#tma ep 14

[the-pest1lence]

Okay Mint is only on episode 15, but here’s today’s takes: 1. Impatience, 2. Episode 14 guy slander and 3. Theories under cut

And as promised, theories

[allbluegem]

Episodes 10 to 15 on my The Magnus Protocol illustration project. Will see if I can catch up during the show’s break.

[dragunonov]

Why must all body ocupying horrors be noodle shaped? Like yes, body full of worms is spooky, and snakes pouring from your mouth ain't fun either, but putting those two together we just get the image that Jonny is scared of noodle shaped things.

[sapphirenightshade]

I see your ‘fill them with spiders’ and raise you with ‘fill them with snakes.’

Where would the fear of snakes fall? If we’re looking at them from a Western European symbolic perspective, I might argue for the Corruption if we view them as a symbol of corruption of the soul.

[dragon-in-e-box]

JESES FUCK!

Way to make me feel uncomfortable about snakes. I have snakes. Honestly, I think I’m just still traumatized from that one scene with bugs from Mummy

Hate living things coming out of human’s body

Also, Alice is so clearly not over Sam it’s actually sad. I hope it won’t end bad for her (it probably will. It’s TMA we’re talking about)

[tchaikovskym]

I cannot listen to the magnus archives as a normal person I have to read the wiki pages of episodes I already listened to and make notes and try to guess the entities and what they do and make a file out of it

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

What DPHW Means, and Its Relationship to Smirke's 14

The following contains spoilers for all of TMA, TMP (eps 1, 2, and 3 released currently if you’re in the future), and the ARG. Spoilers for all of this are throughout so I would advise against reading any of this unless you've listened to everything mentioned. It could also spoil episodes of TMP that have yet to release but if it does I don't think it will be a major spoiler. If I'm right I think I'm only right about a fairly trivial piece of information. 

Theory of Fears; or, Zur Furchtlehre

Part 1: Opticks

Smirke's 14 isn't the truth. With or without Dekker's +1. It is, however, necessary and correct. It has also been talked about ad nauseam and isn't a topic I want to dedicate a lot of time to. Smirke's 14+1, or even TMA in general, isn't the focus of this theory nor is it that relevant past its necessity as a point of comparison.

There aren't 14+1 distinct entities in the TMA cosmology. There is a singular entity that has been given divisions by fear and labels by those that have witnessed it. There is no objective line in which to draw these divisions. No matter where you put them or what you name them these concepts will always bleed into each other. Aspects of one Entity will manifest in another because the labels are invented and Fear is a storm of concepts crashing into each other. That's not a flaw in Smirke's list but its strength. A single entity of that scale is impossible to discuss in meaningful terms, the concept has too much gravity to be properly conceptualised and so an entire spectrum of fear must be divided in order to combat it. Categorisation is a vital part of TMA's cosmology and Smirke was as correct as anyone to put those lines down where he did. The real flaw with Smirke's list is forgetting the spectrum exists and stopping seeing the shades in between the Powers.

Finding a way to categorise this concept is important, but the methodology isn't. Smirke's 14 isn't the truth. The only truth is there is a singular whole. But branding goes a long way both in terms of research and in terms of following. This branding lacks accuracy though, it is in large part arbitrary and by its nature removes the shades and the bleed. TMP takes a different approach, one only hinted at, but one that I think is now fully explainable. 

Part 2: Lost in Translation

Perhaps the most interesting mystery in TMP thus far is DPHW. However, I think based on episodes 1 and 2 of TMP (and now 3), and the Klaus excel sheet from the ARG, we have all we need to explain its utility.

In order to show that conclusion in a satisfactory manner some basic facts need stating, and the order of my thoughts on those facts needs explaining. Firstly, each DPHW is 4 digits. Secondly, each DPHW is read as 4 numbers rather than, say, a pair of 2 numbers. Thirdly, these numbers can change independently of each other. Fourthly, incidents may share CAT#R#'s but have a different DHPW as found in the Klaus sheet (a German document listing OIAR-style incident reports). Finally, the German equivalent of DPHW is TSHU also found in the Klaus sheet. We can use those facts to determine something important. Each letter of this initialism is paired with a digit meaning that DHPW is a group of 4 categories. If that is true we can intuit some of its meaning. It is likely that these numbers are a rating of sorts for each category there. To prove that's the case we would need to know the categories and fortunately we have a starting point to understanding it, German.

If the categories that DPHW describes start with the letters TSHU in German then what needs to be done to find the categories is quite simple. You pair each letter up and then find a suitable word to categorise the supernatural whose first letter starts with the respective letter from the initialism in its language. D/T, P/S, H,H, W/U. After some brainstorming in the Statement Remains PLUS Discord server we had come up with strong candidates for 3 of the 4 pairs.

The first was Deadly/Tötlich, a seemingly solid start that gave this theory some legs. Next was Painful/Schmerzlich which was a distinct enough category for the threat of an incident that proved this was a strong direction to head it. H/H proved more troublesome. To my mind the two strongest contenders here were Hypnotic/Hypnotisch or Helpless/Hilflos. Both sound very reasonable but that in itself is a problem. However the last one was found relatively easily as Weird/Unheimlich. With 3 of the 4 it seemed like this was all but correct at this stage. However, I had been thinking about this backwards and it wasn't until I had a revelation that the pieces really fell into place.

Unheimlich sounded familiar when it was suggested but not in a way I could place. It wasn't until the next day that the aforementioned revelation happened. The ARG had a huge focus on Germany, and Ep 1 of TMP revealed why. FR3-D1 uses German source code which makes German the original language for the OIAR's methodology. Meaning DPHW is the translation, and I now think it's a shoddy one at best. The reason unheimlich sounded so familiar to me is because it's a fairly important part of psychology's history.

DPHW's Weird isn't weird, DPHW's Weird is uncanny. A direct translation could give you weird but a more accurate one, especially in this instance, gives you unheimlich. Unheimlich as in Jentsch's "Zur Psychologie des Unheimlichen", and Freud's "Das Unheimlich". Both of which are essays on the uncanny. It's all about the fear of the unfamiliar, and a central example of this is Olympia from Der Sandmann, a seemingly living doll.

The German word unheimlich is obviously the opposite of heimlich, heimisch, meaning “familiar,” “native,” “belonging to the home”; and we are tempted to conclude that what is “uncanny” is frightening precisely because it is not known and familiar... - Freud, The Uncanny

This is incredibly relevant to a lot of what has been discovered so far. The uncanny as a topic in psychology was kickstarted by two Germans, and a central part of their essays was the German Der Sandmann, and a German, SSandman, was a large presence in the ARG. The strength of this connection all but solidified this theory in my mind. And, briefly, this is also related to Masahiro Mori's uncanny valley hypothesis which I'm sure I won't need to explain.

The obvious way to test this is to take the few W ratings we have been given and compare them to the incident to which they're assigned. The first is from Ep 1, “dolls comma watching”, and was given a 7. This is a good start both in that a 7 feels appropriate as an "uncanny rank" but also that a doll is a focal point on the essays on the subject. Also in Ep 1 is "Reanimation (Partial)", again with a 7. Another very appropriate number. The last in Ep 1 is "Transformation (eyes)" with a 5. Certainly less uncanny than the previous examples so this is still strong. In Ep 2 we get a 5 for Bram Stoker's Dracula, which seems more than fair for a strange man like him, and a 7 for Frankenstein which gives parity for another story of the resurrected dead. Finally we get "Transformation (full)" at a 7, more uncanny than "Transformation (eyes)" which tracks nicely.

With what I felt was such a strong theory for the W/U pairing it helped clarify the ideas of the others. The final digit rating the uncanniness of an incident gives an idea of how these categories work and the breadth of their definitions. Up until this point I was leaning towards Hypnotic/Hypnotisch for our H/H pairing. But giving it more thought, and comparing it to TMA's own groupings, it becomes apparent that Helpless/Hilflos is more appropriate. Hypnotic effects are too aligned with things that would already be very aligned with Uncanny ones, the Stranger's Not!Them alter memories and prey on the fear of something being not quite right, so as a categorisation tool I think it makes less sense because of the greater overlap. Helpless on the other hand works better for things like The Dark, The Buried, or The Lonely. Aspects which I don't think show up in our current other 3 groups. But given the current definition of the strongest category, the fear of the uncanny, I think that helplessness is a more apt label. The fear of helplessness. Which makes H Helplessness/Hilflosigkeit.

With this level of breadth established re-examination of the final two categories is warranted. Painful/Schmerzlich is more likely to be Pain/Schmerz. Not just incidents that are themselves painful but the fear of pain, possibly including the emotional. A comparison to TMA gives this rating a strong affiliation with Entities such as The Desolation, The Corruption, or the Flesh. Similarly Deadly/Tötlich should now be broadened beyond the fear of things that will kill you, to the fear of death in a broader sense. Which makes D/T Death/Tod instead. To compare again to TMA this is The End, The Extinction, or The Slaughter. Although, while I might be describing these ideas as the fear of ____ I think it's important to know that they do appear to be more conceptual in nature rather than just if something is scary or not.

Comparing each of these assumed categories against current DPHW’s strengthens this argument. “Dolls, watching” scored 1157. It’s a very low fear of death and pain, but they present a medium fear of helplessness and a high fear of the weird. For a fear that’s rooted in paranoia that makes good sense. “Reanimation (Partial)” got a very similar rating, at 5257, but it being a corpse cranks up its fear of death. “Transformation (eyes)” got 2155 which, again, seems to fall in place with what we know. It’s more human than the doll is so it’s less weird but a physical and alarming transformation naturally seems like more of a terminal concern. Combine that with some good ol' internet death threats and it's not nothing, but not much.

As a small aside, while it's not come up in the episodes so far the Klaus sheet shows DPHW's are 0-9. There is a good bit of evidence to suggest 0 might be read as 10 here. 0 most commonly showed up in that sheet for P and the incidents often had the notes "Kriegsvolk". Literally "war people" but more accurately "army/soldier". So pain of 10 for those would track better than P of 0, and it explains why things like the watching doll rate a 1 for D and P instead of a 0, and Dr. Webber's infection is a P of 1 despite entirely removing physical and emotional pain as it goes. Because 1 is the lowest.

For Ep 2 we start with Dracula scoring a 7465, he’s undead and a killer for high death, if he kills you it hurts but it’s not extreme, he’s both hard to physically stop and has mental tricks, and he’s just a weird dude in general who always seems off somehow. Frankenstein at 5337 has aforementioned parity with the reanimation incident as you’d expect but notably less on the helplessness rating as he is just a man. Next is “Transformation (full)” at 1567. This is generally a more severe rating overall than Transformation (eyes) and you’d expect that, but I think it does show something interesting. At no point did Daria want to end her own life. The transformation is far more severe, arguably looks more life threatening, and was clearly more painful but it is explicitly and repeatedly not about dying. I take that as a suggestion that these ratings take into account more than just the mundanely observable nature of the incident. She looks very sick which would make you think of death but it rates low for it because of the emotional, or maybe supernatural, purpose of the incident. She didn’t want to die, the manifestation didn’t try to kill her, and so despite its appearance it’s low on death.

Then finally in Ep 3, we have "Infection (full body)" with a 8175. (Although I'm assuming that's a misfile and it should be Infection (Arboreal)). I think D and H here are more interesting to dig into. P is pretty obvious it's the lowest rating because it seemed actively pain-numbing as it went. W being 5 tracks too is certainly uncanny and has strange geometry but it's not full Distortion levels. So with those two out of the way we can get to the good stuff. D is the most interesting of the two to me. Because while it's pretty clear he died I don't think that's got much to do with it. Rather I think the 8 is more specifically about the way it deals with death, decay, and rot in relation to new life and the growth of other things, plants and insects. Thematically, I think there is a lot more emphasis on death as a broader concept beyond the terminal nature of the infection. For Helplessness there is also an additional element beyond whether or not he was able to do something about the infection, and that's whether he wanted to. As the symptoms worsened his desire to treat them decreased. Initially he was worried about the infection and determined to seek attention when able, then he was happy to let someone else help instead (a hallucination, which makes things more helpless), before finally wanting it to happen. These sorts of elements are things I think we're going to see factor in quite a lot.

In summary; it is my belief that DPHW is a way to rate incidents that the OIAR catalogue based upon the strength of the fear they elicit in the categories of death, pain, helplessness, and weird (uncanny). This system is effectively the TMP equivalent to Smirke's 14 from TMA. Rather than assigning each statement to an Entity each incident is rated for those qualities. These systems are distinct methodologies but each is a way to categorise the supernatural.  

Part 3: On Analogy

That is the juicy bit of this post out of the way so now I have to put a bow on it and touch upon the overarching analogy here. As alluded to by the title and some turns of phrase, it's colour theory. It's a somewhat common analogy for TMA's fears but I think it applies in equal measure to TMP and taken together might provide an insight into how the cosmologies will differ. So, to me, colour theory is not only the perfect lens in which to view the Fears as a whole, it's the perfect lens to view these methodologies.

Smirke is Newton. He broke up a singular spectrum into wide chunks. The Dread Powers themselves are very analogous to a colour wheel. Colours bleed into each other and the boundaries of where one stops and starts is up for debate but red is still red, and blue is blue. That is a useful context for them, it aids discussion. Try talking about red without ever saying red and only referring to a representation of a divided whole. But all too similar to Newton's 7 colours Smirke's 14 lacks nuance, it lacks shade.

On the other hand we have DPHW and this is all shade. DPHW is CMYK. It's not one thing or another with DPHW. You don't have the pitfall of Smirke's methodology where one manifestation is in one arbitrary box. Here, assuming I'm correct, each incident is made up of constituent parts. The OIAR, and presumably its German forebear, are less interested in Smirke's occult ancient gods and more interested in bureaucratic precision. Smirke was doing research while the OIAR are doing administration. As such DPHW takes a wholly different approach. It's now all shades. This has its own problems in that it's harder to discuss in broad terms. It's such a specific methodology that it's lost a lot of what Smirke triumphed with. This is well represented already given that no one has been shown to know what it means at all yet. But if there is a truly different cosmology at play here we might see the axes of DPHW being where alliances fall.

All that leaves us with is a comparison of these two. The only way to really do that is to talk about how Smirke's 14+1 would fit in DPHW's system. This is something I touched upon briefly. Death is strongly related to The End, The Extinction, or The Slaughter. Pain to The Desolation, The Corruption, or the Flesh. Helplessness to The Dark, The Buried, or The Lonely. Weird to the Stranger, or the Spiral. But that's not all of them and even within those it's already clear that something like The Vast isn't just about helplessness, and we've already seen Daria who would likely be an avatar of the Flesh rank highly in Weird. Which hits upon what I feel is the most interesting aspect of this entire theory. We've seen what happens with Smirke's boundaries on the Entities. We don't know if Entities even exist in this setting, or if they do exist whether they'll be the same ones, or even if they're not the same ones whether they'll function under similar rules. But now we get to see what happens when there aren't those boundaries. We get to see much broader mingling than TMA showcased. It was hinted at there, especially early on before the lore really settled, but now that mingling seems to be the whole point.

And as a brief mention, and to further labour the theme, I don’t think there is enough information to really discuss how CAT#R# works but there are some analogies to work with here. From the Klaus sheet we can infer that CAT# has the following values 1/2/3/12/13/23/123. Or three non-mutually exclusive groups. What those groups are is hard to say right now. There is some soul/body/spirit stuff for the alchemic tria prima that's got some nice connections but doesn't map well now that Ep 3 is out. Either way, this is RGB. An incident can be all red, or red and blue, etc. R#'s values we can infer to be C/BC/B/AB/A/S with maybe an AS in there too. That's a linear scale of similarly unknown value but could represent something like potency/threat. If that is the case then R# is saturation. Some things are more intense than others. We also know from the Klaus sheet that CAT is the German from the "kategorie" meaning "category" the R was from the German “rang” meaning “rank” and so probably has more meaning to it than currently implied.

[overlordoftherats]

The people hath spoken

Now feast your eyes upon my unedited, not peer reviewed set of timelines I wrote in my notes app three years ago:

(Spoilers, miss spelling and bad grammar galore)

Presenting

TMA TIMELINE AND CHARACTER AGES BUT I MADE IT BECAUSE JONATHAN SIMS HATES ME:

Michael Shelly:

Timeline:

(1) began working at the institute at 19 in 1977 (would have been 58 as of 2016, the start of the podcast). likely died around 25 years old assuming the Great Twisting occurred in 1983 (spiraled at 51 assuming it occurred in 2009). This would be most accurate only if Gerard Keay was born in the late 70s and Eric quit by ‘82 <almost completely impossible unless we are thinking in terms of Gerard timeline 2 (the mike timeline)>

(2)began working at the institute at 19 in 1984 to replace Fiona Law after her death presumably earlier in 1984 (he would have been 51 as of 2016). Likely died around 25 assuming the Great Twisting occurred in 1990 (spiraled at 44 assuming it occurred in 2009) . <most accurate due to the idea that he worked with Eric Delano, Gerard’s father, who quit soon after Gerard was born circa 1983 (quit around 1985/1986>

Timeline 2.5: 80s and their part time hiring + lying about age (the fact this is now a part of my timeline makes me almost angry lmao): okay so, let’s say Michael was 12 years old in 1984 but he was taller and was able to pass off as being 14, so he snagged a part time, weekend internship at the magnus institute (because he lost his homie to the spiral and was like “what’s all this then). This would put him at 44 in 2016. He would have been spiraled at 18 assuming time took place in 1990 (if spiraled in 2009 he would have been 37). <also quite accurate due to Eric recalling him as being “far too young>

(3) began working at the institute at 19 in 1994 (would have been 41 as of 2016). Likely died around 25 assuming the Great Twisting was in 2000 (would have been spiraled at 34 assuming it occurred in 2009) <unsure, has little to no supporting details>

(4) began working at the institute at 19 in 2003 (would have been 32 as of 2016). Likely died around 25 assuming the Great Twisting occurred in 2009. <semi accurate according to in podcast dates ???? (Michael being hired to replace a previous assistant who passed in 2003<might have been earlier>)

As a person Michael holds a characterization of Naïveté and ignorance (which though possible in an older character would make more sense if he was younger).

<update Fiona may have died earlier, will make the 1990s suggestion or even the 80s for him due to content of the episode (167) even though Gertrude was said to have lost all her assistants by 2011 which doesn’t line up with my most accurate timeline>

****side note**** I am open to shifting and altering the Great Twisting from 2009 to something far earlier to retain accuracy and so forth, I hate this godforsaken timeline; working dates for The Great Twisting per time line 1-4: (1)1983 (2) 1990 (3) 2000 (4) 2009

All above dates would put Michael between the ages of 24/25 which I feel works best with his young, naïve, and ignorant characterization. However I will lend the more canon accurate dates and ages all the way down

Random info related in the twisting: all of Gertrude’s assistances had been dead by 2011 (ep 126), of cording to this the Great Twisting should have taken lave some time after October 2009, however it is said that Michael had already been distorted before Agnus Montague had died (which was in 2006), all of this to say, I decided all the details because I’m more consistent

Further details:

He was sacrificed by Gertrude Robinson to the Spiral, more specifically “The Distortion” to stop the transcendence of the Spiral/ the ritual (The Great Twisting), in which he kinda combined with and “became” it though Michael Himself ceased to exist/died. “He” remained “The Distortion” until season 2/3 when “he” was replaced by Helen Richardson.

He Was Gertrude’s archival assistant, supposedly worked with Eric Delano (as found in Eric’s statement tape with Gertrude taken after he had died), and was said to have been “far too young to be in this profession” when he started (found in 167).

Gerard “Gerry” Keay: (his timeline is actually also shit apparently but this is my thoughts)

born circa 1983 (would have been 33 at the start of the podcast in 2016). Died a year prior to the start of the podcast (2015) at age 32 of a brain tumor that had remained undetected until shortly before his death. He died on a trip to America with Gertrude Robinson where he was binded to a book by Gertrude; that book has previously belonged to his mother. Gerard’s page in that book was eventually burned by request by Jon “The Archivist” Sims and Gerry was “released” to death.

Gerard was with his mother into his 20s when she essentially killed and mutilated herself to become more powerful through the same book we find Gerry binded to. He was in jail for her murder for a bit (despite him not doing it) but was eventually released after evidence was tampered with. Her death was in 2008 which would have made Gerard about 25 years old.

To escape what was essentially his mother’s ghost he came to Gertrude Robinson who burned Gerard’s mother’s pages-causing him to be free from her at last. This was in 2013 placing Gerard at 30 years old.

His parents are Eric Delano and Mary Keay: Eric worked in the archives with Gertrude and Micheal but quit (by gouging his eyes out to escape from his patron) to raise his son. However, soon after Mary killed him in his sleep and used him to practice her “book binding”; Mary eventually gave Eric’s page to Gertrude.

Gertrude Robinson: I’m gonna assume she was 27 when she started and I’m gonna say she began working there in 1964 because she worked there for 50 years. This would put her at 77 in 2016 when she is shot and killed by Elias Bouchard (technically Jonah Magnus but it’s like a whole thing).

Gertrude spent her entire career hunting and destroying rituals of many different entities and their avatars. Including the rituals of “The Scorched Earth” (The desolation), “The Silence” (The Lonely), and The Great Twisting (The Spiral). Before her death she had be researching to stop the workings of “I Do Not Know You”/ “The Unknowing” (The Stranger), but died while still investigating, thus passing that responsibility into her predecessor Jon Sims.

Eric Delano: married to Mary Keay and his son is Gerard Keay, who he refers to in podcast as “my son, Gerry”. He began working with Gertrude soon after her promotion to Head Archivist, after the death of previous Archivist Agnus Stacy, the 1960s (I say 1964). He worked along side Fiona Law, Emma Harvey, and supposedly Michael Shelley. He had Gerard with Mary Keay circa 1983 and two years later gouged out his eyes in order to sever his connection the the Eye and quit his job at the archives to raise his son. However not too long after that Mary decided she had no use for Eric after Gerard was born, seeing as she could no longer bear children, and he had blinded himself, so she killed him in his sleep with a pair of garden shears and binded him to her book, thus sealing his soul to later be summoned by Gertrude after Mary gives her his page as a gift (July 3,2008). After Eric gives his statement he asks Gertrude to burn his page so he can finally be free and she obliges (July 21, 2008).

Mary Keay: mother of Gerard Keay she was obsessed with the power of the entities and eventually tried to bind herself to her book. She took loads of painkillers as to not feel any pain as she wrote on her skin, peeled it off, and hung it on hooks. She attempted to enlist the help of her son but he ran out due to fear (2008). She blames him for being unable to finish her ritual so she could be above death and torments him before she is burned by Gertrude Robinson in 2013 after Gerard came to her with his issue. Mary was born in either 1924 or 1946, but due to the nature of her and Eric’s relationship in the 60s/70s and Gerard’s birth in the 80s along with the fact she was stated to still be “young” in 1955 when she found her first “strange book”, 1946 is more likely. That would put her at roughly 26 or so upon meeting Eric and 37 at the birth of her son. She would have been about 62 at the time of her death in 2008.

[torkhin]

…so I’ve made some connections

(spoilers for all of TMA and TMAGP (as of Episode 15))

Lady Mowbray seems to have a lot of visual similarities to depictions of Scylla from Greek mythos. A woman of violent power with hounds at her hips and a taste for human flesh. The resemblance is uncanny, even with the added flavor of her being a capital-L Lady.

It’s interesting to me to see how the “fear powers” we’ve been introduced to so far in Protocol’s universe seem to have connections with Odyssey antagonists.

- Lady Mowbray aligns with Scylla

- The Sea (the Vast/Buried amalgamation from Ep. 11) aligns with Poseidon/the ocean (or possibly the Sirens)

- Mr. Bonzo aligns with Polyphemus

- The tree from Ep. 3 and the snakes from Ep. 14 align with Circe

- Needles seems to align well with Charybdis

- The starving crowd from Ep. 8 aligns with the Lotus Eaters (or possibly the Sirens)

Heck, even the Man on the Screen from Ep. 5 could align with the Oracle and the traveling merchant (responsible for the violin in Ep. 4 and (probably) the dice in Ep. 9) could align with Hermes (though I would hesitate to call either the Oracle or Hermes antagonists). Which leaves Ink5oul, the volunteers in Ep. 7, and the gambling app from Ep. 13 without any solid equivalents.

To be fair, I think basing all of TMAGP’s antagonists on a single epic may be too small-scale and isn’t enough for a solid theory, but the connections are interesting to dissect 👀

[laughable-umbrella]

here’s a detailed description of each of the 14 fears from the magnus archives, most of the descriptions are straight from gerry keay (my beloved) in episode 111 (so ofc spoilers for up to ep 111 of tma) ALSO ALSO ALSO the last one has spoilers for up to ep 134

the eye

the ceaseless watcher, fear of being watched, being followed, deepest secrets exposed, needing to know even if the discovery might destroy you, feeling that something somewhere is letting you suffer just so it can watch

the vast

agoraphobia, fear of falling, fear of deep water, of our own insignificance before the vast universe

the lonely

isolation, the fear that you’re just alone, maybe there’s no one else there at all and maybe you just can’t connect

the desolation

burning, the lightless flame, fear of pain and loss, fear of unthinking and cruel destruction

the corruption

disease, infection, disgust, rot, decay, infection, the feeling of your skin crawling or itching, being touched by something that might burrow in you, swarming and hollowing you out, leaving you full of holes

the flesh

this fear is mainly from animals, animalistic fear of the slaughter house, gets weird in humans, gore, the nagging feeling that deep down we’re all just electrified meat squeezing air at each other, body horror, new fear, began when labeled by smirk

the stranger

the fear of the unknown, the uncanny, the creeping sense that something isn’t right, the guy you saw that might be following you and might mean you harm

the dark

old and deep fear, what might be in the dark that you can’t see

the buried

opposite of the vast, small spaces, claustrophobia, crushing, can’t breath, you’re at the center of everything and it all pushes down on you, where the vast is loosing yourself in too much space, the buried is being trapped with out enough

the spiral

fear of madness, worry that your world isn’t right, that your mind is lying to you

the slaughter

war, not cruel like the desolation, or unstoppable like the end, just pure violence, not targeted or premeditated, you don’t know when or why, sometimes frenzied, sometimes calm, just violence for the sake of violence

the end

clean cut and simply fear of death, never tried to set itself up for a ritual because it would because that would mean a world with no people and no death, it’s knows it’s going to get everything eventually so why bother

the hunt

animalistic/ derived from animals like the flesh but it’s older, jon brought up that hunting and killing each other is just the way they work and it’s natural, but gerry reminded him that so is death

the web

spiders, control, your will not being your own, manipulation, being puppeted, the worry you’re caught in a trap you can’t see, never had followers set them up for a ritual

SPOILERS UP TO MAG 134 —>

the extinction: the terrible change, the future with out us, different from the end because it’s active, it’s seeks to create a lightless world that none of the other powers ever would, some think it would replace people with something new that can then fear annihilation in turn

[voidedsoul5]

OKAY HERE WE GO, ANALYSIS AND THEORY TIME.

Spoilers for the new TMP episode (Ep 8)

NOT ONLY did we get my babygirl back (Who definitely has something going on with him but we'll go back to that later) we also got another hint about one of my other working theories about Celia and this universe... I am losing my mind rn and I need someone to talk to about this even if it's just screaming to the internet void. More below cut. Split it because it's a semi-long post.

I think Gertrude is for SURE coming back at some point, literally no reason for her not to especially considering I don't think TMP team is going to pull the 'But this time she's actually just an innocent old lady' thing. It's cheap, and she likely knows stuff that will come up later when (I believe) she still has worked at the institute before it burned down due to her age. Plus, someone had to have cleared out those files.

Gerry is happy and it makes sense. Gerry in TMA was trying to be a kind person, but he'd witnessed too much and seen too much to be able to do that. In this world, if the fears didn't exist Mary would've likely not been AS deranged. OR mary might not have existed at all given Gertrude claimed Gerry as his grandson. Removing Mary, Gerry really doesn't have a reason to be so reserved and abrasive. HOWEVER. I think there's a possibility that isn't his actual personality. The happiness (as mentioned in the unofficial transcript) is maybe a bit too played up. I wouldn't mind if this is just how he was, a slightly erratic messy artist. But pairing him specifically WITH gertrude in this universe stood out to me. So here's my mini theory.-I'm not saying it's drugs, or Gertrude is casting black magic or something, but I do think she's doing something to keep Gerry out of this 'mess'. Even if that's just living with him and helping him have a normal life as a painter. Gertrude has always had a soft spot for gerry in TMA, in this universe where she's probably not as battle-hardened, trying to keep him safe and out of it all isn't out of character. Mostly, this idea just came from the fact that she tried to brush it off, then seemed disappointed when Gerry spoke about the gifted kids program, despite him being well enough able to speak for himself. She probably doesn't want him involved. This however all relies on the context that Gertrude knows stuff. Honestly, she might just be his grandma that he now lives with either for rent reasons or because his parents might be dead. It could honestly be that simple, I just like rattling off ideas.

CELIA KEEPS DROPPING HINTS OF KNOWING SHIT. SHE KNOWS SOMETHING. SHE KNOWS THINGSSSS. I have another post about my TMA theory of these reoccurring characters from TMA beginning to remember things from the TMA world. Its so incredibly on the nose for her to immediately start asking questions about the 14 fears WE KNOW, ask about alternate universes, AND BE THE ONE WHO PUSHED SAM TO LOOK INTO MORE STUFF ABOUT THE PROGRAM (Sam said it was her idea at the end of Ep 8) I don't know exactly how thisll work, but I get more and more convinced each episode that this theory has some merit.

And this is a small one, but blah blah Norris reading a paper about loneliness, isolation, and hostile architecture blah blah blah metaphors symbolism blah blah you get the jist

I rlly just wanna talk about this show to anyone, I don't have friends who've seen TMA or TMP so my only option is talking about it here. PLS feel free to talk about your own opinions and ideas in reblogs and shit. I don't care if they counter mine I just wanna talk about this show I love it sm </3

[magpod-confessions]

if i wanted a mildly spooky found family office comedy, where the horror tragedy stays in the background and the focus is on the characters awkwardly flirting and dealing with relationship drama, i would go looking through tma fanon content. we’re like 13-14% of the way through the magnus protocol, with a mountain of unanswered questions, and sam and celia are going on a coffee date after interacting twice 🗣️

Agreed. Idk I think we need more time to get used to these characters and we are not getting that time and the plot is just barely peaking thru ngl. It wants to be a found family office comedy but mix it with plot and the spooky and idk its not rly there just yet. May be too early to judge but none of the eps have rly hit for me yet, whereas with tma I was so strongly hooked by ep 6

Also Im going to be fully honest I can barely remember anything that happens in tmagp LMAO. Which is vastly different from my relationship with tma where I could give you a quick desc of almost every ep

[hazyla]

Oh boy I finally listened to tmagp ep 14 and I too forgot about the hole. my biggest takeaways are,”cool, snakes” and “😢”. This person’s dad being the focus of an episode is going on my bingo card based on when I listened to TMA and decided sturdy lock probably wasn’t that important AND THEN HIS SON HAS A STATEMENT A HUNDRED EPISODES LATER

[broodingheroine]

tmagp thoughts (this will be pure nonsense I just need to write it down)

alice is so tim coded

obviously there's a connection anyone can make to the multiple statements abt urban exploration/spelunking in tma and the redcanary forum thread.... it invites the horrors (connection to danny?)

gwen is a ✨️bouchard✨️ (implication that while its a parallel universe the same ppl still exist? supports possibility of spelunking forum thread connecting to danny somehow (not actually super sold on that but seen a lot of ppl mention it so))

colin is definitely going to succumb to the horrors :/ (either first to die OR..... this universes version of an avatar?)

CHESTER AND NORRIS!!!

I'm of the firm opinion that they're jmart BUT! but but but! I do believe they're echoes of who they were, this just so happens to be Somewhere Else.

also! yes I understand that we most likely will Not get any tma characters in any meaningful way in tmagp, however I also believe that alex and jonny couldve very easily.... not...... voiced the text to speeches....... like yeah I dont think we're getting jmart as we knew them but..... come on

also also. the text to speeches got less robot sounding the longer they were reading and it really reminded me of how ppl reading statements would slowly get invested as they were reading and emote as if it were happening to them.

sam is on the archivist (or tmagp equivalent) pipeline already yikes

the turpentine line was raw as fuck. so was the canary one obviously. don't want to beat a dead horse by talking abt that bc so many others have already said it. but! the institute is deadly stay away!!

the sound engineering is god tier I love all the bleeps and bloops

colin knows smth is Watching. inadvertently feeding the eye by being paranoid? does the eye even exist the same way it did in tma?

theres definitely smth to be said abt whether or not robert smirke did his thing the way he did in tma and if anyone in the know uses the same classification or if the oiar is the only group categorizing. the fears always kind of blurred together at certain points so maybe without the human interpretation of it being 14 distinct entities it's more of an..... amalgam?

magnus institute is in a different place which is interesting. if it was built for the same reasons (outside of just research) is there another panopticon esque structure underneath? (brings us back to if smirke was doing his thing)

very curious to see if theres gonna be a leitner books equivalent.

I deeply deeply deeply desire a michaela salesa cameo at some point. he's one of my fav side characters.

sam and gwen using classic horror characters to help him try and memorize the classification categories was very cute

another thing I'm sure everyone has talked abt already but the whole world wide WEB thing and possible jmart in the computers and omg they're in the web and the oiar is part of the web and blah blah blah u get the image.

lena is intriguing to me. my guess is she's going to be a gertrude esque character who knows at least the basics of what's really happening and is trying to put a stop to it.

I havent seen anyone talk abt like...... what IS the magnus protocol. like tma was the archives in the magnus institute. the magnus archives. self explanatory from like ep 1. what the hell is the magnus protocol. is it smth fr3-d1 will run? or the text to speeches? is it tmagp's version of a ritual? using protocol to reference the updated tech from tma? is it smth the actual organization has to run in the event of Something Happening? WHAT THE PROTOCOL WHATS IT FORRRRR

I know nothing abt the ARG shit, just to note that

okay I think that's it for now..... feel free to discuss in the notes lol

[because-fandoms-thats-why]

MANCHESTER?

(tmagp spoilers for ep 9 underneath the cut)

I cannot make my mind up if tmagp is an AU of tma or a continuation?? Specifically: did the Eyepocolypse happen or not?? Every time I'm convinced of one over the other they throw something at me that convinces me of the opposite

- At the beginning I thought AU (mainly because of the lack of the 14 fears in the way tma had)

- And then Celia. Who knows about the 14 fears, so I assumed it's a continuation

- And then the G's are alive and well. So AU?

- And then Chester's suspiciously pushing Sam to the institute so a continuation??

- And then the fuckin' Magnus Institute ruins are in MANCHESTER and not London?? So AU??

Honestly I was very wary of accepting this, but rn I'm thinking it's some kind of matrix deal which is why it feels like an AU sometimes even though it's a continuation?

[tmagpposting]

The Fears and TMAGP

It seems to be a pretty popular theory, or at least a popular possibility acknowledged in the community, that things will function differently than they did in TMA, and our previous categorizations won’t necessarily hold up. A lot of people seem to be split on this, and I’ve seen a lot of other content that positions episodes/incidents in TMAGP in the same framework used in TMA. I wanted to offer my two cents on this issue, after thinking about it for a while now. Basically, I don’t think TMAGP will use the same system for quite a few reasons, both logistical and lore related. Massive (like, seriously series ruining) spoilers for TMA past this point if you haven’t already listened, as well as minor ones for TMAGP up to ep. 4. 

I specifically decided to write this after seeing this post, where a lot of other people have brought up good points in the reblogs. I think we will get something different from Smirke's 14/TMA's categorization of the fears regardless of how much they've actually changed from the previous series, for a few reasons:

1. The fears have probably changed or evolved in some way, especially since the Web (at minimum) had the capacity to learn and plan, and they've already brought about one apocalypse so far. They could've changed from learning from the events of TMA, or just inherently warped from the process of being pulled from another universe and spit back out into a different one (maybe they were altered in transit by being in an extra-dimensional space, or they merged with some similar cosmic force that was already in present in TMAGP's universe when they got there, the possibilities for how this could go are basically endless and I’m honestly so excited). This change could also work really well if it came about because of some combination of the above, since these options aren’t mutually exclusive in the slightest. Personally, I really hope it involves both but highlights the first option in some way, since it'd be really fun for past listeners of TMA to see the fears get more formidable by becoming more strategic as well as see events of that series directly influence this one in such a huge way, and it wouldn't necessarily detract from the experience of new listeners if they did this subtly. Either way, I think it'd be stranger if they behaved exactly as they did in TMA, given everything that happened in the finale.

1.a. Specifically, the fears now have the explicit incentive to cooperate with each other, even if they represent "opposites" like the Buried and the Vast, because all of them must inherently be present in an apocalypse as we saw in TMA. Assuming that it still works the same way, the fears will probably work more in harmony and synthesize elements of each other more than before (even far beyond the Web influencing each in turn) because we've seen that this is a more advantageous course of action for them to take if they want to successfully complete a ritual. This is also supported by the massive amount of keywords the OIAR categorizes incidents with: categorizing incidents using various traits/specialties/calling cards from the original Smirke's 14 as they work together in various combinations would inherently create a ton of different specific keyword combinations, mathematically/logistically speaking.

2. The fears are inherently very hard to categorize as abstract inhuman forces that don't really function in a way humans innately empathize with or like humans think they should. They don't work like gods with similar cognitive processes to humans, like how a lot of avatars thought of them/wanted them to work to some extent, and they're just as willing to prey on non-human life to generate fear and sustenance, just look at the Flesh. As we saw, Smirke's list didn't fully work in the first place, since all the fears had to get pulled through to cause the apocalypse or any ritual would inherently fail, and they functioned less as 14 separate things than as 14 different organs/systems inherently connected in some way by the same nebulous conceptual body. Think of the metaphor from later in TMA with the ants in an ant farm perceiving human hands, eyes, etc. as different antagonistic entities rather than a single contiguous being (i forgot which ep this came from or which character said it, if anyone knows tell me and I'll add it in). Basically, even if they haven't changed at all from TMA, the people of TMAGP could decide on a completely different system of categorization simply because it's arbitrary at the end of the day, given how abstract and nebulous the fears have always been.

3. As several others have said, given that TMAGP is aimed to be friendly to new listeners who haven't necessarily listened to TMA before, it makes more sense to use a new system. This is good for the show for 2 reasons. First, this takes away some of the advantage TMA fans would have in the process of theorizing if everything worked the same way as it did in the previous podcast, especially since TMAGP is more interactive given its ARG element (which I am woefully uninformed on, to be fair, i have next to no idea what's going on with that aspect of the show, and if anyone knows more about how/where to get in on it, lmk). Second, it is actually more rewarding for past fans of TMA to be able to experience this theorizing process in full/from scratch without necessarily knowing major things about what’s going to happen (like how the fears will work), potentially for a second time if they were involved in theorizing about TMA as it was first being released.

4. Having a new and different system, particularly one that is less rigid and more nebulous than Smirke's 14, would work a lot better with TMAGP's emphasis on including guest writers on the show, in addition to working better in terms of the story itself as I outlined in the previous points (at least imo, though I have no experience running a project like this, so this is HIGHLY speculative on my part). Trusting a ton of other people to follow specific rules and emulate Smirke's 14 in a way that feels authentic to TMA, when that was almost totally written and conceived of by Jonny on his own, seems like it would be really difficult to pull off without ensuring each guest writer is also intimately familiar with TMA and/or incorporating a ton of editing and oversight to change episodes to fit better with TMA lore after they're initially written. It could definitely be done, but I think it'd be pretty hard, and it seems like it'd create a lot of redundancy and potentially wasted effort for the editors and producers of the show as well as the guest writers.

If anyone sees something I missed or didn’t touch on, please add on to this post, and if you have evidence to the contrary I’d be interested to see that, too. I’m really interested to hear the fandom’s thoughts on this overall, since it’s an issue I’ve seen coming up in the background a lot lately, but I haven’t seen a post explicitly addressing it yet.