somuchbetterthanthat

[somuchbetterthanthat]

There is something so funny about Sam being so Anti-Jon so far. Wasn't chosen by the magnus institute. Wasn't accepted in Oxford. His ex reached out to help him instead of him showing up to her doorstep for help.

I want a corruption arc for Sam so bad where he goes into it willingly and knowingly now.

#tmagp spoilers #the magnus protocol #Sam Khalid

[somuchbetterthanthat]

I just think that Sam 'I fail just before any Big Success I was expecting' Khalid should have had a ring he intended to give Alice, is all. Hell maybe they should both know about the ring. Maybe it was on Alice's finger at SOME point. Before it all went wrong. I'm jUST sAYING.

#tmagp spoilers #the magnus protocol #I don't care it's soooo anchored in my very soul they almost got married #Canon cannot take that away from me #I needed 700 AUs where they WERE married #At least. To begin with. #Malice #sam x alice

[somuchbetterthanthat]

Knowing that Alice's parents are dead puts her relationship with her brother in a new perspective. It sounds like they died either at the same time or very close together. Depending on his age this could have left Alice as Luke's legal guardian. Did Alice maybe take the job at the OIAR because she was fresh out of college and suddenly had to support a whole nother person?

Even if he was an adult when they died that still leaves him as her only remaining family. She probably still feels a level of responsibility for him. It's likely she's the only support he has.

#i have a feeling Luke might have been a teenager when they die #obviously i cannot be sure but i dunno it feels right #but yeah explains a lot of their dynamics so far #i hope we get to meet luke at some poiiint #the magnus protocol #tmagp spoilers

[somuchbetterthanthat]

placing my hands out placatingly, asking everyone to please be cool and not reignite og!elias burnt out gifted kid discourse. okay? okay. I think this is setting up some more sam and gwen parallels. from mag 193, we know that elias bouchard (original flavor) was told from a young age that he was smart but lazy, he was squandering his advantages, and he was wrong to envy other children because they were meaningless and he was better. he seemed to internalize this to some extent, because by the time he was in his early twenties he had no friends and no family and no real life, just the certainty that he was destined to deserve better.

I think it is reasonable to assume that gwen received similar messaging during her childhood, as she seems to be treating the OIAR the same way elias treated artefact storage (as a stepping stone job to a bigger career waiting for her up the ladder), and she takes a lot of offence when she feels disrespected. from magp 03, we know she's reticent to tell her friends that she's still working this same job, especially because the friend's party she was going to was to celebrate making partner at a law firm.

from this episode, we know that sam was declared "gifted" as a child and his parents rigorously enrolled him in every program they could find, and it started going down hill when the magnus institute rejected him (did they reject him outright or was he there for a bit and then kicked out? what he said to celia doesn't quite fit his earlier statements, but moving on). he has a lot of pent up and fixated feelings about not being chosen by them, he didn't get into oxford, he just missed the highest grades, and he's reticent to tell his parents that he's working this job, especially because he used to be at a law firm.

we know the bouchards are a wealthy and influential family, and as sam speaks with a south asian accent I think it's safe to assume that his family immigrated. of course, there's a massive amount of variation in the socioeconomic statuses of south asian immigrant families in the UK, and I don't know enough about how british gifted kids programs work to know if sam having been in a bunch of them would imply anything about his parents' disposable income, but nonetheless I still think their different backgrounds potentially say a lot about how they handle these feelings of not meeting the high standards that were expected of / promised to them. gwen is fighting to be on the same level of social status and power as her peers, and sam probably felt like he was he had opportunities for upward mobility in this brand new place but kept failing them. it's causing both of them to be very active characters, they are the two people pushing the story forward the most by far, but the ways in which they are active diverge greatly.

gwen, until recently, had felt like she was unfairly stagnating, like she was "not most people" and was cut out for better, and being constantly barred from climbing the ladder made her both resentful of lena and extremely paranoid / insecure about her own worth. now that she's starting to crack it into the "real work," it's obviously taking a great toll on her, but she doesn't want to back out, she wants to prove herself and take what's rightfully hers and not show herself to be unfit for real power. her actions appear to be guided by an ethos that her life hasn't been wasted yet, she still has time to make good, she just needs to ignore that weakness masquerading as a conscience, please god don't let her fail.

sam feels like he's made mistake after mistake after mistake and led himself to his own desperate state where he only just managed to avoid destitution because his ex was kind enough to hook him up with an emergency job that is actively destroying his physical and emotional health, and he has pinned all this frustration on trying to figure out what the magnus institute was all about and why it didn't choose him. like gwen, great things were expected of him, but unlike her he doesn't seem to still be striving for them, that dried up when he had a breakdown at his last job. now he just wants to figure it out and make sense of it, as if solving the mystery will let him fix it and undo all that time and un-waste his promised potential. his actions seem to be guided by an ethos that, even though he's already screwed everything right up, solving the ghosts that haunt his life will some how lessen their burden and maybe, just maybe, give him closure on the Flaw That Doomed Him and allow him to move past it without dragging it still forward.

#yesssss #yes yes yes yes #i'm fascinated the gwen and sam road #i hope they get to interact again soon #they haven't talked to each other in FOREVER #i know it's coz we've got three plots right now in the oiar and theirs don't converge just yet but aaah #the magnus protocol #tmagp spoilers

[somuchbetterthanthat]

God the way Sam and Alice had that last conversation, it's so clear that they are coming towards their last tether for each other, the differences in how they view their job is going to split them apart for better or for worse, as Sam goes further into the rabbit hole with Celia leading from behind and Alice being left in the OIAR with a spiralling gwen

#we are clearly heading towards a huge fight/shift between two fractions here #obviously celia is working on something /else/ and sam will probably end up joining her #i'm hyyyyped. exes to estranged to friends to enemies #what a treat to me specifically #the magnus protocol #tmagp spoilers

[somuchbetterthanthat]

"Are we the bad guys?"

Gwen. Gwen. You blackmailed your way into this position with evidence of a failed murder attempt.

Gwen. Honey.

#i love her endlessly but also yEAH honey. what did you THINK this was going to be about #the magnus protocol #tmagp spoilers

[somuchbetterthanthat]

I love that sam canonically ventposts lmao

34 notes

☕ skhalid90 Follow

I know the situation isn't that dire but I kinda feel like I'm at the end of my rope. if it comes to it and I can't make rent I can just move back in with mum and dad, I know I'm not going to die or anything, but I just. really don't want to have those conversations. probably just being dramatic about it but. aaaaaaaaaaaa.

💖 bigfootgirlchesthair Follow

oh my god mate just check your dms I can't take this anymore

☕ skhalid90 Follow

🥺

3 notes

#it delights me to no end #the magnus protocol #tmagp spoilers

[somuchbetterthanthat]

sam: jokes aside, we should probably just get all of our baggage out on the table now. It’s risky enough dating at work without adding bombshell revelations to the mix

celia: *lies harder*

sam: jokes aside, I think the audience has been waiting long enough to get some exposition about each of our mysterious pasts. care to monologue about yours?

celia: sure, so I'm going to play a little trick and say something that is surprising but doesn't actually have anything to do with my main mystery, drawing out the story for longer while still giving the listeners something to chew on.

#yuuuuuuup #the magnus protocol #tmagp spoilers

[somuchbetterthanthat]

sam scored a date with his crush, started drinking during breakfast, trauma dumped, went to work, filed a case about a guy self harming for weeks in exchange for cold hard cash before getting eaten by a weird metal bug or something, told his long term friend who saved his ass from destitution that he would prefer if their relationship were professional from now on, and then discussed committing treason at his government office while being recorded. king.

#what a man #the magnus protocol #tmagp spoilers

[somuchbetterthanthat]

In another universe (Ha.), Samama Khalid becomes a lawyer, almost gets a prestigious job at important Law Firm he's been grinding at for years, then he has a panic attack, runs off in a street, runs into his ex college girlfriend Alice who tells him she works at this night shift job who pays ok and demands nothing of you, and he immediately quits his job and it's obviously not because of Alice Dyer, don't be ridiculous, he's just moving his whole carrier because the OiAR sounds like a great place to be; he is not the crazy ex-boyfriend,,

#jokes that are literally only funny to me but that i need to write somewhere #he meets Celia instead #Celia leaves mid season 2 gently telling him they were a shit show #but Sam being an almost lawyer is so funny to me #it OPENS POSSIBILITIES #the magnus protocol #tmagp spoilers #sort of

[somuchbetterthanthat]

So. We know that Celia is a single mom with a one year old, both of Alice's parents are dead and her brother is at least somewhat financially dependent on her, and Sam doesn't want to tell his parents that he left his previous job. We don't know much about Gwen's family situation, but everything so far seems to imply she's from a well-off family.

That creates an interesting parallel between Celia and Alice: they're both working at the OIAR to financially support (aside from themselves) a younger family member, presumably without much help from other family members/anyone else really. While they can technically quit their jobs, that'd make it much harder for them to care for themselves and the family member that is dependent on them.

Now this part miiight be a stretch because we don't know enough about Sam and Gwen's family situations, but i believe they parallel each other in a similar way. What Sam said in the last ep seems to imply that he doesn't want to disappoint his parents or admit he's not living up to their expectations. And if the Bouchard family in Protocol is anything like the Bouchard family in Archives, Gwen probably has some familial expectations placed on her too. They're both also the ones most invested in their jobs, digging themselves deeper into supernatural business in an attempt to climb the corporate ladder/figure out how it all went wrong. They too cannot quit their jobs at the OIAR, so long as they still aren't living up to their family's expectations.

#tmagp spoilers #Yessss I thought of the celia/Alice parallels too #the magnus protocol

[somuchbetterthanthat]

"so who do I talk to to get a complete list of your flaws?"

"No one. I'm mysterious."

oh we know Celia, we know

#My exact reaction #the magnus protocol #tmagp spoilers

[somuchbetterthanthat]

brb i need to put my head through a wall

#They are literally killing me #the magnus protocol #tmagp spoilers

[somuchbetterthanthat]

(Insert disclaimer here that I'm really not trying to judge or decide if there is "one person obviously wrong" in this interaction, because i'm here to enjoy the MESSINESS and the ANGST of humanity, i'm eating the delicious food and drama provided to me)

The thing is, on the one hand, Sam is completely within his right to set that boundary with Alice - not being comfortable talking about his new building relationship with his ex is like, yeah, a very normal thing to be uncomfy about, there is nothing irreasonable about him asking Alice to back off about prying into it, and Alice should be able to respect that;

on the other hand, if they are friends, and they truly seem to be friends (Sam affirms they're friends! And I believe it after the 13 episodes we saw of them!), AND Alice is the one who reached out to help Sam out of a very bad mental (and probably financial, by that point) situation, helping him get a job, then, yeah, the word professional used in that context is NOT the good word to use at all, and obviously Sam realizes that, and obviously that's what really gets to Alice, beyond the new boundary trying to be established.

At the same time, Alice is clearly digging to get more infos and Trying to be the Cool Friend while being somewhat masochistic about it, since by now it's plain to see she does have lingering feelings for Sam, and the way she goes about it is not always nice, so she's hurting both herself and Sam by pushing and pushing about it and not listening to Sam giving them both a out from that.

BUT ALSO, Sam saying "I know you're not happy about me and Celia" means that he knows that she's hurting herself each time she talks about it; means that he KNOWS that she still feels something for him that he doesn't anymore, and that means that this beautiful, warm, sweet, lovable, people-pleaser of a man has been purposefully using those feelings to get her to do something she didn't want to do literally three episodes ago, and with no shame at at all about it.

THE POINT IS. They're so MESSY. They KNOW EACH OTHER SO WELL. They LIKE each other. They're going to have SUCH A BAD FALLOUT ONE DAY AND ITS GOING TO BREAK BOTH THEIR HEARTS (and mine, while i cackle from the pain).

(oh, and yeah: "We dated in uni, I tried to help her after her parents died, then we lost contact" ??? What a summary, Samama. I'm sure NOTHING is hiding behind those lines.)

#tmagp spoilers #they make me a little bit insane #i was at the edge of my seat the whole last conversation #canon and sam are trying to gloss over their dating but i'm still absolutely certain they were almost married once #and nobody can take that away from me #also WHO ELSE WAS PERSUADED SAM HAD BEEN THE ONE REACHING TO ALICE FOR HELP #you know who sam and alice make me think about? two birds on a wire the song #the magnus protocol

[somuchbetterthanthat]

A theory:

Category: What caused this incident?

Category 1: Direct interference from the OIAR or one of its affiliates. (Bonzo, Needles, the person who reanimated Arthur Winstead)

Category 2: The location where it happened was marked. (Guy who turned into a tree, the charity shop, the liminal architecture)

Category 3: The victim walked into it on their own. (Violinist, dice guy, finance app guy)

Rank: What was the result of this incident?

Rank A: Net positive. There will be a price to pay. (RedCanary is the only A)

Rank B: Net negative. There is a benefit to reap. (Bonzo, Needles, dice guy, finance app guy, horror movie guy...)

Rank C: Net neutral. This incident balanced itself. (Guy that turned into a tree, violinist, charity shop)

Combined categories have more than one cause. RedCanary (23) went to a marked location, and chose to investigate the symbols they found. Gordon (23) chose to investigate the corpse, but was also affected by the cliffside location.

Combined ranks balance differently depending on whose perspective you take. Harriet (BC) was terrified of her reanimated husband, but Arthur had a balanced experience between being reanimated and losing parts of himself. Daria (BC) had a negative experience with Ink5oul, but balanced their own cost/benefit relationship with the tattoo. RedCanary (AB) had nothing but negatives after going to the Institute... but something else benefited from it.

-

Two notes:

1) Both dice guy and finance app guy successfully balanced their experiences as long as they rode the catastrophe curve between loss and profit. It was only when they tried to break the cycle that the final (deadly) negative blow came. This contrasts with the violinist, who reaped the benefits and paid the price willingly into old age.

2) The trailer with Sam's job interview was marked as Category 1, Rank B.

#fascinating #the magnus protocol #tmagp spoilers

[somuchbetterthanthat]

Leon Stamatis

from the fiction audio drama podcast i've been listening to non stop on my semester break: @greaterblogston

#absolute beloved #best ghost #best man #perfect man #i'm so so so so so happy to see fanart of him #greater boston

[somuchbetterthanthat]

I'm fucking hollering. apollo socked me square in the nose with this one.

#still insane #literally i listen to this ep and i IMMEDIATELY thought of those posts going 'there is nO way-' #but there was ways apparently #bravo and all. #the magnus protocol #tmagp spoilers