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historicallyaccuratecheese · 4 months

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Well, I guess I’m continuing to make these now! Here’s the next part of my thoughts on every Magnus Archives episode! Now, last time I said that I was planning to write about episodes 21-40 in the next post, but as it turns out, the hyperfixation has set in and my thoughts are a LOT longer (so buckle up if you want to read this), and I also reached the tag limit. So, I’m only going to be covering episodes 21-30 here, and then I’ll write about episodes 31-40, and this 10 episode trend will probably continue for the rest of the posts, but that just means I’ll be able to put them out faster.

Also, unlike my first post, where I wrote all of my thoughts after finishing episode 20, all of these ones were written right after I finished the specific episode I talked about, so my thoughts are a lot more clearly documented. Finally, there’s a link to my masterpost, which will contain all the post’s detailing my thoughts on every episode before and after these ones.

Once again, no spoilers for future episodes please, and for anyone who hasn’t watched up to episode 30, spoilers are under the cut, so I recommend turning away until you’ve caught up. :)

- Episode 21, Freefall 🪂

Statement of Moira Kelly, regarding the disappearance of her son Robert.

WHAT THE FUCK??!! MARTIN??!! DAMN, I guess the horrors did get to him! Well, it’s nice to finally meet him, even if his first line was dropping shit on the ground. Either way, I get the vibe I’m in for a wild ride for this second half. ….What was I talking about? Oh yeah, the actual statement. Anyways this one upset me. Not only did it bring out my fear of heights pretty well, but the portrayal of a grieving mother who can’t comprehend what happened to her son was really heartbreaking. The line “The sky ate him” was kind of comedic at first, especially with Jon’s following reaction (love this guy btw, he’s such a loser), but then it became really horrific when I realized how it was just Moira desperately trying to make sense of the impossible horrors she just witnessed. The plot thread set up with Simon and Harriet Fairchild is also very interesting, and the whole sky thing kind of reminded me of Dominic’s visions in Ep. 4. Overall another one of many fantastic episodes, but HOLY SHIT I’M SCARED.

- Episode 22, Colony 🔦

Statement of Martin Blackwood, archival assistant at the Magnus Institute, London, regarding a close encounter with something he believes to have once been Jane Prentiss. Statement taken direct from subject.

….aaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! Ok let’s start from the top. Firstly, I’m really happy we finally got to meet Martin in this episode, and he’s great! Honestly he comes off as more dorky than stupid, and just comes off as a real sweetheart, so Jon’s distaste for him (outside of very different personalities), gets more mysterious. Though all things considered, after what he experienced, I don’t think that the bullying is his biggest worry anymore… Alexander J. Newall does a fantastic delivery, as much as I love Jon’s readings, you can really feel how terrified Martin is here (also “Blackwood” is a sick as fuck last name, and I related to him trailing off about spiders…) Outside of Martin himself, we have Jane Prentiss (or what remains of her) and…well, let’s just say that I don’t find the sex worms nearly as funny anymore. Jane and the worms inside her are absolutely terrifying, and while I would say I’m excited to learn more about her, I wouldn’t be complaining if the institute staff never had to deal with her again. Also the text episode made me, if you’ll excuse my language…squirm. Honestly, this might just be my favorite episode so far. The way that the plot threads from previous episodes connected here was extremely satisfying, and needless to say, I’m very excited and horrified to see where the show goes from here.

- Episode 23, Schwartzwald 🇩🇪

Statement of Albrecht von Closen, regarding a discovered tomb near his estate in the Black Forest.

Worst episode ever because Jon didn’t do a German accent, smh. Ok but in all seriousness, I really liked this one! It wasn’t the strongest in terms of complex themes in my opinion, but it had a great vibe, and was still very interesting, entertaining, and decently creepy. Having a “statement” written before the archives was founded is a really cool idea that’s executed perfectly here, and while we didn’t learn that much about Jonah Magnus, I still found it cool to get a first glimpse of the archives’ history. (Also, given the eye imagery that appears both in here and in other episodes, I can’t help but feel like Albrecht’s wording of Jonah having “good eyes” or something like that is a little weird…) And…now that we have the instance of something that isn’t a statement, but is important being in the archives, I absolutely agree with the idea that Gertrude Robinson organized these poorly on purpose, so that Jon would get the knowledge he needed to have. Regardless, this whole episode had the vibes of a classic ghost story, which while not as weird and off-putting as some of the other horror here, was still a nice change of pace overall. The descriptions of The Schwartzwald were really well done and added to the atmosphere, and I just like the fact that we have another historical episode, that’s also set outside of The UK. Also, the way that they played with the time period at the end was amazing, I already had my suspicions due to the eye imagery, but the reveal of Mary Keay (and therefore Gerard Wa- I mean Keay) being a descendant of Albrecht was still really cool. I also do wonder if the Arabic book was eventually found by Jurgen Leitner in the future…eh, food for thought. Lastly, I loved Martin jumping in out of nowhere, it was both funny, and a grim reminder about how fucked the archives supposedly are, yippee!

Wow, these are a lot longer than my previous thoughts. This, my sweet children, is a phenomenon called “brain rot”.

- Episode 24, Strange Music 🪆

Statement of Leanne Denikin, regarding an antique calliope organ she possessed briefly in August 2004.

Jon, honey, are we not going to elaborate on the fact that one of ✨the horrors✨is literally inside the institute? Like, HELLO? That’s not terrifying at all! Anwyays, this episode continues the trend of making me scared of things I’m not initially scared of, yippee! It had great vibes as well, the weird shit in the attic was made to be as creepy as possible. Initially, I didn’t find this one to be too scary, and figured it was going to go in the direction of “music makes people feel kind of weird”. AND THEN JOSHUA GETS KILLED AND TURNED INTO A DOLL HELLO??!!! Like, I know he was kind of a toxic boyfriend, but DAMN, whatever was behind the calliope and the dolls did NOT have to go that far. (Also until the end I thought he might be Joshua Gillepsie, and like, I don’t care how toxic he is, but you do not dump a guy who bested an evil coffin with his freezer.) Outside of that, It was really cool to meet Sasha! I like her voice, and the introduction was quite funny. (Also, even as someone who has lived in England for over two years, and has a family that is 90% British, nothing hurt more that Jon’s “Americans”.) Lastly, I have a theory, which I like to call “Ringmaster? More like cult leader.” Because I’M SORRY, but you cannot convince me that a CIRCUS, called THE CIRCUS OF THE OTHER, which possessed a HAUNTED CALLIOPE ORGAN, is anything but a cult. (Watch me when I’m inevitably wrong lmao.)

I guess now is a better time than any to say that I’m kind of wondering if there’s an in-universe reason for the music in the background? I mean, considering that the whole framing device is Jon recording these statements, I have to wonder if there’s a reason for the noise we hear, especially with the worms in Ep. 22 and the music in Ep. 24.

- Episode 25, Growing Dark ⛪️

Statement of Mark Bilham, regarding events culminating in his visit to Hither Green Chapel.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I LOVE BEING RIGHT!!! I saw the episode title and immediately assumed this would continue the lore of Episode 9, and I WAS SO RIGHT!!! (Also, I now just noticed that the PCOTDH’s symbol is a closed eye, while The Keay Family’s symbol is an open eye…my cult theory thickens…) Anyways, this was another very enjoyable episode! Firstly, even though it’s far from the first piece of media to do so, I though the way they portrayed a cult brainwashing someone when they’re most vulnerable was very well handled and pretty depressing. I also really enjoyed how the episode isn’t the most weird and paranormal on it’s own, but the knowledge of the connections to Ep. 9 makes us know that it DEFINITELY is, even when the characters in the story don’t. The episode was certainly very spooky, the description of the spinach and the dark church definitely got me. (Also my mom came into my room briefly and when she left she accidentally turned off the light and I nearly screamed.) There were also some really interesting plot threads set up here, like the chanting of the northern most human settlement in the world, the mention of “three hundred years waiting”, and I also wonder if “Mr. Pitch” is an alias for “Detective Rayner.” then…the ending. Holy shit. You know, maybe I DON’T need to know what happened to Gertrude….

Episode 26, A Distortion ☕️

Statement of Sasha James, assistant archivist at the Magnus Institute, London, regarding a series of paranormal sightings. Statement taken direct from subject.

I…what…I don’t even…we are so fucked. Ok, there’s a LOT going on here, but I’ll try my best to formulate my thoughts as clearly as possible. Firstly, this episode easily scared me the most so far, I agree with Jon when he says that the horrors being somewhat friendly is scarier than them being antagonistic, like HOLY SHIT this one was unnerving. But with that out of the way…uh…let’s talk about Sasha! She’s really cool, I like how her character gives us a lot more insight into what working in the archives is like for a fairly regular person (i say this because Jon is weird as fuck and Martin is too nice to be normal, and I mean that as kindly as possible). But…while I don’t necessarily doubt her status as the most level-headed person in the archives, I don’t think that’s saying much. Like, she saw a creepy guy with weird-ass hands who spoke in riddles and knew too much about her and her coworkers, and followed him into a dilapidated building, also she works at the council of ghost stories despite not liking horror. Like, no offense, I’m sure she’s overall an intelligent person, as are most people in the archives, but none of them are beating Joshua Gillepsie anytime soon (yes I’m still thinking about him.) But mentioning the guy with fucked up hands, WHO OR WHAT EVEN WAS THAT??!! I have very little ideas as to how this “Micheal” even connects to the greater picture. I know some people connected him to the mentions of the man with bones in his hands in Episode 8, but that honestly reminds me more of the Leitner in Episode 17. Outside of that, his name is quite interesting, I initially thought that he might be Micheal Crew, but given that Sasha doubts it being his real name, I have my suspicions (although it would give us a connection between this, the words in Episode 8, and The Boneturner’s Tale….hm….) However, I could absolutely see him being Micheal Keay, as he gives off enough ghost vibes to pass as him (and I’m assuming that if Gerard’s dead, Micheal is as well.) Also he is not described as having a Lichtenburg figure on him so…yeah. Lastly, we have the return of THE SEX WORMS. And as happy(?) as I am to see that The Magnus Archives, a podcast developed by RustyQuill.com, that is also licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, is continuing it’s message of staying abstinent, all things considered, that was absolutely terrifying. I just LOVE the knowledge that the worms are a hive-mind and that Jane might not be the source, I LOVE THAT SO MUCH. In conclusion, I am probably going to sleep with a fire extinguisher tonight, and I am very scared for what the next 14 episodes have in store for me.

Also I guess I’ll mention Tim (the archival assistant, not the dead guy) here because why not. So far I’m getting major bastard energy from people’s descriptions of him, which means I will either love or hate him. Also I found it very funny but also kind of sad that Jon said he only trusts Tim to not prank him in Episode 11, and then he pulled a prank shortly before this statement took place.

- Episode 27, A Sturdy Lock 🔑

Statement of Paul McKenzie, regarding repeated nocturnal intrusions into his home.

Ok, after everything that happened in the last episode, it was nice to get a short and sweet one here. Well, as sweet as an episode of a horror podcast can be. Overall, this one isn’t my favorite, I thought it was a little bit under the standards of creativity for the show as a whole, but that’s obviously not saying much, as it was still pretty damn good in its own right. I think it was definitely very effective with its storytelling, and credit where credit is due, it certainly brought out my fear of weird noises in the middle of the night. And even if I can’t personally resonate with this aspect of it, I do really appreciate how it tackled the idea of mental illness at old age, and while I’d be surprised if the statement wasn’t real, considering where the show seems to be going, it did a very good job at planting seeds of doubt in my mind. But still, it was genuinely pretty crushing how Paul had no proof throughout the entire thing, along with how the cops treated him. It really did make me thing about what would have happened if he hadn’t washed the blood off his hands. It still had a creepy atmosphere, and the reveals at the end were pretty interesting, I hope they show us Marcus’ statement soon enough. Also, the aspect of loneliness in this one did remind me a lot of what happened in Episode 13, so I wonder if there’s some connection there. (Also, I love how I’m 27 episodes in and Jon is STILL roasting Gertrude’s organizational skills.) So while this one isn’t the most interesting for me, I still enjoyed it, and it was nice to have a slightly lighter one after Episode 26. I hope Sasha had a good few days off, she deserves it.

- Episode 28, Skintight 📷

Statement of Melanie King, regarding events at the abandoned Cambridge Military Hospital during filming in January 2015. Statement taken direct from subject.

WHOA THAT WAS SO GOOD!!! Ok, I feel like I should start off with my thoughts on the basic premise, as while those episode is certainly…not the most humorous in its execution, the premise itself kind of is. I don’t know why, but I just thought the idea of there being an in-universe competitor was a really fun concept that was executed perfectly here. It kind of reminds me of something like Hatchetfield and Clivesdale (I don’t know how many people reading this will understand that, but there seems to be overlap between TMA fans and Hatchetfield fans, and also like, shut up, let me indulge in my hyperfixations.) The bickering between Melanie and Jon was great, as was Melanie herself, I’d love to see her again as I think she oddly brought a lot to the world of the series. Although I will say that, while it doesn’t make me like him any less, Jon’s reluctance to buy into statements is a lot more frustrating when there’s another person in the room. I also absolutely love the fact that there’s an in-universe spooky podcast mentioned by name, like, come one, that’s genuinely hilarious. But comedic value aside, this one was definitely pretty creepy. In a similar vain to what Episode 23 was doing, the whole “young people enter creepy abandoned building to film stuff and then get genuinely scared” concept felt evocative of other classic horror stories, and the way they spun it into the context of the show was great. The atmosphere was definitely very creepy as well, as I have mentioned, hospitals creep me the fuck out. And lastly…oh my god, THE CONNECTIONS. So, I’ll start off by saying that all of the skin shit reminded me of what happened in Episode 18 (which I hope is true because I think some connections to other things would make me like that episode more). But that pales in comparison to the fact that we have stuff on THE ANGLERFISH, HOLY FUCK THE ANGLERFISH. I’m SO glad that they didn’t throw it away just because it was in the pilot episode. In retrospect, I think that the story of Episode 1 isn’t quite my favorite. It doesn’t really have to be, as I think the main draw of the episode is getting a first look at the framing device and general vibe of the entire podcast, but the stories didn’t really grab me until Episode 2, which is still one of my favorites. But MAN, this episode really made me appreciate the setup at the beginning so much more, and the knowledge that the people who walked into the alley didn’t necessarily die, meaning that all of those names could potentially come back, is SO exciting to me. In fact, when you consider that Sarah was kind of going through what looked like a possession, I wonder if The Anglerfish is a figure of worship in a cult, if that theory is to be true. (Also I have relatives that live in the same area as Sarah so…maybe I should tell them to watch out for their neighbor lmao.) So yeah, this…this show is just really freaking good.

Note: I have discovered the Leitner rant, and therefore I have achieved true enlightenment.

- Episode 29, Cheating Death ♟️

Statement of Nathaniel Thorp, regarding his own mortality.

I should start off by saying that I love the episode title for this, like, it’s not even metaphorical, the guy literally cheated in a game against death. Well, anyways, the main thing that caught me about the episode was how it absolutely blindsided me. While I was right about the soldier being the same as the statement giver, which I think was supposed to be obvious, everything else in those last six or so minutes left me with a wide-open jaw. (Also, can I just say that I love how poetic this guy just…decided to be? Like, I just love it when the statements really show of personalities with the way they’re written, and it comes with a cool framing device.) Regardless, I initially assumed that it was going in a very traditional line. Nathaniel cheats death, becomes immortal, and regrets it in modern day because he’s lived longer that he really should have. That, combined with the fact that “Death” didn’t seem like the one of the more creative horror monsters in the show so far, had me so prepared to just write this one off as one of my least favorites (once again, not like that’s saying much.) And then the twist comes and HOLY SHIT I WAS WRONG. The idea of there basically being multiple grim reapers at the hands of some unknowable power, who have to gain successors to finally die themselves is absolutely terrifying and extremely clever. I tip my hat to you Rusty Quill, you did a great job at fooling me. Kind of funny considering how this is a story about being punished for your hubris (which seems to be a recurring theme???) I have a few other small thoughts as well. Firstly, I can’t help but shake the feeling that Nathaniel Thorp was an actual revolutionary war soldier, but I can’t find anything online other than the character from this episode. Also, the fact that his fate remains unknown makes me think he’ll show up again, as it seems weird to NOT end the story with confirmation of his death, given the themes. Secondly, a lot of the…less than pleasant imagery here definitely reminded me of Piecemeal and The Boneturner’s Tale. I don’t remember the story inside that Leitner very well, but I might check just in case there’s any parallels between it and this statement. (Update: Not really.) And finally, I was just a little bit intrigued by the fact that we learn no one who was working at the institute in 1972 works there anymore. It’s probably nothing, but given the mysteries surrounding Gertrude’s death, I’m just a little suspicious, both in general, and of Elias because he’s still around. Overall this episode went hard, I’m still kind of stunned by what it pulled off.

Jane Prentiss statement…save me…save me Jane Prentiss statement…

- Episode 30, Killing Floor 🍖

Statement of David Laylow, regarding his time working at an industrial abattoir near Dalton.

You know what, Jon is right, there’s a lot of meat in this show. Not that I’m complaining, I mean, it does fuel my obsession with connecting the dots between statements. Regardless, while this isn’t among my favorite episodes so far, I still had a good time with it. The reason it’s not one of my favorites is purely personal, as I don’t do too well with animal violence. Like, as much as I do really appreciate how viscerally Jonny Sims can describe the statements, I will admit that the opening minutes describing the slaughter house made me more uneasy than the actual horror, and not in a particularly fun way, but it was overall fine. Speaking of the actual horror, that was actually pretty good. The endless hallways lined with doors that lead to precarious situations also kind of tapped into a personal fear of mine, but in a more fun and digestible way. And while the idea of “imagine humans being slaughtered like animals” is something I’ve seen many a time before, it was still much more well executed than many other interpretations of the idea (*cough cough*, peta) and there were also plenty of other interesting themes and ideas, like how the episode touched on the inherent horror of working in a job as gruesome as the killing floor, being enslaved to said job, and the idea that maybe we’re all just walking sacks of meat in the end, and nothing more. As for some other thoughts, I was definitely creeped out by Tom Han, I’m not sure whether or not he’s someone who spreads ✨the horrors✨or someone affected by ✨the horrors✨, and his sudden disappearance was certainly…odd. On top of that, it’s admittedly haunting to know that there’s still creepy stuff going on at the slaughter house, and that this isn’t something that happened to David, and only David. Overall, a pretty good episode, I don’t have much to say about it, but it was a fun time overall.

Tim…save me…save me Tim…

Well, if you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for reading! Genuinely means the world to me when there are people willing to listen to me ramble about my horrible (affectionate) interests lmao. I should have my thoughts on the final episodes of Season 1 out in due time, and while I’m sure it’s obvious, I’m absolutely hooked on this podcast. It absolutely has the potential to become one of my favorite things ever if the overarching plot becomes more involved and this is coming from someone who up until now, wasn’t all that gripped by podcasts. While I’m a little sad that I’m as late to the party as I am, then I remembered “oh yeah, I was in elementary school when this horrifying series came out”, and I’m also hopeful that I’ll be able to be around for The Magnus Protocol while it’s airing (I know it premieres in like a week but still.) Anyways, thanks for reading and hopefully you’ll be around for my thoughts on the next batch :)

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m-e-w-666 · 3 years

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Pls tell me what tma is, it's been so long and I see it all over my dash all the time and all these characters and names and idk what any of it is referencing Pls. I just wanna know

tldr: idk what tma is and at this point I'm to afraid to ask

the magnus archives is a podcast distributed by rusty quill it is licenced under a creative commons non attribution sharealike 4.0 international licence todays episode was written and performed by jonathan sims and directed by alexander j newall for-

ok but really tma is a horror podcast it is AMAZING and you should listen to it!! i’m not great with summaries or can make it sound interesting but basically,,, It starts out with jonathan sims, new head archivist of the magnus institute (a place that does research on the paranormal), reading a statement by nathan watts who saw a figure/entity on old fish market close. the institute is basically there for people to come in and give their statements of entities they encountered and stuff.. so jon becomes the head archivist after the former one died and s1 starts out with him trying to organize the archives.

If you want to go in completely blind don’t read this bit, skip over to the next part (but you probably have been spoiled if you follow me): eventually you meet the assistants (starting ep 22 but he mentions them before) and the plot kinda kicks off from there. most of the things start happening in ep 38-40. and it switches from basically being a horror anthology to more of like,,, an actual story with the characters involved and shit.

it’s soo fucking good i was hooked from the first episode anon if you’re planning to listen here’s a few places you can:

acast app (lich rally the best place to listen if you’re broke cuz you can skip ads)

spotify (it’s kinda meh there)

youtube (where i started out)

apple podcasts (also meh)

rusty quill website itself

and anywhere else you can listen to stuff, tma is probably there

oh and if you listen to the q&as between seasons i promis it’ll make your experience better. hope this helped!!

#i’m trying so hard to not spoil it all idk how much you know about it anon #this podcast makes you queeer so be warned #you think you’re cishet? no you’re not after listening to this funky little horror podcast #tma #the magnus archives #tmame #askmew #anonymous

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hellorrglory · 4 years

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Waterparks is an American pop rock band formed in Houston, Texas in 2011. The group currently consists of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Awsten Knight, backing vocalist and lead guitarist Geoff Wigington, and backing vocalist and drummer Otto Wood. The band has released three EPs, two of which were released independently while the third was released via Equal Vision. The group released its first full-length album, Double Dare, on November 4, 2016 via Equal Vision. >:)

I didn't see this but now I did so I'm angry >:(

Given that I have to stand this I will at least annoy you back

The Magnus Archives is a horror fiction podcast written by Jonathan Sims, directed by Alexander J. Newall and distributed by Rusty Quill. Sims narrates the podcast in-character as the main character, Jonathan Sims, the newly-appointed head archivist of the fictional Magnus Institute - an institution based in London centered on research into the paranormal.[1] In 2018, BBC Sounds listed the show as one of the largest British dramatic podcasts, with an extensive fanbase on Tumblr having driven much of its success.[2] As of April 2020, The Magnus Archives has reached a download rate of over 2.5 million downloads a month.[3] The shows audience had grown to over 4 million downloads a month by July 23rd 2020 according to a press release first appearing on Podnews.net[4].

#As soon as I figure out which one of you is it I'll flood your inbox with this #Ask #Anon #Waterparks anon

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fearfearer · 4 years

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more thoughts about the magnus archives as i reread the transcripts

i was thinking about how gertrude robinson was really an extraordinary person (not extraordinarily Morally Sound, but extraordinary) just because of who she was, whereas the only extraordinary things about jonathan sims are things that have been arranged for him (i.e. his role). i don't mean this as a diss for jonathan, as i'm not extraordinary either. it's just striking that gertrude was so driven and confident compared to jon. of course, now we know that basically everything she did was in the pursuit of a moot goal (i.e. killing people in order to stop rituals that were already doomed to fail) so maybe my point is somewhat moot as well.

i've been doing some rereading of episodes on my phone (i.e. away from this text document on my computer) and i'll have a realization like "right, i should note that down when i get back to my computer" and i have forgotten all of them now that i am back at my computer. suffice it to say there are quite a few things i misheard/misunderstood on the first listen, unsurprisingly.

reading through the first 20 or so episodes i'm surprised by how well i remember each of them, considering i was listening like 4 episodes a day when i started. then again, it was only a month or two ago that i even listened to them, so one should hope my memory is at least this good. anyway the first episode i'm re-listening instead of rereading is 22 bc that's the first one where we hear martin's voice, i'm pretty sure

i've also noticed some errors in the official transcripts, which aren't a big deal because obviously what matters most is the audio, but still... some of them have been simple typos. magnus archives hire me as your official transcriptionist and i'll make all your transcripts 100% error-free bc im smatr

(reading through the rest of the transcripts and my standards went way down in terms of grammar/stylistic consistency, as most of the later ones are fan transcripts by several different people. i found quite a few mistakes, but obviously i have no particular way to help fix them short of sending an email to the tma transcripts fansite person like “hey there’s all these mistakes. upload my good version instead?” bc i’m not that much of a dick)

the whole reason martin went to the spider guy's building was because he didn't want jon to be disappointed in him for not doing Due Diligence. he says so twice. then he went back for the same reason. it seems the fandom joke is "jon asks his assistants to do crimes for him" but in this case martin is like "oh no maybe i didn't do enough crimes to satisfy jon"

jon was doing his archivist voice HEAVILY in season 1, huh?

tim's first appearance is so jovial compared to how he ends up...

if this boat lady is speaking spanish in brazil, then it doesn't matter if it was "bad spanish" or not. anyway now i understand why we already knew peter lukas was serving the lonely by the time jon mentioned offhand that peter lukas was serving the lonely. it was my whole “let’s not bother noting down any FREQUENTLY RECURRING names”

well i guess robert smirke was a real person. should i feel dumb about this? idk. it’s such a fictional-sounding name, to be fair. but i guess that set the precedent of using a real person as an important historical figure in the fiction that we see happening again when edmund halley is referenced later on. also episode 35 has foreshadowing for the separation of 14 powers, and people thought it was 13 because they mention 13 halls PLUS the one they came through.

totally forgot about tim goofing around in episode 39... he was really not having the worst time at this job before bad things started happening and he realized he was trapped, huh

the worms were trying to make a doorway into the Worm Wealm

ep 40 jon's like "I need to hear it. I need to record it. Or else I can't finish." (lightly abridged)

listening to the season 1 Q&A for the first time and EARL BIGMAC

also good to know there's only going to be 5 seasons. very good to know. this seems like a good kind of series to write with a fixed endpoint in mind, as it's very easy to do an episode that has effectively no bearing on the MetaPlot but which is still a short story in itself and therefore doesn't count as "filler"

jonathan sims performs with a mythical space pirate music cabaret. so he IS a ham

jonny says, "no rude words. i could say bums, maybe..." (alexander j newall does a laugh while i do the exact same laugh irl) "...but i won't."

some dumbass writing into the Q&A to ask if the background music is diegetic... get a podcast brain, ya fool. though for my part, i have to say that one of the most striking things about this podcast when i first started listening (though i never made a note of it before) was the Too Spooky Music, and i didn't like it at all. the reason was that i am, and have been, vulnerable to Getting Spooked about irrational things at night, such that it becomes really hard to fall asleep... and one of the things that has an outsize effect on my level of Spookédness is spooky audio. so if i was watching a video at night and i was worried it would Get Me Spooked, i would just turn the sound off, and it would turn out fine. but obviously you can't turn the sound off on a podcast. and i've been listening to podcasts after work, i.e. after 5pm, and i go to bed at like 8 or 9pm because i'm old. so the way it turned out was that even if the actual subject of the podcast wasn't that scary to me, the music would amplify it in an unpleasant way and make me more likely to have trouble sleeping. also i think most of the episodes would have been fine without the music, or maybe with some less intentionally-disconcerting background music.

this just in: i seem to have totally missed episode 50 on my first listen-through, despite having gone in linear order. bc i'm listening to it now and i've definitely never heard this before. fortunately it doesn't seem to have much of a bearing on the rest of the series, so it's not like i missed any crucial information. tbh the only worthwhile bit was a brief moment of tim being a ham, which was good. i hope i didn't miss any other episodes the first time... still don't know how i managed to miss this one.

the official transcript said [EXTENDED SOUNDS OF BRUTAL PIPE MURDER] ...

so gertrude and leitner WERE played by jonny's parents <:3c i'd thought as much when i saw the cast names but i like that it's confirmed. his mom is a really good actress too. i always find the gertrude episodes to be striking in a certain way

"it's Fine working with your parents. it's Fine." as someone who worked with my mom for like a year i can confirm this

i'm tickled to find that the official transcripts have a sense of humor. i wonder who is behind them. i also wonder, what is the excuse for not having a full set of official transcripts when it is a script-based show? surely you know what is going to be said beforehand, and you have it written down, and if someone ends up saying something different in the final recording, surely it wouldn’t be too hard to give the original script a little edit, and bam! that’s a transcript. i wonder if this approach is not feasible for some reason.

whenever martin reads statements, he says something about jon... whenever he talks to someone, he says something about jon

i think episode 110 is an instance of the tape recorder turning ITSELF off... at the end of the episode. because they walk away, and they say something distantly, and then it turns off. lots of other times, there had to be a diegetic reason for the tape recorder to turn off at the end.

i noticed something which i missed last time, which was that there is a rumor between melanie and georgie and basira that implies that jonathan is asexual. worth noting, i think. [side note added in later: yeah it’s canon. cool]

also i listened to episode 103 again and yes. i had thought-- i had been SURE-- that the person interrogating the traffic cop (using the asky ability) was martin. but it was actually jon. how did i possibly manage that mistake? i'm not great at distinguishing voices, but i'm not THAT bad. the only possible answer: when i was listening to the episode for the first time... i must have been eating a crunchy snack.

"it doesn't have to make sense! alex has to make it sense." (jonny sims re: writing the spiral)

glad to know that jonny sims regrets using his own name for the protagonist. doesn't make a difference either way at this point but yeah

YES i knew episode 100 was improvised. and i see, all the statementers had actually had supernatural experiences, but because the archivist was absent, their statements didn't have the coherence and clarity normally lent to them by the eye (in exchange for becoming cursed). i think melanie or basira actually said pretty much that in the episode itself, but i still couldn't be sure that all of those people had something real to talk about.

"in the same way that tim is dead, michael is helen." good shit

the archivist is canon a bit of a drama queen. the first bullet point in my first tma notes document is vindicated

jonny sims mentions another podcast (apocrypals) that sounds 100% up my alley, so that is appreciated, i will add that to my list i think. (listened to episodes 0 and 1 of apocrypals and i'm heavily struck by how VERY clearly i can hear the smiles in chris sims's voice. i did not know smiling could be so audible, truly.) (listened to quite a few more episodes of apocrypals and it’s certainly entertaining at times. i should’ve been reading along though. maybe some other time)

I DIDN'T LISTEN TO THE SEASON 4 TEASER THE FIRST TIME AROUND.........................................

i must confess something that people who know me well may already know: i hate when stories have a bad ending. an unhappy ending. a painful ending. a hopeless ending. bittersweet is the furthest in that direction i can tolerate. my perspective, which is pretty deep-seated, is that there's no point in getting to know and love characters if you're only going to be hurt by that connection to them when the end turns out to be bad. if i have even a mild inkling that a story is heading toward a bad ending, i make a conscious effort to regard all characters from afar and not develop any strong attachments. this is not so much "how i think all stories need to be," but rather, "the characteristics a story needs to have to appeal to me personally." so i understand that my view is very subjective and mostly based on my own mental weakness. but i can't help but apply it to the media i consume. and the idea that someone would do something like "make characters very human and strongly developed" IN COMBINATION WITH "heading toward a bad end" makes me upset. like, picture a horror movie. think about the characters in a horror movie. with the exception of a main character, if there is one, there's no guarantee that anyone is going to survive to the end of the film... BUT... the characters generally aren't fleshed out and very sympathetic. i wouldn't go so far as to say they're disposable, but you're not SUPPOSED to cry when they die; you're just supposed to get scared. their purpose is as objects of fear, and you never expect or even hope for a happy ending. but in the magnus archives... all i'm saying... is that i would cry if any of the remaining members of the main cast died. and it seems clear that we're not heading to a happy ending. so i'm somewhat afraid, and not in a good way. i don't know how much i can trust jonny sims to give me the story i want, and obviously, i'm not entitled to it.

if your name is jonathan and you want to shorten it, the short form is jon. it ain't john, no matter what the official transcripts say. where'd you get that h, huh? stole it from someone else's name? are you shortening it like JOnatHaN? you can’t just be that sneaky!

i listened to scrutiny again and it hits so hard. now, in heart of darkness, when manuela begs jon not to force her statement, it's really heavy given the direct context of the previous two episodes where we see how compulsion works and how it hurts.

also when jon was talking about how to destroy the dark sun and he was like "i just need to see it," when i first heard it, i assumed he meant something along the lines of, "by seeing it, i will learn how to destroy it." but now i understand that the mere act of the eye seeing it destroys it, because being known is what the darkness is weakest to.

the magnus employees who work in the library probably at least have a LITTLE BIT of a feeling that they work in an almost normal place, given that jon and all his assistants were able to have that impression before transferring to the archives. so i wonder how the magnus library people feel about their institute's director getting arrested for double murder and now the big boss is a completely unrelated ship captain who seems to want nothing to do with the place but simultaneously is trying to continue business as usual

on second listen, listening to jon ask helen when the guilt stops (wrt hurting people in order to feed one's patron fear) is pretty chilling. because it seems like he's definitely accepting that he will have to hurt people, and what he's concerned about is how bad it makes HIM feel. of course, helen then answers with precisely what i just wrote, so...

i should've read the transcript for episode 159 instead of relistening because i forgot that peter lukas's actor got so gravelly and hard to listen to in this one. anyway, time to re-listen to the season 4 finale... then i'll listen to the season 4 Q&As and stuff... and then the new episode. (DOKI DOKI DOKI DOKI DOKI)

i heard in the Q&A that the voice of peter lukas did multiple takes for episode 159?! but it was because of technical difficulties. right. because i can’t imagine the way it turned out being deemed the best take. sorry

ok, things i missed last time i listened to 160: daisy and the other two hunters are missing. also jon mentioned "magnus's body" and martin mentioned "an old man's corpse" and at the time i took this to mean (somewhat unthinkingly) that when jon and martin returned from the lonely, they killed elias/jonah's body. which would be a weird thing to happen "off-camera," so to speak. so i think i must have been wrong? slightly confused. ok, no, i'm now sure that elias survived, so i must have misunderstood. definitely alive.

as martin leaves and jon is about to begin the statement, he sounds so peaceful and satisfied. that's good acting.

by the way, in one of the previous few episodes, i noticed that jonah seems to have body-swapped by switching out his eyes into his preferred body, which i'm pretty sure i missed the first time.

i like that jonny sims checks reddit to see whether people have solved the mystery. that's just a really funny way to do things, sneaking a peek like "hmm how mysterious is my mystery? let's see who has figured it out..." and for the record, i wasn't even close to figuring it out. but to be fair to myself, i didn't try. like i said from the beginning, i started listening with the intent of going along for the ride. plus the mystery had already been solved before i started listening to the series, so it's not like i had a lot of time in between updates to contemplate whether elias was jonah, etc.

JON'S AMERICAN ACCENT FOR THE IONIZED YEAST AD

ALEX WAS THE VOICE OF JARED HOPWORTH?! i mean it was so messed up it could have been anybody but god

ALEX DIDN'T LET GERTUDE CACKLE

i've listened to the bloopers (including a gertrude cackle?) and the season 5 trailer (martin seems slightly cavalier about the end of the world but maybe he's just trying to keep his shit together for jon) and i'm going to listen to the new episode Soon.

final conclusion on rereads/relistens: i had pretty poor comprehension of some important happenings. i’m realizing just how easy it is to mishear/fail to hear exactly what is happening in a podcast when you’re doing other stuff at the same time. there are still a couple things i don’t quite understand, but i think i’ll have a look around the wiki one of these days.

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syntia13treeman · 5 days

Text

Case files 12.01

what I think happened in:

Case 12.01, the case of "Stag Hunter" or "Mr. Bonzo's toothy maw"

We need to talk about Gwen.

Full name Gwendolyn Bouchard, child of a rich family, strangely fixated on making career at OIAR of all places.

On 9th of January, after several years of exemplary if a bit slow work, she looked her boss dead in the eye and stated she wanted her job.

On 29th of January she received an email with a video of attempted murder (Lena on Klaus gun violence).

On 12th of February, after doing some additional research, she confronted Lena with the video. She assumed that Lena's superiors* wouldn't be happy to know that the 'murder' was a failed one. She let it be known that her source (singular) confirms that said mysterious superiors believe Klaus to be dead. As payment for her silence, she demanded to be let in on whatever extra operations were going on here. Lena graciously 'promoted' her to "Externals Liaison."

On Friday (March 8) Gwen received her first 'assignment' – to deliver an envelope to one Nigel Dickerson and 'any companion' of his that might be present. (So, glorified postal service).

On Saturday, (March 9) she got to meet her first 'External'. She was NOT prepared for the experience. She handed off the envelope as instructed. It got chewed in teeth that weren't soft. Mr. Bonzo the External lumbered away into the night, while somewhat shaken Gwen returned home.

Let's take a break from Gwen for a moment, to meet Ms. Jordan Bennett (age: early 20s). She's acquired bartending skills in 2020, and got hired at "Soho Jack's" strip-club in spring of 2021. Her employment there ended rather abruptly on Saturday night, 9th of March 2024. On that fateful night she was tending bar in a private suite on the third floor, where a Bachelor party was in full swing. The party consisted of (presumably) former high-school or college sports team, now in their 30s/40s, celebrating upcoming nuptials of their bud, Baz (full name unknown). (For now).

The chain of events was thus:

Somebody(/something?) planted a box of Bonzo merchandise among the presents for the groom.

Baz the Groom, a faithful Bonzo-fanboy, delightedly asked for the planted CD to be played.

Bonzo's theme-song started playing from the room speakers, and continued to play, getting louder, even after Jordan turned off the CD-player and disconnected the cables. (Later on it not only got louder, but also changed – from 'he wants to stay' in kids' voices to 'he's here to stay' in… different voices).

Summoned signalled by the music, Mr. Bonzo killed the bouncer guarding the room, and entered.

The party-guys did not notice the fresh body and were happy to see their favourite monster TV-mascot.

Mr. Bonzo somehow realized that the bartender did notice the body, and shushed her with a finger to his mouth.

Still unaware of danger, the guys found it hilarious when Bonzo picked up the groom by the arms and twirled him around like a toddler. They didn't even notice when

Bonzo ripped the man's arms right off. They did notice when Jordan screamed, and Bonzo tore Baz's head apart, and then pulverized and ate his body.

After that the guys tried to attack, without any real effect, aside from a trickle of some kind of stinking liquid from a cut (if it bleeds… can we kill it?).

After obliterating the groom Bonzo struck a playful pose, unfolded his mouth into a bigger, toothier maw and proceeded to bite chunks out of remaining people. Those who survived all lost something (Jordan's hand being the smallest loss). Those who didn't make it were devoured whole.

Notably, it seems that none of the people in the room tried to leave it, and none of the crashes, screams, nor the loud distorted music, were noticed by anyone outside the room; the security cameras weren't working either.

After the fact the club got sued for recompense by Jordan (and possibly other survivors and families of the deceased) and tried to get their insurance to cover it. Their claim was denied as fraudulent.

With that bit of unpleasantness out of the way, let's go back to OIAR.

On Monday, March 11, a very disgruntled Gwen confronted Lena again, this time about the nature of her assignment. Lena cheerfully advised her that screaming is good for the soul, that externals may be grotesque, but are valued assets, and that sleep is important. Also that Gwen should have already figured out whose name was in the envelope she'd delivered.

On Wednesday, March 13, Gwen's caseload included a graphic description of events of last Saturday at Soho Jack’s. She had… some kind of reaction, before Alice cut it off with a 'joke.' (btw, Alice's jokes sound more and more like 'shut up about stuff that can get us killed you idiot!')

There's a lot to unpack here, and I'm not sure if I want to touch most of it.

WHOSE name was in the envelope and why? At one point I considered a theory that the intended target was actually the Bartender (not to be killed, but maimed and traumatized), but as she wasn't the only survivor, just the 'luckiest' one, and she was way too young and poor to be Gwen's associate, I have to go back to option nr 1: The groom. Bonzo did zero-in on him upon entry, and only after completely removing him from this world did he change to more casual look and leisurely eating mode. (Work before play; at least he has good work ethics?) (No! Kill it with fire!) So. Why did 'Baz' have to die? Lena expected Gwen to know. Originally I was sure it was Colin or Alice, who both know too much. Since it's not them, the only thing that comes to mind is the 'source' who told Gwen that Klaus is believed to be dead. If a scary shady spooky government branch learned that they had a leak, they absolutely would plug it with excessive force and no consideration for collateral damage. Imagine you're Gwen, and you had a friend tell you something as a favour, and then you listen to a tale of how that friend got eaten by a creature you personally sent after him. 😬 Slightly more fucked up though less likely option: the 'source' was actually the bride-not-to-be. The Stag Night Massacre was a punishment and warning for both her and Gwen.

*Who actually are Lena's masters superiors? The ministerial prick who keeps nagging Colin about the app just… doesn't sound like someone who'd order a supernatural hit on someone. I have some thoughts, but they're too muddy to articulate just yet, so I'm moving on to:

Bonzo music. What is up with that? Nigel turned it on to call Bonzo to the door, and at the club he didn't come into the room until it was playing. Is the music just a way to get his attention, or is it like his Manchurian Candidate trigger phrase, turning him from Mr. Bonzo to Bonzo Butcher? Or is it just … part of Bonzo himself? It was getting more distorted and unsettling just as Bonzo was getting more monstrous in action and appearance. What was the cause and what was the effect here? Or: the music had to play, because it was the music that kept people from trying to run, and kept other people (and cameras) from noticing what was going on in there. So many options, so little certainty. :(

Gwen is now an accessory to murder, most likely of somebody she knew. I wonder what she's gonna do with that knowledge. Will she double down on "I can do it and I'm cool with it actually", or will she try to opt-out? (it's too late, but she could try…)

Unrelated: if at any point we meet a very angry young woman sans one hand, I'm doing the DiCaprio me

#the magnus protocol #tmagp #tmagp case files #tmagp case 12.01 #tmagp 12 #Mr. Bonzo #again #debuting #Jordan Bennett #returning #Gwendolyn Bouchard #and poor life decisions OTP #ep. written by Alexander J. Newall #ep. written by A.J.N+J.S.

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syntia13treeman · 2 months

Text

Case files 07.01

what I think happened in:

Case 07.01, the case of "Hilltop Hell 2.0" or "Charity Chill Shop of Horrors"

Things that are as clear as they can be: In A.D. 2012 Dianne Margolis started working as volunteer at Hilltop Centre branch of the Oxford People’s Trust (charity shop, I assume?). After the Centre's manager, Mr. Derek Chambers, died in 2015, one Mr. C. Clayton appointed Dianne a new manager and promptly left her to her own devices.

Left on her own, Dianne tried to find new volunteers to work in the Centre, and had bad luck of finding one. A young man of uncertain name, unknown origin and underwhelming qualifications showed up, claiming to know the Hilltop Centre better than anyone. For lack of better option, Dianne hired him. (Is it 'hiring', if it's volunteering? I don't know how this works).

At this point (mid November 2015) Dianne received what would be her last message from her direct supervisor, Mr. Clayton, before he apparently departed for a fully paid “personal development sabbatical” in the Seychelles.* The message read: "Chill, it's all good". :)

Volunteer Nr 1 brought to the table: positive attitude, good work ethics, complete lack of skills and a disturbing looking flower pot as a donation for the shop – you know, for a good cause! :)

He also brought a friend, Volunteer Nr 2.

Volunteer Nr 2 brought to the table: everything Nr 1 did, with a bearskin rug instead of a pot, and two (2!) new Volunteers.

Nr 3 and Nr 4 brought enthusiasm, cheer, and some unusual 'donations' of their own. And did I mention four (4!) new Volunteers? With four new uncanny object to donate, all for a good cause? Well, now I did.

This was getting out of hand! Now there were 8 of them!

And they would not heed any instruction Dianne issued, such as:

remove your creepy 'gifts' from the shop,

do NOT accept any additional questionable donations from unknown sources,

stop laughing at all hours,

stop repeating “It's all for a good cause!” like a mantra,

do not open the shop on your own, how did you even get the keys?

and for the love of god please stop multiplying!

The last one in particular was rejected with prejudice. While earlier influx of Volunteers was spaced out a bit, now it seemed that they started doubling in number every hour/minute/second, and very quickly poor Dianne found herself effectively buried under pressure of unnumbered Volunteers and Foreboding Items. Just when our unfortunate protagonist started choking on spilled pennies and all hope seemed lost, the gunshots started.

Hurray, the cavalry arrived!

Volunteers continued to laugh and assure the world of their good intentions while getting shot and set on fire, but they shifted just enough for Dianne to make her escape.

After escaping the building she was held at gunpoint by one of the assailants, whilst she proved her humanity by having a well deserved nervous breakdown.

Then the gun-wielding heavyset Man in Black carried her away from the blazing building, tossed casually over his shoulder. She'd been kept and interrogated briefed for the next two months.

After being released she sent her resignation note, in which she wished all the worst on Mr. C. Clayton, and curtly cut all contact with Oxford People’s Trust.

All interested parties were instructed to treat the fire at the Hilltop Centre as a simple accident and not to mention involvement of [redacted]** security force.

Some less clear points of interest:

* I do not, for one second, believe that Mr. C.Clayton is spending some personal time in the Seychelles, sending very unprofessional letters to his employees. I do believe he's currently unable to access his email and phone, on account of being quite dead. It's too convenient that he just randomly buggered off right when a newly-appointed, not-quite-qualified-for-the-job head of department is about to be besieged by the spookies(TM) (as TMA listener, I'm getting some minor flashbacks here). If one were inclined to be optimistic, one could argue that Mr. Clayton might have been paid off, with instruction to make himself scarce for half a year, but why go to the trouble when you can just disappear him and use his email to send some chill messages to his co-workers? (impostor message count in the podcast so far: 3).

** I'm quite certain that the mysterious Men In Black that may not be named are Starkwall security service, of the “The San Pedro Square Massacre” fame. Which makes me think that said 'massacre' also involved an event similar to this one, just with more witnesses who didn't understand what they were looking at. I think it was mentioned in ARG that they used to work with OIAR, but that stopped around the time Magnus Institute burned down. I'm gonna to tentatively connect the dots and say that Starkwall is dedicated to containing large-scale supernatural outbreaks and has very strict burn-it-to-the ground policy. (Spooky outbreak at Magnus Institute seems like a safe bet). I think OIAR used to supply them with data about potential paranormal events, but is not doing it any more, or is not doing it officially. I'm gonna wait for more data before speculating further on this.

So let's address the elephants in the showroom. Who were the volunteers? They were not human, even if they did passable job of imitating them. They had no names that could be remembered, or paper-trail that could be found, they had access to excessive number of cursed objects (cursed in figurative and probably literal sense), they loved to laugh a lot and had some curious relationship with math. (something something, twice the number of volunteers at half the intervals, something something geometric progression something something.) I know what TMA wants me to think, but this is OIAR, damn it. I'm gonna play with concept of changelings, malicious spirits and magic constructs until definitively proven wrong. No solid theory for now, just… rotating the pieces in my brain, hoping they'll click.

What was the point of this event? We have a great number of (presumably) magical creatures gaining access to a place they claim to be very familiar with (which place might or might not be significant for reasons). We have them filling it to the brim with (presumably) magical items. We have them acting very enthusiastic and happy, like they were celebrating something. What was it all for? I'm gonna posit that the end goal was to cram so much 'magic' in one place that it would reach critical mass and set of… some kind of reaction. Maybe to create something. Or maybe to let something through. Maybe warp reality in some way. Maybe tear a hole in the fabric of it. Or widen a pre-existing hole. Either way it would almost certainly be Not Good for the world and we should be glad that MiB was on the scene to prevent it. Almost certainly. (:

#the magnus protocol #tmagp #tmagp case files #tmagp case 07.01 #tmagp 07 #Hilltop Centre #ep. written by Alexander J. Newall #ep. written by A.J.N+J.S.

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syntia13treeman · 2 months

Text

Case files 08.01

what I think happened in:

Case 08.01,

the case of "Time of the Hungry Architecture" or "There are no missing persons in Forton Service Station."

Ok, I've had twinges of suspicion in some earlier episodes, but now it's a certainty. There are some Time Shenanigans afoot! Not time travel per se, but time asynchronicity for sure.

But let us start at the beginning, with Terrance Stevens (51) who recently went through a messy divorce, lost most of his friends in the process, and rather than going down the rabbit hole of workaholism/alcoholism/etc, decided to practice some self-care. He ditched his high-stress job in finances and became a janitor (less money but also less stress), and for a bit of intellectual challenge he enrolled in a university course. Good for you, my dude!

Downside of this – I imagine there are not many opportunities to bond with co-workers at a service station, and most if not all his fellow students are bound to be half his age, so he likely didn't make any new friends to replace the old ones. This is important, because I believe that lack of connections made him extra vulnerable to the spookies.

As Terrance later explained in his paper, his new place of employment, Forton Services, can be considered a site of brutal liminalism (TM). It's a cold and uninviting place, where there is a constant stream of people who want to be somewhere else, and where time has little to no meaning (open 24/7 and not a clock in sight).

In a place like this, reality might start to wear a little bit thin. Time and space might get a little bit warped. A little bit distorted. And not a little bit hungry.

And Terrance, lonely, sad and isolated Terrance, looked like a perfect meal.

It crept up on him over the course of few days. Without ever realising, he was being pulled somewhere else for increasingly long periods of time. (From his point of view, it seemed like there were less people around. There weren't. Terrance just didn't see most of them, because he wasn't there). It kept happening, until the fateful night, when Terrance phased out of reality for good. (For awhile).

Where did he go? Someplace almost here but not quite, where time was just a little bit out of sync with ours. Not by much. Just enough that the people and cars moving around started looking to him like a colourful blur. (Like stepping into a time-lapse picture).

Spooked by the (seeming) absence of people and strange visuals, Terrance ran right into the waiting trap elevator (defunct here, but working there). He was greeted by a too thin woman with name-tag that wasn't actually name-tag (it read You Are Here). She took him up to the (not)functioning restaurant at the top of the Pennine Tower (20m high).

There, in what seemed to be a 60s themed restaurant, he saw a crowd of people* who looked like they were AI generated (with key prompt words being thin&malnourished) sitting at the tables, not-eating and not-chatting. The chef, wearing another 'you are here' name-tag greeted him with a cheerful "You are here! Stay awhile!"

As first reaction, Terrance moved to sit at a nearby table.** (Everyone turned to watch).

As second reaction, Terrance showed admirable self-preservation instinct and tried to get the hell out of there. Sadly the door he'd entered through weren't there any more, the windows, he just noticed, were empty holes leading into black nothingness, and all the 'guests' moved to grab him, repeating after the chef: "Stay awhile!" (It was not a greeting this time. Nor was it a request).

After this, things escalated quickly. The hungry crowd closed in on Terrance and started biting him (the chef munched one of his fingers whole). Not quite ready to become dinner, Terrance punched and kicked his way free and with no hesitation jumped out the not-window.

Somewhere between the window-hole and hitting the ground, he re-entered the normal timestream, and some kind soul called in paramedics to treat his injuries. Which, for the record, were classified as fall damage by said paramedics and I find it either sus or hilarious. Sirs, these are bite-marks. How many teeth does your average building/pavement have? (To be fair, maybe the hungry crowd didn't master the teeth just yet. Maybe they need to take an anatomy course or something).

It is unclear how much time passed here while Terrance was NOT-here. It wasn't the Rip Van Winkle's 'one nap = 20 years', since he managed to submit his paper the same year it was assigned, but it was apparently long enough that he felt that someone should have reported him as missing. The fact that no-one did can have two explanations:

Very mundane if sad 'no-one cares about you enough to notice your extended absence, buddy'.

Part of the Pennine Tower's whole thing is that people who were pulled in-there are not remembered out-here, at least for as long as they remain in-there. A good hunting strategy, actually. If you were an immobile ambush predator, you wouldn't want potential pray to realize that fellow humans die here, would you.

To finish the story - Terrance immediately quit his janitor job, rationalized his experience as psychotic episode brought about by bad influence of hostile architecture, wrote a paper about it (submitted 12 July 2023 - late; failed) and, hopefully, moved on with his life.

Things of note:

*This is the second time we were introduced to a group of nameless, copy-pasted not-quite-people, prone to repeating cheerful, positive phrases. Colour me intrigued.

**I wonder what would have happened if Terrance took his place at the table. Maybe even tried some food he was offered. Was he always going to end up as the main course, or would he be assimilated, turned into one more thin, hungry guest, forever waiting for a new meal to walk in the door?

I keep going back and forth between 'the tower is a predator that creates human-facsimiles as part of its digestive system' and 'the not-people made the tower their home because they liked the brutalism vibe (or it was just a convenient spot)'.

I rather hope we'll see the Pennine Tower again. It's such a distinctive landmark. And the land is definitely marked.

There sure are a lot of mentions of hunger and food in this podcast, eh? Wonder what could it mean.

#the magnus protocol #tmagp #tmagp case files #tmagp case 08.01 #tmagp 08 #Pennine Tower #ep. written by Alexander J. Newal s #ep. written by A.J.N+J.S.

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syntia13treeman · 23 days

Text

Case files 09.01

what I think happened in:

Case 09.01, the case of "Dice of Fate" or "Mr. Die and a very bad, horrible, no good roll."

Well well well. If it isn't an honest, good old fashioned statement. Fancy seeing it here. Not much left to puzzle out, we have it all laid out very nicely. The Dice make a comeback. When we've seen them last in nineteenth century, they were sitting pretty in the sack of the Gentleman (the mystery man in the woods, quite preoccupied with luck).

By nineteen-nineties they somehow came to be in possession of a young man named Gary. (Double meaning intended). As is their nature, the dice brought Gary luck when rolled. Good luck with high rolls, bad luck with low rolls.

Gary eventually decided that bouts of good luck were not worth the inevitable dive into misfortunes, which varied from leaky pipes to broken legs. Finding himself incapable of simply NOT rolling, he fell back on time-honoured tradition of making his problem somebody else's problem.

Somebody else, we'll call him SG (short for Statement Giver), has recently been dumped by his boyfriend Carl (CaaAAAaaarl! That hurts people!) and really needed something to cheer him up. So when an old high-school friend called to invite him over for a game night, he made his way to Gary's place in West Didsbury, where he got tricked into taking over as the Dice Bearer. The dice changed hands and SG felt it as the ownership transferred to him.

SG was much smarter about rolling that Gary had been. Just like a certain violinist before him, he figured out that he needn't be the one to pay the price for the fortune his cursed object brought him. And he figured out the system (or so he thought. He should have remembered that the House always wins, in the end). He started passing the bad-luck-rolls to random strangers on the street.

After a time, he started to also let strangers roll high. And then… well, for someone who had the gall to talk shit about D&D, SG turned out to be SUCH a nerd himself. He assembled a whole-ass Grim Dicer costume, grew a goatee, he was even doing the voice! Go you, Mr. Totally-not-a-theatre-kid! Rock that Dice King persona!

He was well on his way to becoming a full blown urban cryptid, when alas, he went too far. By chance (chance?) he run into Gary and made him (made him?) roll one last time. It was the lowest roll yet. Snake eyes. 1+1. You couldn't go lower if you tried.

It seems that the Dice did not appreciate being disposed of, and they disposed of the previous Bearer in return, with extreme prejudice, via runaway truck to the face.

After that, SG lost his nerve and tried to get rid of the Dice which… Buddy. You've just seen how that ends. What did you think would happen?

SG thought he was being smart. He gave the Dice to Magnus Institute, who, as paranormal research facility (or whatever they were known as), were bound to accept them and presumably able to handle them safely.

Too bad he believed that rolling was a matter of choice*. Too bad the Dice were still within reach when the urge hit. Too bad he died right there, at the statement giving table. RIP, statement giver (????-14.10.1998). You could have been great.

So that's that. What more to say? Let's see.

I feel quite confident in saying that SG was actively becoming a supernatural creature. That feeling of increasing disconnect from the world was not just in his head. And the rolls that he took for himself, that kept getting more and more abstract, until he couldn't tell what changed, just that something did? It was you, SG. You were changing. Such a damn shame your rise to power was cut short by your own folly.

I'm equally confident that he was unwittingly creating a brand new urban legend. I bet that at the time there were people in Manchester who'd talk in hushed whisper (or at high volume in a crowded bar) about the Grim Gambler, the Dice Devil, the Lord Luck, the Horrid Hatman. (Coincidentally, for no reason whatsoever I need somebody to draw SG in full Mr. Die costume with Alex J. Newall's face). Some would warn against touching his dice, others would swear up and down that he'd bring luck and prosperity. (Imagine the discourse at cryptid message boards!). I wonder if the legend still lives, even if SG doesn't.

*About rolling the dice, even knowing the odds… It sure as hell wasn't free choice, no sir. What was it then, compulsion, or addiction? Was that need to see the dice clutter over one's future coming from without, or within? Both options are equally appealing to me, to be honest.

The statement and the Dice were given to MI in October 1998. This means two things: a) Arguably, events surrounding death of SG could have been one of the 'weird stuff' that Sam saw with no context as a child, and: b) The Institute burned down little over a year later. Do you think somebody was rolling the Dice bit too much?

'Recommend referral to Catalytics for Enrichment Applicability Assessment'. To me it sounds like: "hey, Catalytics, check if we can use this thing for enrichment." And I'm having a bad thought. They were studying kids, Sam among them, for some purpose, almost certainly related to supernatural stuff. Did they give the kids cursed artefacts to play with, to boost development of their otherworldly skills/trait/whatever? Because if so, so help me… 🔪🔪🔪🔥🔥🔥

Lastly, for completion's sake: viability as subject (none), agent (low), catalyst (medium). I've no idea nor theories what these are about, I'm just leaving them here for future reference.

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