The Magnus Protocol 13 - Futures 

Funniest trope the Magnus verse has is a statement giver claiming they’re not a bad person and then proceed to regale us with the most evil and idiotic backstory we can conceive of

Yes, go ahead and trauma dump to the autoresponder

How to deal with an angry user on your stocktrader app: 1. Patiently and understandably listen to their concerns 2. Unleash the bugs

21:43 “I’m happy you’re happy.” **audio glitch** Oh Alice. 😢

WE ARE ALREADY GETTING THE PRIMORDIAL FORCES TALK AND ITS ONLY EPISODE 13

I feel like Alice definitely knows something everyone else doesn’t, with how much she’s pushing Sam to leave everything alone

I think we have a new contender for dumbest statement giver

So I’m betting that Sam’s “freak out” wasn’t just a break down and something supernatural was at fault

sam is not beating the burnt out gifted kid allegations

"yeah, the dad was from an alternate reality that got eaten by horrible nightmares..."

"The world is full of opposing forces. Some benevolent, most not. In order for the wheels to keep on turning, all these forces need to be monitored and balanced. That is where we come in." First of all, Lena, the last guy who tried to balance unknowable forces with the powers of gods ended up with his eyeballs exploding, and secondly... Are you implying that some of the entities in Protocol _aren't_ evil??

ok but are we gonna talk about how Sam is called a "recluse" AND already is suspected to have some affiliation with the web????

Calling it now: one of the entities will be based on luck/gambling. We’ve already had the cursed dice and now we have betting against your own future.

Nooooooooo, it’s a crypto bro

I’m noticing a trend of misery in these stories. Rather than a focus on any one terror, it’s almost consistently about people chasing misery. Especially this and the dice episode

21:43 IT DID THE WEIRD DIGITAL LYING NOISE AFTER SHE SAID THAT 😭

6:05 amazing that bonzo's theme softly plays in the background before morphing into a new one

The subtle Bonzo music under what's playing when Gwen asks about whether she's responsible for the case she heard is *chefs kiss*

"But now just a friend." Damn at least he's not pulling a Season One Jon

HOO BOY! Lots to talk about with this one!!! 😃 1. CELIA HAS A SON?!!! Just over a year old… I’m sure that will be important somehow. Is this a normal baby? Or is this a supernatural child of some sort?! I need more information!!! 2. Sam actually wasn’t accepted at The Magnus Institute?! Okay, that re-contextualizes some things, for sure! I’ll have to re-listen to the previous episodes again and re-analyze scenes where Sam talks about the Institute. 3. I’m curious about this “freak out” that Sam had at his previous job. I have a feeling it was worse than he’s making it sound… 4. Alice’s parents are dead. 😢 It makes sense why she seems to be who her brother goes to for support and all that. 5. Goddamn I feel so bad for Gwen. I can only imagine the kind of internal crisis she’s going through, both with the guilt of inadvertently being responsible for someone’s gruesome death, but also just realizing that this place she’s worked at for years is killing people and working with monsters. That would be one hell of a blow to process. 😬 6. Lena mentions some of the forces being benevolent?! Expand on that, please!!! 7. It sounds like the OIAR is indeed attempting to balance the Fears, similar to Robert Smirke, but in a much more direct and nuanced way. They are keeping certain monsters/avatars under “control” by sending them after specific targets, rather than having them run a muck and take victims willy-nilly. It’s a very interesting approach, to be sure, and I really want to know how their victims are chosen! 8. Another statement that focuses on fate and gambling. In TMA, gambling typically fell under the Web, along with addiction, and I definitely feel like there’s a strong element of Web here, but the continued focus on fate, fortune, misfortune, etc. in multiple, varied statements is definitely feeling a bit different, overall. 🤔 9. I have a feeling that, as the person of this group who’s worked there the longest, Alice has seen some shit, and is desperately trying to steer Sam away from the pitfalls she’s seen others fall into. She jokes most of the time, but there’s serious concern in her tone here, and it feels like it’s not just concern over Sam possibly losing his job. 😥

Who’s watching this in 1887?

Guy: Im not bad Guy: *explains how he is bad AND a fool*

I god damn love Alice, she steals every scene she's in. SHE WASN'T EVEN IN THE SCENE AND I LAUGHED AT HER JOKE PFF

Fluff aside, this statement giver took Marx' point of selling one's life for capital quite literally. I am fascinated by the masochistic enjoyment he got out of it. He is propably subscribed to a bunch of youtube channels of bald dudes in tank tops yelling at the camera.

Okay, crazy theory but bear with me: I think Sam WAS at the institute but had his memory wiped. It’s not too far fetched for this series AND why else would he go from being extremely gifted to his whole life going downhill and becoming obsessed with the institute?? I think some part of his subconscious KNOWS it’s important to him, hence the obsession, but his memories are gone. After the testing and the memory wipe, maybe the institute and his parents gave him the story about not being accepted. But the body remembers trauma even if the brain does not. Idk, I just think it’s weird.

I find it interesting how this episode’s statement giver describes the vertigo of being on that cliff, while being clearly weighed down his debts and feeling, buried. Bonzo, which combines elements of clowns and unexpected violence, also serves as an example. In MAG you may recall that a crew of the Slaughter was the one which interrupted the first Unknowing with Grimaldi. And the Vast and Buried are opposed by their natures, and are stated explicitly by Gerry and John. Perhaps the idea that those old powers have somehow, fused with their opposites, provides an idea of what we should expect from our newest monsters and mysteries!

I want to believe there's a link between Zorro and the Dice. I'm also convinced that Zorro is associated with the Web.

I cannot wait to lose my sanity again after encountering horrors beyond human comprehension! (Please, Jonny, let me my see my family again)

The forces here seem to get off on punishing people.

WOW what a lore drop! The conversation between Gwen and Lena seems to confirm at least part of my theory from last episode: that the OIAR was created to monitor and manage the Entities and their servants and that these "externals" are monsters and avatars who have been employed to help achieve this goal. When Lena said said some of the supernatural forces are benevolent I immediately got flashbacks to Jon's conversation with Gerard Keay about the Entities. According to Gerry, there are no Entities of good things like Love or Hope, only Fear. But it seems like there are some benevolent Entities in this world (how benevolent remains to be seen). We already knew that the old rules of TMA weren't going to stay the same, what with each statement being a lot less clear on which Entities they revolve around (e.g. Mr Bonzo is mostly Slaughter-coded but also has a lot of Flesh themes), but this is huge. Hell, maybe Gerry and Gertrude are avatars for these "benevolent forces", or at least aware of them. Since this pretty much confirms that the OIAR are aware of the Entities (maybe they don't have all the details but they know enough) I wonder if it has something to do with the tapes from TMA. After all, they were the bridge that carried the Entities from the old world to this one and Anabel specifically says that its Jon's voice which guides them through the gap in reality. Maybe that's why Freddy uses Jon's voice, the OIAR somehow found the tapes, learned about the Entities and extracted Jon's voice so they could use it to gather and safely store the cases. They effectively have an AI Archivist.

I'm pretty sure that Statement was Corruption, only of the white collar kind. He did seem to get devoured by insects coming through the phone at the end, so it fits.

Alice knows definitely more than she says, and it frustrates me so much to be left in ignorance

20:50 "Is she at least going to make an honest woman out of you?" lmao

def getting the vibe that this place is doomed to fall apart. they used some wording to suggest some of the entitys are possibly good and that they are simply balancing things out. gives me strong helen vibes tho. my guess is any kind of control they think they have is just a lie. simply just so they can crush that confidence and hope later on for fun

Celia being a mom was not on my bingo card

i don't have a problem :D I was only here 49 seconds after it dropped. I don't have a problem at all.....

1:34 Pre-case 7:29 Case (Unclear) [Voicemail: Darrien Laurel] 20:09 Post-case

Omfg I'm such an idiot for missing this! Sam said he was part of the Institute's "enrichment" program and in Episode 9 the Institute employee makes a comment that they should refer the person they're interviewing to "Catalystics for Enrichment Applicability Assessment" because they had a Medium viability for becoming a Catalyst. I think a Catalyst is what the Institute calls Avatars (they're catalysts for creating fear). So Sam was tested to see if he could be a viable Avatar, but was rejected despite having really high scores. Looking at his results, it seems like he was rejected for having a very high empathy index and pro-sociality score since both of these would make him hesitant to hurt people to feed on their fear (similar to how Jon resisted his Beholding urges for a long time).

Not the ad being a "build wealth" ad for trading 212😭 ALSO with Alice's conversation w sam abt seeing ppl go off the deep end at work, her being on good terms with Gwen _and_ Teddy(even Gwen said "God knows why" after admitting Alice is the only one he tolerates)? I feel like there's someone of the OIAR team who's "left" (before Teddy did) that knew too much and is the trauma bond between the three very different ppl

This ep’s statement reminds me of the gambling episode !!!

Come to think of it, why do these guys work nights? It seems like the kind of job that probably doesn't need both day staff and night staff.

Omg I love the episodes with gambling. The vibes are immaculate

Regarding the opposing forces, "some benevolent, most not." I don't know if this has any indication here, but there was an episode back in The Magnus Archives when Jon was talking about the various Fears and their attempts to make rituals occur. I just remember him saying that "The Web doesn't want to, and The End doesn't need to." To me, that always spoke of some ambiguity with those two entities. Maybe I'm reading into too much here, but Lena could be stretching the word benevolent into not actively causing harm.

Can I just take a moment to thank everyone in this comment section? Y’all notice so many more cool details than I do, istg. Also, is our idea here that the OIAR keeps entities under control by sending them to feed on specific targets? But where does the case classification come into play then? What is the agenda behind picking the targets? So many interesting questions now that we’ve gotten these morsels revealed to us! It’s also astonishingly early for higher powers to be mentioned, which makes me wonder exactly what’s in store for our characters…

so Sam claims he was rejected by the Magnus Institute gifted kids program hmmmm....weird considering we have his files! makes me think even more that Alice was part of it too ...just memory wiped

Loving how the OIAR operates in similar ways to SCP foundation

Treason is fire, Alice be all on fleek, Sams got mad cringe rizz. Everything's coming up Gucci fam!

This reminds me of the dice…

THURSDAY 🎉🎉🎉 SPOOK 🎉🎉🎉 O'CLOCK 🎉🎉🎉

This episode reminds me episode 194 of TMA - specifically because in TMA 194 Jon says that if he is the Pupil, maybe he can reshape the universe, make it more "fair." And then in TMP - Lena says they manage the powers so that there is balance between the evil and benevolent powers 🤔 I’ll be honest, I realized I never listened to the last 10 episodes and I’m just started listening to the last ten and I’m only on episode 194 😆 so I might change my mind when I’m finished. Though the Jon, Martin and Elias voices from Freddie (I don’t remember the acronym) would kind of make sense?

i wonder if this and the dice ep are linked

I wonder: Is Jon's consciousness in machines.. like as a whole? Like is he feasting on people's secrets through machines itself? Because this specific episode is weird to me. We've been told only certain Reports get the Text to Speech thing, but there's supposedly many more that are just written text. Are they ones that get turned into Text to Speech ones Jon (or Martin and Elias) have influenced somehow? I only ask because the way this guy trauma dumps to an autoresponder really sounded like he was being compelled the same way an Eye avatar would compel someone. Like it almost sounded like the guy was about to hang up but then his tone went a total 180 and just very calmly told the phone his whole life story. And I don't know if that's just the series stretching out our suspension of disbelief or there is something more going on.

4:12 I'm offended! U of Notts alum here...that's going downhill? I'm appalled 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I don't get how this guy didn't realize that last bet on his life was if he died he would have definitely won but because he lived that the luckiest uptick in his life so of course he got to pay😂

CELIA X SAM REAL. CELIA X SAM REAL. CELIA X SAM REAL

Love the Desolation statements

I think this series is to show us the The Magnus Archives was only addressing the fear entities, when in reality there are multiple other kinds. I forget when but Jon and Alex said that tma was about what makes a monster a monster and tmp is about what makes a human a human. Fear is what makes a monster a monster (we become monsters when we are ruled by fear), but humans are pulled by all different kinds of forces, good and evil and everything in between. I think that’s why tmp is addressing the other entities.

So... (assuming the fear systems work the same) this definitely could be web. Addiction, fate, control and compulsion have always been strong themes of the web and also its literally about a WEBsite, the internet is also another common theme of the web Also what does lena mean by benevolent??? Did jon and martin's strong powers of homosexuality cause the fears to understand love or something??? Also i hope that the next "external" gwen will be visiting will be ink5oul ive been dying to meet them

waitwaitwait “SOME ARE BENEVOLENT,”? LENA?? That’s a direct contradiction of what Gerry said to Jon when they had their talk. He said that there weren’t any gods of hope or love or goodness. IS THIS IMPORTANT OR AM I INSANE??

Sooo, Alice has seen some shit, maybe she went into the same path as Sam and suffered the consequences or she has seen other coworkers do it, either way her warnings seem legit

We’re getting the forces knowledge so quickly!! It took like two or three seasons in TMA before we got ANY sort of knowledge about the deities!!! That’s so exciting!!!!!

YIPPIE NEW EPISODE! Edit: OMG MY BOY IS ON A DATE LETS GOOOOOO Edit: AWWWWW SAM IS SO ME ALSO BABY JACK Edit: LORE DROP (also im a former gifted kid so this is so me fr) Edit: YOOO okay so we aren't exactly serving the fears but managing them I see I see (pun semi intended)

0:07 as a nerdy person named after a greek river i feel seen lol

Cryptobro statement????

Web and Desolation are an interesting mix

The man's accent, his constant repetition of getting his money, I kept thinking of Maurice Walsh's The Quiet Man.

Oh boy happy birthday to me! Let’s get Spooky

I am hereby naming a new Entity, The Inevitable. Focusing on Eventual Balance and on righting the scales. The phrase that goes well with this new dread power I am deciding is “what comes up, must come down” (The Inevitable taking the form of gamblers dice and betting is really nice touch) It fits differently from Smirkes 13 but was present in TMA due to the fact that John needed all the dread powers to have a successful ritual and it was a significant part of the Web’s plan and the End’s shtick.

Best part of my Thursdays!

Thank you odin :) good day to you too

LETSGOOOO NEW EPISODE

Im scared..! Awesome!

POOKIES WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!! NEW EP JUST DROPPED

I’m leaning desolation for this one, given the themes of loss and pain. Reminds of the guy who broke Gertrude’s stone circle in Scotland.

this episode on protocol: crypto bro gets fucked

oh hey I'm here at 13 minutes for once, epic. Spoilers below fellas - NOT what we were expecting when we heard the name Jack. But I suppose Jonny is known for reusing names. I really like the dynamic between these two. - None of the fears were realllyy benevolent so..Avatars?? Creatures?? If we look at this from the lens of the fears..maybe the web is playing management? I'm really on the fence about the 'desire' idea. I'm not sure what to make of that particular statement but the fact that things are..being managed this time around is interesting. - (Onto the case) Holy shit this guy is ..A LOT?? - Alice and Sam also have a good dynamic.

Gwen dont go fucking shit up please! Do not mess with the system and get someone killed!

WOM WOM WOM!!!!! ❤❤❤❤

This is like a rather literal take of the Fill Or Kill Orders in Day Trading.

Im a little miffed. I was %100 sure this case was the desolation until the guy got attacked by a giant spider.

If by some bizarre twist this really was shorting against what, my own life? Weeel now that you put it that way..

An excellent performance, and great writing. Quickly forgot the reader was a VERY familiar voice.

I know Gwen is up to her knees in whatever she's doing on behalf of Lena. She's not too high into it yet, she's going to have to go deeper in her complicit working of the Fears.

I wonder, what benevolent entities Lena talks about? Because the only benevolent entities I can think of rn are Jon and Martin... Maybe there's something else out there, but what are jomart then? They are not exactly people, especially Jon. And they're actively trying to tell Sam something? I'm extremely bad at recognising voices I'm not used to, and it hinders my understanding of what's going on in tmagp significantly, but aren't they trying to help him figure out his weird connection to the institute?

yay yippee!

I keep forgetting the day-

BONZO MENTIONED ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

Assuming this is the same Celia as TMA... ...than the very existence of Jack mildly terrifies me.

Needles was that you!?

Oh this was SO good

Might be due to English not being my native language, but again I couldn't catch the point when things switched from mostly normal to supernatural-weird, like in the first tattoo episode... I think it's also strange how neither of them questioned it, but just rolled with it.

Yall read the warnings this one's rough 😭

Lmao bro got scammed 💀

As usual, spoilers for the Magnus Archives. 13 episodes into TMP: Several indirect references to the dread powers, as well as one explicit mention of them, a canon ship ALREADY, a couple thousand mentions or appearances of characters from TMA including Jon, Gerry, Gertrude, and Georgie, a character who is basically confirmed to have come from the apocalypse, the jmj theory, multiple recurring suspected avatars (needle thingy and Mr. Bonzo), character development, probably some more stuff I forgot. 13 episodes into TMA: Jon no like Martin

I know I sound down bad.... But what was the name of that app again?😅😅

Yes Sam dump ur gifted kid trauma on ur date no one else is listening :3333 6:07 THE BONZO THEME PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND IM GONNA HURL

To be fair, she was the one that brought up work first

Is no one going to mention the breath noise that happened at 2145 right before the "Lie" beep I think our friend from the archives is still very much watching her.

Why no #12? Also: creepy sublevel Bonzo music chills

ah yes, the greatest evil of them all. *cryptocurrency*