fridging (when you make a character just to kill them for momentary character drama), once again she shares a character archetype with Alice so the only thing that they could give Celia could be given to Alice perfectly fine, and she once again feels forced

-Celia was also too comfortable too quick for me. She just instantly trusted none of her coworkers would report her for talking shit about their boss. She seemed too genuine about everything even though she was in a completely new environment. And she was just so laid back with everything, like sure she might not know the full scale of things but she seems like she’s been their for as long as anyone can remember (something that might be due to the fact I associate this trait with Alice who has been there a long time)

-idk if I’m reaching or going crazy with this one but Alice seemed off. She moreso just said “I’m Alice” and and Aliced all over the place. But as soon as Celia left she said ‘yeah’ sorta suspiciously? Maybe I’m crazy. Then she’s back to herself replying to Gwen, who we can assume is only less interested in what Celia has to say due to the situation she’s found herself in during ep 4 was it? with Lena. The only time we really get to know her thoughts about Celia when she isn’t in front of her is when she’s bugging Sam about his crush on her, and also literally all conversation she has with Celia she also has with Sam and shifts the conversation (aside from just meeting Celia) to Sam (imo). The only time we get her opinions on Celia away from other characters is the little ‘yeah’.

-We don’t see Colin’s reaction to Celia either, which would mark the third episode in a row where Colin is only mentioned (to my knowledge). Though we don’t have any mention that he’s been hostile to her. The only characters that truly talk to her and that we can see their reactions to her are Alice and Sam. One who I’m convinced is suspicious of her and the other who’s ’in love’ with her (I was completely caught off guard by this due to not even thinking about any of that in the very beginnings of a horror podcast, I’m autistic and demiromantic, and because I was half listening the first time I listened. I sense it more but it still feels like a stretch to me before Alice mentions it though makes a lot of sense due to Sam’s reaction to her mentioning it)

-I feel like I’d be amiss to not mention the fact this is the episode we truly have an Avatar in it. Needles is the first avatar we tma enjoyers know as an avatar (in Norris’s statement in ep1 we have the maybe scammer but it’s unclear weather that’s an Avatar, someone being possessed, or something else entirely). Thematically, this would be a great way to establish a connection with Avatar and Celia. She was introduced exactly when Avatars were. Also the episode name could also be a reference to the fact we are having our “introductions” to Avatars thought this episode, but that’s unrelated.

-People has also pointed out Celia is in Tma, same name and same voice actress (so no Michael situation or helen and Mel’s therapist situation [I think I remember them having the same voice actress and that being a problem] here). Although I don’t know what the could mean but that’s actually the reason I decided to rewrite this mini-notsomini-rant.

I could be wrong about all of this and am prepared to be wrong but still, needed to get this out there.

#the magnus archives #tma #the magnus protocol #tmagp #celia ripley #I personally think she’s an Avatar #but I may have just connected dots that aren’t there

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reapersbarge · 2 years

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pieces of the magnus protocol i transcribed from the twitch stream (not 100% accurate; it’s missing a few bits, but i got the important parts)

jonny: “one thing to know about the inspiration is a couple of years ago i streamed the game control and i said hey alex this is quite a fun game—and then about a year later he’s like jonny i played control and i’ve got ideas.”

alex: “we talk about filling the tanks, creatively just like make and make and then stop and then just take in other material—playing control tipped me over and unlocked and like my tanks are full.”

jonny: “tma was very much about the individual and people and choices and agency—alex and me were talking like i’d like to do something that dives into more organizations and less isolated—”

sasha: “so andor came at a great time for you.”

jonny: “yeah! and our protagonists work for the british civil service—as in civil servants, very boring very essential and varying degrees of evil depending on what group you’re talking about. the crucial thing is that no one wants to work there; it’s the right level of evil, boring, and bureaucratic. we don’t have the exact names—“

alex: “JONNY, SHUT UP!”

what are you most excited about in revisiting the magnus archives

alex: “i’m really interested in—it’s a bit of a fancy word for it—i’m really interested in revisiting the lore and metaphysics of it…what the audience knows, what the audience thinks it knows…i really like, more than jonny, playing with what people think is going on…”

jonny: “there are certain characters i am excited to revisit in new and exciting ways.”

alex: “and that’s it!”

jonny: “invent interactions, dialogue, and agency-related occurrences.”

(eta: i’ll be reblogging this with more tidbits as they come up)

#tma #magnuspod #the magnus archives #the magnus protocol

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gammija · 4 months

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On the one hand, jonny and alex have said that Protocol is "more of a side-quel", that it should be enjoyable by people unfamiliar with tma, and that being familiar with tma might actually set you on the wrong foot for theorizing. so that's why im not gonna assume that cherri is actually truly jmart until info actually in tmagp canon suggests it

(also it would spoil the ambiguity of tmas ending. and i just want them to have a possibility to be happy somewhere else 😢)

ON the other hand! since tmagp is released in the same feed as tma, there's no clear break and listening to the episodes in sequence goes right from "we couldnt find any bodies in the rubble" to "beep boop we have jon and martins voices in a different universe". so, conclusion... i dont know what to believe!

#tmagp #tmagp spoilers #i didnt wanna type out their full computer names but yall get it fro.context right #tmagp s1 #tmagp theory #tma s5 #tma finale #jonmartin

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annabelle--cane · 11 days

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Sending that ask reminded me of another one I was meaning to ask. I remember a while ago when Jonny and/or Alex said they didn't like Jon very much (I think? I can't remember it very well) and I saw some people be kind of shocked over that and say that that led to bad writing. Looking back now, I might be misremembering some context, but I also don't know that disliking your characters necessarily is a bad thing and wanted to know what you think, if you have an opinion on it.

off the top of my head, the closest either of them have gotten to saying they don't like jon was in this bit of the s2 q&a:

Alex: “Are the writer and actor Jonathan Sims, and the Archivist Jonathan Sims, at all alike or do the similarities end in the shared name or voice?” Jonny: I mean, I don’t think they’re super alike. Like, a lot of his, a lot of his aspects are small aspects of my own personality turned up to 11. Alex: I just think you mined the bits of yourself that you don’t particularly like. Jonny: I mean, yeah. Alex: And then, and then just built a personality around them. Jonny: No, I mined the bits of myself that are useful in a horror protagonist.

and if memory serves me I think the thesis of that bit of fan commentary back in the day was that basing a character loosely on himself led jonny to be overly self-deprecating-by-proxy, so he made the narrative/other characters come down too harshly on jon. it's an approach to criticism that always makes me feel a bit icky, I already dislike critical approaches that are primarily about the author's psyche and imo leveling it up into saying "this guy's self-worth is too low for him to write a good story" about an author who is still like. alive and online. is a huge and just plain weird overstep. and even beside that, this argument still supposes that the characters behaving badly towards jon is a writing flaw, and that's simply not a take with which I have ever agreed.

I have definitely seen fiction before where the creators clearly grew to dislike a certain character and started writing them Weirdly, where they would act out in ways that weren't consistent with their earlier characterization, or unfortunate things would happen to them that they didn't expect the audience to sympathize with, or their extremely reasonable viewpoints would be dismissed out-of-hand, but I think that writers can dislike their characters without it having bad ramifications as long as they're self-aware enough about it. for an example, alexander j newall kind of infamously didn't really like martin until the end of season four, but he is still a sympathetic character with a really solid arc.

#tma #ahumaninbakerstreet #answered

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cheese-wizard · 4 months

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Hi, Hello, don't mind me, I just want to get my thoughts an theories for the Magnus Protocol out there. I haven't engaged much in discourse yet so perhaps some parts will be repetitive but there will be spoilers for tma.

I don't think we can apply Smirke's 14/15 to the world of protocol since it just doesn't make sense for Jonny and Alex to use the same system again but I have a feeling there is going to be a way to classify them and I have quite a feeling that it has to do with the alchemical symbols.

I only briefly skimmed the Wikipedia page for some of them but one thing I thought about was that the Symbol for Salt and Mercury are on the crest of the OIAR (and some in the background) and just like with the last cover, I am not going to dismiss any of this for stylistic choices.

I saw a post a few days ago talking about how salt stands for the human body and by extension flesh related horrors/body horror/etc etc and from what I've gathered, mercury stands for Spirit or mind or whatever and each of the main elements in alchemy corresponds with planets. (Do I smell a potential system for fear classification there, or do I need to do some further reading into the symbolism? 👀 Maybe both.)

So like Mercury is the Roman god of a lot of things but a lot of the time he is referenced for traveling and communication which leads me to associate him with technology and the internet as well since, interconnectivity, information travels fast bla bla bla.

I don't have any clue if the speed up arrow thingys in the crest mean anything alchemically but if it means something about combining technology and the human body/mind and we already have Norris and Chester who once were human and are now uploaded to the miracle box that is Windows NT. As much as I like the idea of JMJ error referring to Jon Martin and Jonah, I am not sure about the Jonah part because it could also very well be the case that some guy Alice mentioned from the people that "have gone weird" before, just somehow ended up part of the computer and it might happen to our beloved office staff too. (Perhaps not exactly since Alice would probably recognize their voices but maybe it's like the not them getting to you. I just noticed a hole in my theory and am trying to keep it afloat lol)

Let me know what you think and if you have more knowledge on alchemical symbolism

#the magnus protocol #tmagp #tmagp theory #tmagp speculation #the magnus archives spoilers #tma spoilers

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who-needs-words · 2 years

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Alright.

The more I think about the current tma stuff (are we really calling it tma2? Kinda lame I like statement remains more)- the more I think about it the more I come to a few conclusions;

1) this is going to be big. They’re building hype. I don’t think they’d build this much hype for a live show or Q&As or what have you. It’s going to be big.

2) if it is a tma companion podcast I really hope it isn’t about what happened to Jon and Martin. The ambiguity of the ending made for one favorite ways to end a story.

3) that said literally anything else in the tma universe would be EPIC. Prequel? Fuck yeah. Sequel about Basira, Georgie and Melanie rebuilding? Wonderful Gerry-centric piece? Hell yeah.

4) I think I trust jonny and Alex enough to not needlessly create unplanned sequels for money and fame. I don’t want to mess with parasocial relationships and claim I know anything about them as people but- unplanned, money-driven sequels doesn’t seem in line with their business ethics.

5) whatever it is I’m going to watch/listen and decide how I feel after.

6) I’m really fucking excited

#tma #the magnus archives 2 #the magnus archives #magnuspod #statement remains #rusty quill #tma fandom #tma theory

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alwaysbooyahback · 5 days

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DPHW, Hypercategorization, and Art within Capitalism

Disclaimer: I’m not theorizing on what DPHW is in universe.

DPHW, as a structural component, connects back brilliantly to its creators, particularly Alex, who runs a podcasting company and therefore professionally deals with targeting content to potential new listeners.

The DPHW is a counterweight to TMA’s entities. It’s the RGB to TMA’s ROYGBIV. It’s hypercategorization, hypercompartmentalization. We know little about it in universe:

It’s a system to very granularly categorize incidents with a 4-digit number.

It’s part of a broader categorization system

Humans act as a slow (and error-prone) LOOKUP() function using paper

Nearly 10 years of familiarity isn’t enough to have the system memorized, though can get you close.

Any incident involving the same main element gets the same number. Any incident with the main element as “Dolls, watching” is 1157. Doesn’t matter if it’s ghosts, cameras, if they’re made of human skin, whatever; dolls that are watching means it’s an 1157.

The last point has been one of consternation for me and others I’ve been discussing it with. It sounds daft.

But maybe that’s the point. Maybe it’s daft because it’s a critique. Hypercategorization drives modern advertising, it’s what puts ads blogs and videos and podcasts in front of us.

To the mighty algorithm, we’re all just a number to crunch to serve us the content that will keep us Engaged and on the Platform. No one knows how it works, it just does; it’s a black box, just like the DPHW.

But that’s wrong. It fundamentally misunderstands our humanity, for we contain multitudes.

Yet the algorithm reflects enough of ourselves to do real work; it may only see the shadows on the cave wall, but that’s better than seeing nothing at all.

Of course Jonny and Alex want to make good art. But for them to make art and a living, they have to get that content in front of an audience, one that will either pay for it directly (eg, Patreon and Kickstarter) or indirectly (eg, ads).

They have to deal with this reality, with the tension between the algorithmically targeted portrait of their target audience and the deep, multitudinous, and complex people their audience is. That’s just part of what it means to be a content creator, to own a podcast company.

Thanks to etymologynerd for his great vertical video on generational labels all being made up and how hypercompartmentalation drives social media and targeting.

#the magnus protocol #tmagp #magpod #I have no clue if this was intentional #I just think it’s kind of a cool read #dphw #I didn’t try to make Whitman and Plato allusions #it just kinda happened #Look my grad degree is in words

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panelshowsource · 6 months

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hey frends!

just a lil update to say that i'll be moving soon, so over the next 2–3 weeks i'll be quite busy and won't be able to post a lot a lot (not that i usually post that much but i do try!)

now that many panel shows are wrapping up their seasons, it's not too much to keep up with the masterpost or anything, so i'll definitely keep that chugging, but gifs might be a little slow :') i have a few requests i'll work on, and it's fine to send those in; plus, i said i'd be making BIG gifsets for the recent taskmaster contestants and i'm definitely working on those! i wanna do a good job so taking my time :)

wanna remind everyone about some of the newer additions to the googledrive!

ed gamble — glutton (audiobook) (i'll be listening to this today while i'm packing! if anyone else listened pls lmk what you think!! i'm also wrapping up david's book and gonna post my thoughts soon hehe)

added the most recent alex horne/tim key celebrity pointless to the alex horne collection folder

a couple seasons of duck quacks don't echo upgraded to 1080p

bbc radio 4's hard to tell from 2011, with jonny sweet, charlotte ritchie, katy wix, etc.

complete british as folk, with fern brady, ivo graham, and darren harriott (any other homo reading this grow up absolutely and painfully obsessed with queer as folk? either version? oh man... this programme gets a 10/10 for the name alone, iconic)

live at the moth club

lots of fun new episode of growing pains, hignfy, taskmaster, outsiders :)

as well, there are a couple of new podcasts out: russell howard's wonderbox and james acaster's springleaf :)

i have a bunch of asks and i'll post them later! you guys are being so cute about taskmaster it's been so fun

hope everyone is having a great weekend!

btw... please don't feel obligated to anon me rude messages... i'm a little stressed with everything going on in Life, so maybe save those for the new year? i'll try to come up w witty retorts after i've had some sleep

it's funny, i've been hearing a lot about blog competition and fighting for notes and monopolising panel show content blah blah in my inbox recently. (i only included one here but there's genuinely been quite a few just in the last couple of weeks.) i don't know what might be going on on other blogs or discords or whatever, and i honestly didn't even know these were still convos people are having; i kinda thought we all agreed that this site isn't as big as it used to be, notes aren't as plentiful as they used to be, but by golly we'll just keep on posting anyways. i don't know if there are edit tags for any panel shows but i don't use them; i just post content here for my current followers and if you guys like it then that's all i wanted to do. i don't care if there are other panel show blogs with more followers or posts that get more notes or better gifs or better blogs or whatever. it's all fine. i don't care. i don't think about it. so you don't have to ask me that stuff — how to grow your blog or get more followers or more engagement, or how i feel about other blogs that post the same content as i do — i won't answer it. just post it because you want to; don't race to be the first one to get stuff at (especially at the expense of making content you're proud of!); don't put other people down; don't send anonymous hate. just be cool and worry about you. if you can't have fun here without validation in the notes then you're gonna be miserable. flopping is integral to being active.

#p

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miscreantahead · 4 months

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Tbh I've seen a LOT of people saying they don't think Chester and Norris are Jon and Martin in any way but the way I see it the other possibilities just don't make sense with what we have. (Not talking to people who just don't want it to be them because I see your point there but... well anyway.) Possibilities I've considered are as follows, let me know if there's some other thing I didn't think of:

They're completely unrelated to Jon or Martin and Alex and Jonny are just using their voices for new "characters". The reason I don't believe this at all is simple: is because it feels cheap and like a bad storytelling decision, and that may be a matter of opinion but I've listened to enough Q&A's between the two of them to feel like they wouldn't go that route. I could absolutely accept this if they were on a constrained budget and short on VA's, but the kickstarter suggests otherwise. I'm not saying they couldn't have cameos were Jon and Martin not in this, but large cryptic parts after the ambiguity of what happens to these two at the end of TMA would be a tasteless bait and switch that I feel like I trust them not to do. I'm using my Reasonable Typing Voice but I honestly think this take is borderline impossible and it would blow me away if this was the case.

2 is under the cut.

2. Something else simply pulled their voices from all of the statements they read that the web collected and is imitating them while reading new material. This one is *possible* but still feels entirely unlikely but the why is more complicated so I'm going to break down why this doesn't add up to me:

• The cases are being read by something sentient enough to understand and apply strong emotional tone to the human "speech" in each case. The contrast of the introductions and headers/filing information makes this even more apparent which suggests it was a conscious decision (blatantly, IMO, and after an explanation was provided for all the statements sounding like the same writing style in TMA, I'd be extremely surprised if this had no bearing on the narrative and is just a choice of execution.). So there's no way this is just a computer program, even if it's influenced by beholding, we know from TMA that beholding doesn't have that kind of understanding of human emotion either. Something with a deeper understanding of language and humanity than a computer program could have is reading these. Unless they're actually taking us down a sentient AI route, but that seems unlikely. So it has to be something in some way human.

• We consider it could just be Freddy (I forget how it's actually spelled, FR3-DI?) using their voices and that Freddy is the individual in question with human level sentience, but I have no explanation for why it would use their voices separately, why it wouldn't include others who read statements like Melanie, Basira, Tim, Daisy, etc. Yes, there's still Augustus, but that can only cover one of the other characters who read statements, and only Jon and Martin read a significant enough amount of them to set themselves aside from the others who read. The ONLY thing that would make this theory work for me is if Augustus turned out to be Gertrude, and honestly I wouldn't put it past Alice, trans legend, to call a quite seemingly older woman's voice by a masculine sounding name just for the hell of it. But, again, seems unlikely.

• We could consider that they are to only some small degree themselves, but they've lost a significant enough portion that they aren't truly, and are simply extensions of this universe's "Eye" (saying eye because I think the motivation would still have to be voyeuristic to bother?), to the point where who they used to be won't even be a concern. But this one is still challenged by the first bullet to some degree, I think. This one is possible, albeit a little boring in my opinion.

I'm willing to accept that none of the characters we know and love will truly be present in this new narrative. I actually went into it with that expectation and was jump-scared by AJN's voice 10 minutes into the first episode. But with everything in episodes 1 and 2, I don't think it's far-fetched at all to hope we're going to get some jmart again (I think the other direction is more far-fetched). I do think it's perfectly likely it's going to be miserable and painful the whole fucking time, though.

#the magnus protocol #seeing a lot of posts saying they dont think it's them and it doesn't track for me so voila! a take!#again this isn't for anyone who just hates the idea of it being them that's sensible but im just saying i can't find a way that it's not

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hippeasantwitch · 4 months

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Protocol Theory and SPOILERS!

I understand the absolute want, dare I say, need for some of us to want jmart in the computers. It means they didn’t die technically and maybe we can break them out or something (I’ve read a lot of somewhere else fanfiction trust me I know what we all crave). However, I do think Jonny and Alex are 100% fucking with everyone. Can you imagine the absolute comedy of making these sort of red herring hints that these voices are Jmart *knowing* fans will go absolutely ballistic. I mean Alex is reading all of these tragically romantic stories while Jonny has read the eye related “oh shit I went too far and no one will help me now” story. That’s too easy for these guys. I mean .jmj could be a YouTube video titled “Jon and Martin live (Not Clickbait) it’s just so on the nose.

That being said I do have a theory about the voices. I do think they were are in some areas are sentient humans who were made full blown avatars. I think eye avatars make more sense as computers. We get knowledge through computers mainly and rarely gain knowledge through humans we meet in person. What better way to know than be a computer? We’ve made technology so pervasive that the eye doesn’t need humans to be humans so why not digitize them? That being said I have this theory the voices are Sam’s friends from the institute or people he knew. Why else does he feel the need to listen to their voices, as if he’s drawn to them. It also makes sense Alice would leave. She’s secretly avoidant of things she dislikes or doesn’t want to remember while being openly confrontational to cover up. I don’t think this is more of Jon and martins story, I think it’s Sam’s story and it makes more sense that Sam was drawn to this job particularly.

Idk, thoughts?

#the magnus pod #tmagp spoilers #tmagp #tmagp theory #tmagp speculation #the magnus protocol

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emeraldmew · 3 months

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Hey, sis.

#also someone remind me to make my Cosmic Horror Toddler theory into something coherent

Whenever you have the time.

Okay. So bear in mind we're only like seven episodes in and I have no evidence and really no thought behind this beyond "would that be fucked up or what?" and "ooh I'd love to see what an eldritch abomination growing up is like."

There are also like, all of the spoilers for the original TMA below so like, if you're just listening to Protocol you might want to skip the rest of this post.

Tenuously connected point 1.

One of the things from what Jonny and Alex have said about Protocol is that it's supposed to involve exploring "what makes a person" right? And we also already know Jonny's answer to this question from his, uh, cannibalism discussion.

Short version: a "person" understands their actions as something that actually does things to the world around them beyond simply fulfilling a want like hunger/capable of choosing to do evil.

Tenuously connected point 2.

In the Archives universe, a point is made that the Fears "don't think. Not like we do." They work off instinct.

Tenuously connected point 3.

While I never looked into the ARG before Protocol's release I have since looked into the summaries of what it revealed. Among other things the ARG revealed Magnus Institute of Protocol was studying children via... psychological experiments of dubious morality. Aside from this being why Sam is snooping into the Magnus Institute (for those who haven't looked into the ARG yet, his name is among the children researched) the experiments are pretty much looking into how children at various stages of development display empathy and whether they conform to orders or choose not to and stuff like that (I'm sure I am not wording this part right someone with a better background in psychology can probably expand further).

Anyway, my point is the idea of choices and such is being studied in relation to psychological development in children.

Tenuously connected point 4.

The way the cases so far have played out in Protocol does seem to show a difference compared to Archives.

Smirke's original categories don't seem to fit quite right anymore as each of the cases seem to have stuff that doesn't cram into the original boxes. As the blurry categories were already a major point in TMA regarding creating the Eyepocalypse and even Sam calls out the categorization the OIAR use in the first episode this isn't surprising. But it does suggest that the Fears have changed from what they were before.

Quite a few people have also suggested that in the cases we've seen sometimes the incidents seem to fulfill a desire (in a monkey's paw way, of course) rather than simply finding a random victim. This might suggest the presence of intent rather than only instinct.

So what?

I'll admit it's just sort of my own "ooh wouldn't that be messed up? let's explore that further" thought process doing the talking here, but The Thing that was Fear has existed since things could feel afraid. It's ancient. But it's also a cosmic horror entity that has been shown to grow from it's initial state to what we saw in Archives (see ep 200).

It's something on a cosmic level. Maybe it wasn't done growing. The Fears don't think "like we do"...

but neither do babies.

What if by Protocol the Fears have developed more after leaving their cradle? To a point where they can at least begin to think or choose.

What if the Fears are eldritch toddlers and they're learning how to play?

#emeraldmew's red string theory of eldritch toddlers #the magnus archives #the magnus protocol #tma #tmagp #tmagp theory #spoilers #i mean i have no evidence beyond the fact that i personally would love to explore a cosmic horror's life cycle #also note that the theory only really touches on the Fears if you came here looking for theories about Chester & Norris you're out of luck #(unless they and Agustus are the nannies in this analogy)

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