#tmagp statements devastating

[lilithphobik]

HOUGH man been a while since ive drawn THE martin kartin blackwood .,,, malevolent hyperfix been eating me ALIVE (and past redval hyperfix… and tpp…….. hrhgh)

somebody help him hes chilly and jn the fog

#the magnus archives #the magnus archives fanart #tma fanart #martin blackwood fanart #martin kartin blackwood #martin blackwood #fanart #my art #OUGH i still miss martin #tmagp statements devastating #OGUHH jmart come home we miss you #oh i forgot the mag tag #mag 170 #tma spoilers

[theboombutton]

The interesting thing about tmagp episode 9 is that, from one perspective, it's about a pair of dice that kill you if you roll a crit fail. And in TMA that would be very End-coded. Games of chance were End-coded, and death is obviously The End. Open and shut case.

Except it's not, here. The statement giver had never seen anyone roll a 2 before he ran into Gary in that coffee shop, even after thousands of rolls. That's not an End artifact. Those dice are going out of their way not to kill anyone, save those who try to part with them.

The compulsion to roll feels like the Web, but is it? Certainly games of chance can become addicting, but I don't think that's the whole story. The Web is about the fear of the loss of control, yes, but it's also about something else controlling you instead. Here that something else is an embodiment of "random" chance - although again, it's not properly-random, not even pseudorandom. I have thoughts on that but they're best addressed further on.

Weirdly, of all the manifestations of Fear from TMA, this statement seems most akin to Jude Perry's - rolling the dice with other people's lives and fortunes, for the thrill of sometimes devastating them.

Which brings me back to the possibility of AU Fears.

In the Protocolverse, why shouldn't there be a Fear associated with chance and luck and fate and misfortune that happens for no good reason? A fear of lacking control and losing everything, without anyone else necessarily having that control.

This is where the way the dice are rigged becomes possibly meaningful. Their outcomes aren't random - they're what humans expect random to look like. They operate according to the gambler's fallacy, where the longer a chain of bad luck you have the more you're due for a good roll, and vice versa. Snake eyes aren't just a normal outcome of the 1-in-36 chance of rolling 2d6 - they're reserved for when someone is cursed with truly rotten luck. Notably that isn't true of boxcars: those just happen sometimes, without prerequisite.

Logically, a Fear of Misfortune wouldn't operate on the actual rules of probability, would it? It would be shaped by the superstitions of those that feared it.

(Also, I hope this statement puts the "they're not fears they're desires!" theory to bed. This guy didn't want the dice, and didn't especially want to roll them, but seemed compelled to anyway.)

#tmagp spoilers #tmagp #the magnus protocol #tmagp 9 #tmagp 09 #tmagp s1e09 #tmagp speculation #tmagp theory #tmagp thoughts #the web #the end #the fears #the desolation #the misfortune

[anthroposeen]

tmagp 12 relisten notes

Celia:

- requests tea, not coffee, the OIAR custom. points to her being from the TMA universe + bonus thing! there was no tea in the OIAR and sam lended her some. potentially a demonstration of their relationship dynamic lore-wise (celia representing other-wordly things and sam's insistence on interacting w them. this is definitely a reach, though, since im very much a 'the curtains are never just blue' person)

- she agrees to go out with sam but needs to "sort some things out" maybe related to jack, georgie, or her individual research

Sam:

- he asked her out! oh my god (alice's father)!

- is trying to distance himself from the magnus institute (TMI) but is still unable to break his curiosity about it

Alice:

- watched sam ask out celia (we can assume it was with the manner of a deer in the headlights)

- "its rude to have no game" i love you maam

- no glitch after she says "i cant believe im missing out on all of this- devastating" but could be because it comes off as more sarcastic than a blunt lie

- "we dont always get what we want, do we?" potentially a hint at her feeling about sam

- "i go by alice, now, actually" important only because i adore you miss dyer

- seems to genuinely care about gwen, lending to the idea that shes protecting her coworkers

- "i dont wonder. i know" no glitch followed this statement. it could be because it was meant as a joke and not to deceive gwen, but who is to say

Gwen:

- she's trying to discuss the morality of their roles and seems to be unhappy to participate in mascot strip club murder

- "you dont wonder what the point is? who benefits from all this awfulness?"

Glitches/lies:

- "dont worry about it, it wasnt that bad" alice, referencing TMI

- "no." sam, lying about not being interested in information about TMI

Incident:

- this is the result of gwen giving mr bonzo the hit, and it seems to have been read at her computer (once again implying theres a consciousness within FR3D1 or jmj)

- incident made by jordan bennett -> maybe related to this universe's bennett family (connection to barnabas bennett) but i doubt its lore relevant

- no obvious alchemic ties in this incident

- this case is narrated by norris/martin, but goes against the regular theme of his incidents (lonliness, loss of a loved one)

- the robotic sound of the narration seems to be diminishing, with very little of the beginning and end of the incidents being read in a monotone and robotic voice

- i want to voice my deepest appreciation for the title being "getting off", along with mr bonzo initiating a hit for the uk government in a strip club. incredible. absolute cinema from the minds of AJN and johhny sims truly

The target:

- before this episode, my theory was that klaus, colin, and teddy were the most likely to be the hit

- based on this list, if the target is the groom, it makes the most sense for it to be klaus, since there has been no mention of colin or teddy being engaged, and thats a clue i dont think the writers would leave out. however, the groom is called "baz" by his friends, which is a nickname i dont recognize (but its potentially on the rpg somewhere?)

- im not very convinced that klaus was the groom in this incident. i think the hit may have been obvious to lena, but gwen has yet to connect all the dots, leaving the audience a bit in the dark as well

#tmagp #the magnus protocol #tmagp 12 #tmagp theory #tmagp spoilers #alice dyer #mr bonzo #sam khalid #celia ripley #gwen bouchard

[sleeping-archivist]

my reactions to ep 12 (with spoilers):

pre-statement:

• first of all, this came out like an hour early for me and so i listened to it while walking TO latin. more bonzo lore is not the way i wanted to start my morning :(

• the title… uhhhh what

• secret tunnel?????? do you perhaps have a goofy librarian in your secret tunnel?????

• this may just be me reaching but it seems like the TMAGP crew has been more coffee-based… and celia went with tea… which was very TMA of her 👀

• sam ilysm

• …what’s complicated celia 🤨 what do you need to sort out first celia?????

• alice dyer my light my love. “a cup of liquid” sent me

• “you know it’s rude to have absolutely no game?” i am somehow both alice AND sam rn

• please i wanna read the “magnus institute re: samama khalid - massive conspiracy” case 👀

statement:

• carlisle street??? …like flesh guy toby carlisle? like other flesh guy benjamin carlisle?

• respectfully i know they have to conform to the format but also hearing “submitted. submitted. submitted” over and over drove me a lil bit insane

• yellow and purple lunch box… it’s not getting better from here is it

• the real horror of this ep was the comic sans on the cd 💀

• this is probably not an actual connection but the ongoing murder music made me think of grifter’s bone…

• RIP joey the doorman :(

• did not enjoy listening to the following section at 9:30 in the morning 🤢

• “…unfolding the groom’s head with another flowering explosion of blood” alexander j newall you will be hearing from my therapist <3

• rotten foam??????

• …coquettishly???? 🤡 🎀

• “bonzo? bonzo bonzo?” …ok i know i’ve been complaining about mr bonzo this whole time but this was the funniest bit of the whole ep

• why weren’t the cameras working 👁️ 👁️

• please pay her… let her go to therapy…

post-statement:

• aight so this was definitely the result of the letter that she delivered… poor gwen :(

• “jesus christ…” “i go by alice now, actually” alice dyer the woman you are. i would die for u

• “are you, like, actually okay?” i’m WAITING for this enemies to lovers arc. pleaseeeeeee please please

• “there’s something wrong here” well shoutout to gwen, she got there quicker than jon did

• “i don’t wonder. i know” ALICE. WHAT DO YOU KNOW. SHARE WITH THE CLASS

• “it’s all part of a grand plan to satisfy one of the most unspeakable evils known to mankind…” ok but like. is it??? is it really???? is that not what it is?????

• “the UK government” alice rlly said the real horror = the british and i love her for it <3

• aaaaaaaaaa i can’t believe i have to wait another week until the next ep. devastating news

#tmagp #the magnus protocol #tmagp spoilers #tmagp 12

[iintervallum]

some tma and tmagp meta and thoughts, disclaimer that this does contain some more negative critique

i think i realized why i still think about tma despite not actually fully loving the podcast. i like a lot of the lore and the workings of the avatars and the meta narrative around power structures,and many of the themes it discusses and disects through the subtext are intriguing, it has a very interesting tapestry of the inner workings of it's universe

but the actual way the podcast tells it was, at some points, repetitive and a little bit boring, i would have to relisten sometimes to episodes just to remember what was happening even though i was listening to a lot of it in the same time span and should have remembered, i havent felt as much of a need to revist the story as i have with other audio dramas ive listened to. I do want to say that i genuinely enjoy tma its just not something that ive latched onto as i have with other shows.

side tangent -> and seeing how volatile the fandom was in its peak i don't want to be involved further lol. I'm someone who has a bad habit of looking at discourse and critical tags because i like fandom history and I'm nosy, and seeing posts about jmart being "too fluffy" and the ending of tma having "no impact" and how they were "pandering" right next to posts about how "traumatically tragic" the ending was and how jmart was "extremely toxic" and they made them "do terrible things how dare they" was really funny. there were legitimate critiques of things there as well but the divisive nature of s5 is amusing to me as an outsider that came in late additionally some stuff with how fandom centers whiteness and white narratives, as nice as it that there is a widely adopted fanon of Jon as a person of colour, specially a brown asian man, i think the fandom still didn't really decenter whiteness at all, like sure you're solving the sexy man problem by making them non white but have you done...any thinking into the deeper implications of it? i have, being south asian myself makes it impossible not to. tangent over

I guess some aspects did not feel as tight as they could have been, with some themes the show deals with being hits and misses. i think the structure and the statement format as iconic as it is, restricted the way the story could be told, if i'm making sense? (and the decision to go with more realisitc and more grounded horror that intersected with real world issues are a part of said hits and misses from my perspective, some things i feel didnt fully work from a narrative standpoint but thats a subjective thing that i wont get into)

thats why i'm enjoying tmagp a little more, i think they took what worked well with tma and expanded on it with a fuller cast from the offset,the inclusion of the non statement parts that tma had (the interpersonal relationships and conflicts) and intergrated it without fully losing what makes tma intriguing to listen to. tmagp so far seems to balance the cases and the character interactions well. it doesnt feel like we're just going with the same format and its not too unfamilar either.

like one thing i'm looking forward to is the guest writers, specifically a few of them since ive listened to their work and loved them, and it will be really interesting to see how their writing would work within the tma universe.

and an aspect which makes tmagp intresting as well is if you have proior knowledge of the tma universe, we know much more than the characters, and have our own perceptions of what is going to happen to them based on our previous understanding of the series and the events that transpired. we're just waiting for the characters to catch onto what we know, and all the foreboding tragedy and devastation that will come with it.

some part of me wonders, if this season will be about how tragedies like the universe ending in the way it did in s5 are unavoidable, how even in an alternate universe where the circumstances are different the same things are bound to happen again. no matter what its inevitable, the mark of what transpired cannot ever be reversed,

like there are parallels to be had with how jon was ultimately pulled into everything against his will and had not that much agency in what happened to him, even if he did make the decision to use the power he had(for both good and bad reasons), it was forced onto him in the first place. meanwhile we have sam who is desperate for a connection to something greater, as a part of his self worth is tied to being chosen, even if we know that being chosen is not what it seems, hes willing to endanger himself if it means finding out more with his curiousity overpowering the risk factor. i wonder if the outcome of it all will be the same because that would be very very interesting.

either way the tighter nature of tmagp seems to work well for it and i hope that the momentum continues till it's conclusion, and even if not I had a decent time with it so it still would have been worth it

#aster.txt #the magnus archives #tma #the magnus protocol #tma spoilers #tmagp spoilers #meta #fandom meta #critical #tmagp theory

[metannoyuhhh]

I just saw a TikTok about the fears and motivations of TMAGP and I don’t think I can sleep until I get this out.

So the main big bad(s) of The Magnus Archives was the fears and their entities and artifacts. All the main characters and statement givers, if not the rest of the world, were effected by them. Motivated by them even.

Even if someone wasn’t experiencing one of the fears firsthand, a connection to someone who has or even just a read through of a particular statement could motivate one to do so much.

Jon had The Web first. He experienced Mr. Spider at such a young age and his fear of spiders carries on for as long as he does. Then it was The Eye, the position he presumably worked so hard for turned out to be far more sinister. He was trapped and he was paranoid and he was surrounded solely by other paranoid victims. And yet, this fear did nothing but push Jon to do more research, to find what was going on, and to fix it. He was scared and he was tearing himself and his relationships apart but he saved the world, at least once.

Martin was Lonely for a long time, making him a perfect candidate to be taken under Peters Lukas’ wing. He was isolated from the beginning, watching his family and friends drop one by one like flies. Close to the end he felt he had no choice but to give in. He probably knew it was wrong to give himself up to The Lonely but if that meant saving what was left that he cared for, he’d do it every time.

Tim was such a doting big brother who lost his other half in such a devastating and horrific way. His brother was picked off by The Stranger when his curiosity got the better of him and his best friend was murdered and replaced and he didn’t even notice for months. His fear turned to aggression and his aggression turned to vigor to research and fight to do his damn best to stop The Unknowing, and he did.

In The Magnus Archives, fear and trauma is what motivates people. It’s the rush of adrenaline that gets people moving and fighting. And while sometimes it’s also to get something they want (a better world, to save someone, revenge) there is always trauma that comes first. You cannot have the motivation and obsession shown in TMA without having experienced the fears in one way or another.

I think The Magnus Protocol is going to flip this on it’s head. Instead of fear fueling motivation, it’s going to be motivation that leads to the fear and trauma.

Gwen is a perfect example of this. She’s so dedicated to her job and so obsessed with filing things accurately so that she can work her way up to the managers role. And I think her precision and dedication to the statements and the knowledge they hold will put her straight into The Eye’s influence, or maybe even The Web.

Sam is a similar case, his curiosity about the files is going to lead him to something unsavory that he won’t be able to get out of.

In The Magnus Protocol everyone wants something. Gwen wants power, Sam wants knowledge, Colin wants to get ahold of this strange computer system, and I think Chester and Norris most all want each other.

I think Jon and Martins love for each other, their wanting to be together and still sacrificing that in hopes of bringing the world back fundamentally changed the way this world operates. They wanted to be together so they came back in the form of our little text to speech bots, they will always be together now, even if that means being trapped in a desktop from the 90’s.

The Magnus protocol is going to be about wants, and I think that is going to be apparent very soon as Colin works on the app more and as Sam dives deeper into the files and as Gwen works her way up the corporate ladder.

It may even be that these characters become entities because of their wants. Like the woman in episode two who wanted to perfect her art and herself at the cost of her physical appearance and relationships. It really wouldn’t even shock me if my the end of this all of our main characters will have succumbed to a fear in some way, except for maybe Alyce.

#my brain is so big rn #so full of thoughts #and tumblr is my only place to put them #tmagp #the magnus protocol #chester tmagp #norris tmagp #alyce dyer #colin becher #samama khalid #gwendolyn bouchard #jon sims #martin blackwood

[thearchivtheantichrist]

Becomes silly and decides to hurt anyone who likes TMA / TMAGP (that has seen tma) because I have THOUGHTS about Chester and Norris

First of all, the Internet ie !the web! is a very fun thing to spin into possibly devastating consequences! Like: Jon and Martin Are actually Chester and Norris and their wills are not their own as the lead Sam and maybe others further into the mystery of the institute and if the fears are truly here then them too.

Or! Martin gets to experience what Jon did with watchers crown and is forced to read something he Knows is dooming and bad but cannot stop

Alternatively, Jon gets to watch that happen and cannot say anything other than read a statement. Or, he gets to experience it as well.

There is so many possibilities but I will not let up hope that Jon and Martin are Chester and Norris.

#the magnus archives #jon sims #jonathan sims #tmagp #tma #theory #tma theory #i think #martin blackwood #Martin Kartin knife Killbill Blackwood #magnuspod

[restlesschilled]

TmagP 011 reaction

Note: I am a backer so this was made on 9th April, and set to post on 11th April

Pre statement- Celia's phone

sorry what... "again?"

celia you good?

whose jack?

what

Pre statement- Oiar office

"good morning [night]"

THIS OR ANY OTHER WORLD???

okay what was that sound at 4:39? after alice said "its nothing"

"Alice.... was that a lie?"

WHOS FOLLOWING ALICE

WHAT

THERE IT IS AGAIN

ooo walking her home hmmm?

Case/Statement "and were off"

chester <3

...dig

"units" for coffins is very interesting

oh shit

WAIT SAILORS

UM

LONELY TATTOO

"the waves are so close and getting closer"

calling it now its a lonely graveyard that is punishing those who are digging her up

KRACKEN?????? PLEASE BE A KRACKEN

oh its the vast

ITS THE VAST

"the deep will care for his bone"

"My thoughts and opinions on maritime matters will no longer be included in my emails." AHGRFWGJFERA

"I want to see the body again. I dug him up, he’s my responsibility. I just need to see it. I need to know what’s in the water."FUCK

CHEST GOT GRUFF FUCK IM SCARED

OKAY CAPTAIN AHAB

Post Case

SAME HAT SAM

the sound again

"Oh, but I am concerned. So very concerned. I can’t decide if you look more like a bog witch with caffeine withdrawal or that Cheddar Gorge mummy." ALICE JESUS FUCK

new elditch sound unlocked and celia is making it happen too

*Alice takes a breath for a devastating putdown.*

Lena's office

ummmm... what?

"externals"

Final Thoughts

I.... I have questions....

#the magnus protocol #tmagp thoughts #tmagp spoilers #tmagp 11 #tmagp 011 #celia ripley #sam khalid #alice dyer #gwen bouchard #mr. bonzo #lena kelley