tenthgrove

[tenthgrove]

You can tell I’m procrastinating on coursework because I’m so active today.

[tenthgrove]

The Magnus Protocol (thus far) Spoilers Without Context

#tmagp #the magnus protocol #not tagging as spoilers as I dont think you can actually work anything out from this #but let me know if I should change that #tmagp posting

[tenthgrove]

Reverse Engineering the OIAR Tagging System: Part 2

I've had another look at things and I have managed to create a more concrete theory for how the tags work, though at this stage I would be very surprised if it were all correct.

A reminder for the unfamiliar- every TMAGP statement comes with a long code, consisting of a CAT (category?), R (rank? - two statements do not have this), a four digit number which seems to be totally random, and the dates of both the statement's origin, and when the episode is set.

I've created this theory by identifying patterns between the CAT and R values and the themes, characters and dates of the statements. It is clear we need some more statements to be sure, so I will update this as new episodes come in. That said, here is my theory.

CAT = Is the Monster an External and/or Being Actively Taken Advantage of by the OIAR?

CAT 1 = Yes. CAT 2 = No, but there are plans to acquire it. CAT 3 = No, and there are no plans to acquire it. CAT 23 = The monster possesses some special quality which the OIAR would like to take advantage of, but currently has no means to do this (hence making it both a CAT 2 and 3 in a sense).

Our only confirmed external, Mr Bonzo, is a CAT 1. The two other CAT 1s are monsters that could very well function as OIAR assassins. Granted, Needles seems to be killing for his own pleasure and seems very ‘green’. BUT- how in the living hell did he murder a man on the streets of London and it wasn’t national news? Maybe, just maybe, Needles was recruited as a result of that incident and the OIAR pulled strings to clean up his mess. Additionally, two of the CAT 1s are delivered literally days before we learn of them. One is older but refers to Bonzo, who we know for a fact is still active. The other was delivered in May 2022. All these statements are live matters, referring to beings who are almost certainly still out there making body counts.

Moving down to the lower rankings, the current CAT 2s are plant guy, Vouyer, the charity shop volunteers and the backrooms service station. These are all statements that leave huge question marks. None of them are delivered by a primary source. They are all 1-15 year old statements. This could mean the OIAR is trying to locate the beings within the statement to potentially take advantage of them, but have not yet tracked them down.

The current CAT 3s are InkSoul, the violin guy, and the bone dice guy. Violin and dice guy are both dead, and the dice were presumably lost in the destruction of the Magnus Institute. It’s clear why the OIAR wouldn’t be interested in them. Now what about InkSoul? Well there are a number of reasons why the OIAR would not want to recruit them. Maybe their power is not reliable? After all, it seemed the effect they had on their victim in the statement was linked to her being an artist. Maybe they’ve already tried to recruit InkSoul and it didn’t go well. Or maybe InkSoul has become inactive since the statement in 2022.

Now, what about CAT 23? I’m really not sure about this one (there are only two CAT 23s so far, one of which is the Red Canary statement) so my theory here is a stand-in. I previously suggested CAT 23 could refer to dimensional cracks and it’s possible that is also the case. It could be that CAT 23 IS the ‘Magnus Protocol’, and that ‘Magnus’ doesn’t specifically mean ‘pertaining to the Magnus Institute’ but ‘pertaining to the Magnus Institute or similar known cracks in reality, of which the Magnus Institute is the one we know most about’. It could be that the OIAR has an active interest in manipulating dimensional cracks but hasn’t yet figured out how, and CAT 23 is created to reflect this.

R = How Useful is this Monster to the OIAR?

A = Frighteningly powerful, possibly equivalent in its impact to the rituals. AB = Between A and B value. B = Pretty useful, but not going to massively improve the OIAR's position by itself. BC = Between B and C value. C = Not especially useful for the OIAR's purposes. Unranked = Value either not investigated or pending investigation. We have no Rank As thus far, and the only rank AB, the Red Canary statement, is widely believed by fans to be the most crucial piece of the puzzle so far to the wider mystery. I believe the first rank A statement is going to be truly massive.

Current Rank Bs include Bonzo and Needles, as well as the bone dice and the Voyuer movie. Bonzo is a known OIAR assassin and as above, Needles very well could be/could become one if the OIAR wanted that for him. However, they can't exactly take down society. Equally, the dice and the movie have limitations that only allow them to target one person at a time - the dice only affect the person who rolls them and the movie relies on only having one audience member to customise itself for.

The Rank Cs are, so far, just the charity volunteers and the ship tattoo. I admit this may be the weakest part of the theory as it's not clear how these two are 'useless', especially if CAT 23 means what I theorise above. Maybe Rank Cs are useful to study but not important to the main goals of the OIAR, whatever they be.

The two unranked statements are the plant guy and the violin. The violin statement could be unranked because it is just that old, and the plant guy could be unranked for a number of reasons. Maybe he is CAT 2 because the OIAR want to study him, but they don't actually have a use for the anomaly that sired him.

Conclusion

As you can see there are various weaknesses to the theory and I would be very surprised if it turns out to be entirely right. The biggest gap right now is the rank C/unranked theories which are not entirely apparant why they're so low. If Protocol is anything like Archives, almost all these monsters will be revisited, so reasons for their placements could still be revealed to us. I am fairly certain the OIAR already knows more about most of them than is let on. I will revisit this theory as more information becomes known.

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

[tenthgrove]

Reverse Engineering the OIAR Tagging System

I'm not the first to theorise that the tagging system is important - this post is inspired by the person who noticed that Needles and Bonzo share both a CAT and an R tag.

This is an incomplete attempt to decode the entire system for theorising purposes. Unfortunately, I was not able to figure it out as thoroughly as I hoped but I'm sharing it here in hope others can make observations. Here is the table:

For those who want a better look, or cannot see the image due to screen-reader use, here is a google document with the same table: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Wc4COCMHdwKz6N-KawvMOs4Y3k3W6Kq-NDhZ7brcRLg/edit?usp=sharing

So, my observations thus far:

CAT (probably short for categories)

There are four categories so far- 1, 2, 3 and 23.

Needles, both Bonzo statements and the very first statement are the only CAT 1s so far.

Needles and Bonzo are likely to be major recurring characters, so this could suggest the creature in the first statement (which to me gives distortion vibes) may also be.

Alternatively, CAT could suggest danger. Needles and Bonzo are serial killers, while the CAT 3 statements tend to refer to very old or contained objects, so perhaps these are less dangerous? The only gap in this theory is InkSoul being CAT 3, which makes little sense given their livestreaming. Unless... could InkSoul be dead?

Generally, but not absolutely, newer statements tend to be closer to CAT 1, and older statements closer to CAT 3. Bonzo and Needles both referred to statements taken days before the episode dropped. Again, this isn't an absolute rule and the first statement is again the odd one out.

What I absolutely cannot figure out is CAT 23. I thought it was a typo until I encountered it again for Ep 11. It clearly means something special. Unlike for the R system, I don't think it means between categories 2 and 3, because the statements we get are both quite important. We'll probably have to wait for more episodes to figure this one out.

R (probably short for rank)

This is the one I'm more sure about. I believe it indicates 'grades' of some measure, like school grades. A is best, B is after that, and so on.

I think AB and BC are borderline grades.

Ep 3 and 4 (plant boy and violin man) do not have an R tag. My working theory is that this indicates the statements are below a grade C.

So what does R actually grade? Again, it could be importance (assuming that isn't what CAT means), or usefulness to the institute, but then why is our known external Mr Bonzo only a B?

So far we have no rank As and only one rank AB - the Red Canary statement.

If there's one thing I'm certain of, it's that the first rank A statement is going to be very big indeed.

Conclusion

I believe category and rank indicates any two out of the following: importance, danger, level of OIAR control, level of usefulness to OIAR, certainty of being true, amount of evidence. Ultimately, we need more statements to be sure.

For whatever two measures these systems represent, I am fairly certain that a category closer to one and a rank closer to A represents a better grade on that measure, with the exception of CAT 23 which I think is its own thing. The ultimate purpose of this post is to encourage people to pay attention to these tags more as I am certain they contain clues, and if anyone smarter than me can spot them as more episodes come out, then great.

PS: As I was just about to post this I had a sudden idea as to what CAT 23 *might* be. It could be dimensional cracks. This is clearly what's going on in the magnus institute (with the dice statement being exempt because it was taken before the institute burnt down) and it's possible the graveyard in Ep 11 also serves this function. This is pure speculation however.

#tmagp #the magnus protocol #tmagp spoilers #tmagp theory #tmagp bonzo #tmagp needles #tmagp ink5oul

[tenthgrove]

Gotta hand it to the writers this episode. I was laughing my arse off at the beginning when I realised they were going to have fake blobby attack a stag do and even though it turned out to be exactly that, some of the imagery genuinely got to me by the end.

#tmagp spoilers #tmagp #the magnus protocol #tmagp 12 #mr bonzo

[tenthgrove]

I’VE BEEN TELLING Y’ALL THE OIAR IS GOING TO HIRE NEEDLES

(And it won’t go well for either them or him)

Interesting detail: both Bonzo cases have been Category 1, Rank B. The only other CAT1RB case has been Needles.

#the magnus protocol #tmagp spoilers #imagine Gwen or someone else being forced to talk to him

[tenthgrove]

YES I was thinking this too! He’s killed before but I don’t think he’s used to telling people about it (he didn’t know the emergency call centre didn’t have his location). I think he’s going to get recruited by the OIAR and regret it.

Given the way Lena was talking about the “externals” in ep 11 I wonder if the Needles introduction will give us insight into their creepy government acquire and use the supernatural process later on. I feel like he will be back at some point.

[tenthgrove]

Thanks for posting this so I don’t have to.

Just the fact this episode dropped on the same DAY as Mag protocol 11

Task: Work out who is following you. I didn't know Mr. Bonzo was still making tv appearances, what a treat.

[tenthgrove]

Awesome shoplifting strategy:

1. run in

2. collide with a clothing rack

3. run back out again.

So Needles is covered in/made of needles, right?

So imagine him trying to like, interact with any kind of fabric

And just getting stuck

The image of this spooky needle monster walking through, like, a clothing store or something and accidentally bumping into a sweater and just getting stuck is so funny to me

[tenthgrove]

OMG I didn’t think of this but you are so big brained!

So we need to talk about the prevalence of tattooing in the Magnus Protocol. I’m sure I’m not the first as of the newest episode but I wanna give my take.

In addition to two episodes directly about tattoos, we’ve also got Needles, who hasn’t been confirmed to be related yet but the possibility presents itself pretty clearly. We’ve also got Gerry, who in the old universe is associated with tattoos for two separate entities - remember after death he would probably have words from the catalogue of the trapped damned written on his skin, like was done for his mother.

So between two and four references in 11 episodes is clearly too much to be an accident, knowing these writers. But tattoos themselves being important seems a bit… superficial, for this franchise? The way Magnus categorises fear has always favoured abstraction over the tangible, such that the entities representing tangible fears like the buried and the web usually have more abstract tie-ins, like stress and manipulation for those two respectively.

I think that while significant, tattoos are somewhat a red herring. And I think what they really represent is hinted at in the title of the last episode: “marked”.

The Magnus Protocol, more so than Archives, is about being scarred by one’s trauma, both physically and, more importantly, metaphorically. Needles says his victims aren’t just scared to die, but to live with what he’s done to them. The man who killed his wife sees indirect (or maybe direct, who knows yet) karma in being turned into a plant while the voice of the woman he murdered encourages him. Emotional scars are given physical manifestations.

Maybe this ties to the theory people were having at the beginning, which seems to be dying down now, that Protocol is about desire. Many people find vindication in their traumas being made visible, contrary to how the eye sought its power. Compared to Archives, there’s more emphasis on power in visibility, as opposed to secrecy. And what represents that more explicitly than wearing your story in a tattoo?

[tenthgrove]

So we need to talk about the prevalence of tattooing in the Magnus Protocol. I’m sure I’m not the first as of the newest episode but I wanna give my take.

In addition to two episodes directly about tattoos, we’ve also got Needles, who hasn’t been confirmed to be related yet but the possibility presents itself pretty clearly. We’ve also got Gerry, who in the old universe is associated with tattoos for two separate entities - remember after death he would probably have words from the catalogue of the trapped damned written on his skin, like was done for his mother.

So between two and four references in 11 episodes is clearly too much to be an accident, knowing these writers. But tattoos themselves being important seems a bit… superficial, for this franchise? The way Magnus categorises fear has always favoured abstraction over the tangible, such that the entities representing tangible fears like the buried and the web usually have more abstract tie-ins, like stress and manipulation for those two respectively.

I think that while significant, tattoos are somewhat a red herring. And I think what they really represent is hinted at in the title of the last episode: “marked”.

The Magnus Protocol, more so than Archives, is about being scarred by one’s trauma, both physically and, more importantly, metaphorically. Needles says his victims aren’t just scared to die, but to live with what he’s done to them. The man who killed his wife sees indirect (or maybe direct, who knows yet) karma in being turned into a plant while the voice of the woman he murdered encourages him. Emotional scars are given physical manifestations.

Maybe this ties to the theory people were having at the beginning, which seems to be dying down now, that Protocol is about desire. Many people find vindication in their traumas being made visible, contrary to how the eye sought its power. Compared to Archives, there’s more emphasis on power in visibility, as opposed to secrecy. And what represents that more explicitly than wearing your story in a tattoo?

#tmagp spoilers #tmagp #tmagp theory #tmagp 11 #I wrote this while listening to 11 on a walk so sorry if this is unhinged #the magnus protocol

[tenthgrove]

So it’s trans day of visibility and I’m thinking about telling my mother I’m non-binary. She’s said a lot of transphobic things but she’s improving, and I’m emigrating soon so it won’t really matter.

I just need a good lead in.

#personal

[tenthgrove]

Heyyy I don’t know if anybody here is into dragon ball but that one dragon ball fic I write has been dragged from its grave and has three new chapters.

It’s a Bulma-centered fic set in a saiyan revival AU, shortly after the end of the Super anime. It’s got adventure, worldbuilding and VegeBul. And Gine is a central character.

#dragon ball #dragon ball super #vegebul #bulma briefs

[tenthgrove]

When someone leaves a nice comment on my fanfic.

Specifically for The Cocoon Splits on AO3.

[tenthgrove]

is this relatable for anyone else…

[tenthgrove]

[tenthgrove]

Whenever a victim client wants a full body tattoo Ink5oul just pours paint over Needles and let them roll over the victim client

#tmagp