2024-06-16 6:22:10 ¶ ●

# Episode 20 TMP Quick Thoughts

## Housekeeping and Prologue

Hello, this is Douglysium and you might not know me as that guy who wrote over 100 pages of analysis on the Eye (which can be read on Tumblr here (https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/735599414228484097/the-relationships-between-the-dread-powers-the) or Google Docs here (The Relationships Between the Dread Powers: The Eye- Knowledge is Fear and Ignorance is Bliss)) or as that guy who wrote an article on the Extinction (which can be read on Tumblr here(https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/717929126195003392/what-would-avatars-of-the-extinction-be-like-a) and Google Docs here(​What would Avatars of the Extinction be like?: A TMA Speculation)). Suffice to say I might be a bit of a TMA fan. Also, spoilers for TMP up until episode 19. You can read my ramblings on the last episode here (Episode 19 TMP Quick Thoughts).

However, Protocol offers a very unique opportunity and experience for me because I didn’t actually get into TMA until after it was over and I binged all of it. So this is my first time experiencing something even remotely similar to what the original TMA fans probably experienced when waiting for each episode week by week and slowly having to put everything together with the limited information they had. So I decided to throw my hat into the ring since this might be my only chance to do something similar. However, I’m working on some longer form TMA content so I can’t spend as much time on these articles giving a bunch of super detailed thoughts. I will try to keep these short and that inevitably might mean some could have questions about why I think or predict certain things and in those cases I would probably recommend you read at least some of the two articles I mentioned above to get a better idea of where I’m coming from. This also means I won’t be giving you a play-by-play of every single thing that happens in the episode so I encourage you to listen to or read them yourselves and feel free to comment if you feel something is important.

These reviews are probably going to end up focusing mostly on the Entities and their manifestations as they are what I have thought about the most and spent the most time interpreting and there’s been a lot of… interesting theories floating around about how the Entities are manifesting that I want to go over.

Finally, I’m just going to say it right now, spoiler warning for all of The Magnus Archives. I know that Jon and co said one could start with Protocol and be fine, and while that’s probably true, media like this tends to be made in conversation with or take into consideration what came before it in the irl chronology in order to connect them. While I’m sure you could skip The Magnus Archives, I don’t really see the point of skipping over it when we are already getting characters from TMA showing up in TMP in Protocol. So to me it’s pretty clear that if we want to understand the full picture of TMP and all the things it is trying to say then we can’t just try to pretend TMA doesn’t exist or scrub it away. Just because you could understand what’s happening without the context in broad strokes doesn’t mean you’re getting all the nuances.

These articles are meant to be quick and short so sorry if there’s typos and if I don’t address every possible question or possibility. I don’t want to repeat myself too much in this series outside of the prologue so be sure to skim some of my other articles.

## Episode 20 “Social Stigma”

This is yet another episode I find interesting because we actually get to hear about some of what’s happening from Ink5oul. But first, we start in the breakroom of the OIAR as Sam, Celia, and Alice have a conversation about the Institute and some of the stuff surrounding the OIAR and the government. The transcripts note “Sam, Alice and Celia enter. Sam is almost vibrating with nervous energy.” and Alice says “This had better be worth all these theatrics…”

Celia makes it clear that Sam wanted to talk in the breakroom to avoid having the computers listen in on the conversation. Alice is clearly annoyed and says “If this is more neurotic conspiracy shit about the Magnus bloody Institute…” before Sam immediately tries to talk about what led to the Institute’s destruction. Alice is afraid Sam will become paranoid like Colin but Celia tries to vouch for Sam’s sanity. Sam reveals that he thinks Starkwall killed the Magnus Institute on behalf of the OIAR. Celia questions the fact that a security company would do this but Alice argues “They’re more than a security company. They’re a PMC, Mercenaries. It’s not impossible.” Sam says what he thinks the Protocol in the last episode involves: “Burned it to the ground and killed everyone who worked there. That’s what “The Protocol” is.” This would match up with the Protocol’s connection to the burning of the Magnus Institute, Great Fire of London, and the stories of Isaac Newton having lost 20 years of research to a fire. This could also mean that the strange fire seen in Episode 7 (Give and Take) was in fact this Protocol in action, considering all the machine gun fire too.

Alice warns Sam against snooping around secret government stuff but Sam still wants to get to the bottom of this and brings up the case from last episode. Sam explains “Okay, so, it talks about “The Protocol” right, about how it was used to reign in weird stuff Newton was working on and it reminded me of what happened with the Institute, but I mean, it’s 300 years, right? No way it could be the same thing? Right?” “But I had an email when I got in tonight. It contained a bunch of files from 1999. Some… paperwork between Starkwall, or GSR Security as they were back then, and William Price, who used to run the response department. The documents were very thorough, and what wasn’t redacted was pretty clear. They totalled the Institute.” Alice asks who sent this mysterious email and Sam says “I don’t know. The email address was gibberish and when I tried to reply it went nowhere.” This email is probably somehow related to the one Sam received from someone named “John” in Episode 7 (Give and Take). In that episode Sam tells Colin “Uh anyway yeah, I was wondering if you knew who “John” was?” and explains “I got a weird email from “John” with a random name and an address and it looks like it’s from an internal email so… ” However, Sam doesn’t mention the newer email having any name attached to it so it could be from a different person, thing, faction, etc. (such as ERROR). If you want to subscribe to the idea that Jon, Martin, and Jonah somehow have a connection to the computers then you could say that the email’s address depends on which voice is sending it. But there’s not anything really concrete at the moment and Sam doesn’t mention the email coming from an internal source like the first one did.

Alice basically admits that she is pulling a season 1 Jonathon Sims by using feigned denial and ignorance as coping method when she responds to Sam’s “So you believe there might be something to it?” with “Of course I do! That’s why I’ve been trying so hard to protect you!” Alice states that Sam is putting himself in danger by going through classified documents and “I don’t know what the OIAR looked like in 1999, but I know what it looks like now, and it’s basically the five of us and Colin, who, I might remind you, has already lost it. I seriously doubt we’re still doing covert Protocol shit. We can’t even turn up on time!” Celia points out that Lena is secretive but Alice retorts with “(restrained) Okay class. Let’s entertain the ridiculous notion that that kind of stuff is somehow still going on. Now do we think that sticking our nose right in the middle of that steaming mess and taking a big old whiff is a good idea or a terminally bad one?” Alice does have a point about the staff but I suppose the other staff members Alice wouldn’t be able to take into account are the various Externals like Mowbray and Bonzo. These Externals might be the people / things aiding the OIAR in enacting this Protocol with Starkwall and it’s also possible that any target the Protocol misses is later cleaned up by an External such as Bonzo or Mowbray.

Sam doesn’t believe that Alice can be okay with working for such a shady government but Alice explains “Look, of course I’m not happy with anything about this. We’re trapped in a vicious, petty, awful machine that rules over a vicious, petty, awful little country. I hate that that’s how things are. I hate it. But that doesn’t stop it from being true and if I’m going to put myself and the people I care about in actual, physical danger, it’s not going to be over a matter of principal. It would need to be for something that’ll actually change something. And I’m sorry but going to the press with “British government did another bad thing in the past” doesn’t exactly scream revolution does it.” Alice does have a point even if I find myself agreeing more with Sam. It’s clear that Alice doesn’t think they are in a position to really do anything and there’s a good chance that Sam just ends up “mysteriously disappearing” after sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. Also, obvious commentary about the British government here and it’s brutal, colonialist, etc. past.

Sam asks Celia what she thinks about this information and she wonders if destroying the Institute was the wrong thing to do. Sam reacts with “(shocked) Celia, they killed like forty people.” but she argues “I know. And that’s awful. But from what I’ve found the Magnus Institute was up to some pretty bad things. Like catastrophic, world-endingly bad.” This is another moment that paints Celia as really suspicious. As mentioned in previous episodes, there’s a lot to imply that Celia either is from the TMA universe or somehow knows a lot about it. This “world-endingly bad” catastrophe being orchestrated by the Institute could very easily describe that ritual performed by Jonah for The Eye (and other Entities) in order to enact the Change. Something we know would have eventually killed off all life because new animals / people could not be born but they could die in specific Domains run by The End so eventually all the things feeding the Entities their fear would die. Now whether Celia is making a guess based on what the TMA’s Institute did or she came across evidence that points to their Protocol counterpart doing the same thing is still up in the air. We still don’t know just how closely the TMA and TMAGP universes parallel each other but we have seen characters like Gertrude, Gerard and Georgie show up in both universes. However, it’s clear that their lives have taken at least somewhat different paths at various points since if things were exactly the same Gertrude and Gerry would have been dead before Sam even joined the OIAR. Plus, the Institute seemed like it had a lot more resources in TMAGP (at least enough to actively detain people).

Sam asks what makes Celia think the Institute was up to anything world ending but she sort of dodges the question by saying “Never mind. The point is we don’t really know what happened and as horrible as it is to say it, for all we know this Protocol thing was a necessary evil to stop something worse.” Sam still doesn’t feel great potentially working for an evil organization and Alice makes it clear that she’s scared for herself and everyone else so she wants to be left out of this whole conspiracy Sam is trying to unravel. But Celia wants Sam to keep her posted on any info he finds.

## Case?

I’m not sure if this counts as a case but we do get a case or statement from Ink5oul (pronounced Inksoul). So maybe this is a live case? Well, it’s not any sort of case spouted by the computers and this is one that’s actually told to use directly by Ink5. We cut to Gwen’s phone as she enters a warehouse and the transcripts say “Gwen walks nervously through the cavernous warehouse. She is walking towards the distant buzz of a tattoo gun.” Gwen approaches someone and asks “Hello? Is that… Grace Wilde, AKA “Inksoul”?” Looks like we finally got their official name. Ink5 questions how Gwen found them and Gwen just says “We uh have our ways.” I assume Gwen doesn’t actually know how the OIAR found Ink5’ location and she was just given an address to go to. I’ve been arguing that the OIAR is potentially connected to an Entity like The Eye, and The Beholding is well known for being connected to the ability to randomly know things, such as where a person is.

Gwen takes notice of the body Ink5 is tattooing and asks if they are alright and Ink5 reveals that the person is in fact dead. I wonder if they were stealing tattoos from this body or were merely using it for some kind of weird practice, or maybe both. Ink5 starts tattooing the body again and asks if Gwen has any tattoos of her own. Gwen says no and Ink5 responds “Shame. You’ve got lovely skin.” Pro tip, if you are in TMA and someone starts talking about how nice your skin is RUN. It never ends well. Gwen explains, to the obviously annoyed and dismissive Ink5, that she is from the Office of Incident Assessment and Response (a civil service) in order to recruit Ink5oul. When Ink5 notices how odd it is for a civil service to want someone for their tattoo skills Gwen says “Not exactly. We have some use for someone of your… type.” which gives Ink5 pause. It’s obvious that Gwen means someone with some strong connection to the supernatural but she’s clearly still being kept out of the loop on a lot of things. Ink5 asks what their “type” is and “(approaching) Tell me what’s happening to me. Something is happening. I can tell. I’m not- There’s- I’m changing there’s all these – I don’t- TELL ME WHAT I AM!” Gwen explains “I-I don’t know! I’m sorry! They haven’t told me! All I know is we call you Externals!” and Ink5 asks “External to what? Your department? Society? The world?” and Gwen basically says that she doesn’t know

Before I continue I think this interaction reveals some important information. Not all the cases on the computers in the OIAR deal with people who are currently Externals. I mean this is kind of obvious since some of the cases deal with people who are long dead but it does show that just because a case takes place in the modern day and has some sort of monster or supernatural being that doesn’t mean said being is with the OIAR. It also makes me wonder if Gwen is going to have to recruit Needles next.

Gwen asks Ink5 why they are in the warehouse and they say they are hiding from everyone due to how popular they are on the internet. This is the part where Ink5 starts giving their case. I found it strange that Ink5 was giving a very well put together story explanation for Gwen and the last time I had a thought like this in TMA it turned out that anyone in the position of Archivist had the ability to force people to answer questions and give statements. So it’s not impossible that Gwen’s promotion to Liaison came with certain supernatural benefits. It’s also possible that some other force can compel cases out of people but I’m not sure what that would be outside of potentially ERROR or whatever is listening through all the devices and we still know basically nothing about those two.

Ink5 recounts their internet career and how it took off. It started with a tattoo of a snarling wolf but the wolf looked like it had more of a cheeky grin due to how Ink5’ hand slipped during the process. They didn’t consider it their best work but decided to post it anyway and it took off online. “It was reposted by HellYesTattoos and suddenly my 79-follower account was getting thousands of favourites, hundreds of new followers and so many… lovely messages. They were trawling through all my old work, really amateur stuff, but they still left the nicest comments.” However, there were haters too “They didn’t see the appeal, didn’t understand why everyone was sharing it. Those messages hurt. They hurt a lot more than the nice ones boosted me, but… it was still thrilling, you know? Knowing that a stranger looked at you and saw someone important, someone worth getting angry about. I didn’t feel good, I felt… important.” This does sort of add some context or irony to the tattoo they gave Madam Electrum in Episode 16 (Anti-Social). In that episode Electrum says “It hurts. All that hate, all those people wanting me dead or worse… I can feel it. No cap, it hits right here. It’s like y’all are bees stinging me over and over right in the heart. I dunno if the camera’s picking it up but you can even see it… ”

In hindsight Ink5 wonders if they should have resisted “but why would I? These people wanted to hold me up, tell me I’m better than them, I’m special. Why should it be on me to convince them otherwise? Why should I spend my life scabbling in the dirt telling them “I’m just like you, honest!” when I’m not. I’m better than them. I must be otherwise they wouldn’t all spend so much of their time thinking about me.” The next year Ink5oul’s career hits a rough patch as their follower count plateaus before dropping even as Ink5 churned out piece after piece. “At one point I made a bit of mess of client’s Satan design and it got posted on that OopsTattoo blog. It got more traction than all my other recent posts combined, so for the next few months I deliberately started having “accidents” with client’s tattoos. All it got me was a black eye and a handful of refunds. I was getting desperate. I needed to be seen again.”

It was during this attempt to become seen once again that Ink5 came across Oscar Jarrett “He was a pupil of Sutherland Macdonald.” “He was this pioneering tattoo artist back in Victorian times – real popular, tattooed Prince Alberts cock or something, and everyone adored him. Anyway, he had a bunch of students and one of them was Oscar Jarrett. I learned later there were all sorts of stories about him, rumours of him doing hand-tapped tattoos with sharpened human bones, mixing strange chemicals into his ink, all that sort of stuff.” Not a lot of Oscar’s original designs are remembered and few people actually know who he is. “I stumbled across an old photo of one of his designs in a 1930s book. I’d taken to hunting down vintage inkwork books as people were less likely to notice when I lifted a design from some old obscure artist. My own stuff clearly wasn’t cutting it, so I had to try something else.” A photo Ink5 encounters stops them in their tracks because the person with the tattoo was 70 years old. However, the skin under the ink was pristine and the design itself looked like it had been done a week before. Collecting books in TMA isn’t new and important characters like Leitner collected magical books. But I can’t really say that the books Ink5 is collecting sound like leitners, especially since we know some of the tattoo designs come directly from dead bodies.

Surprisingly, this actually isn’t the first time we’ve encountered tattoos that grant some sort of weird effect in TMA. Within the original TMA Gerard is noted as having tattoos of eyes on all of his joints and over his heart. In MAG 12 (First Aid) we get “Like the first, he was completely covered in almost uniform second-degree burns, except for what at first I thought were small black scorch marks. Looking closer, I saw that they were eyes. Small, tattooed eyes on every one of his joints: his knees, his elbows and even his knuckles, as well as just over his heart. I would have expected the burns to have almost destroyed tattoos that small, but instead they were unblemished, and the skin about a centimetre around each one also didn’t seem to have been affected.” Not exactly 1-to-1 but the tattoos preserving the skin under them are vaguely similar.

Ink5 actually gives a description of the tattoo they found “It was an abstract sun design on his shoulder, shaded in this dull, muted yellow and there was a black dot in the centre that if you really squinted, you could see was an intricate network of crosshatched lines. The round edge of the sun was ragged and wavy, and I could almost feel the warmth of it. It was labelled “Fig.3 One of the few surviving examples of Oscar Jarrett”.” Ink5 eventually encounters a man named Harry who wanted a tattoo of a sun from major arcana tarot cards. Seeing their chance, Ink5 lies to him by showing him a different design and then proceeds to use Oscar Jarett’s design once Henry is on the table. “After all, once he was face-down I could inscribe whatever I liked into his skin. Don’t forget I’m the artist. He was just the canvas. Besides, I had slaved over that design.” “He started screaming about twenty minutes into the session. He said it burned, that it felt like his whole shoulder was on fire. He didn’t move, though. It was like he was nailed

down as my ink spread across his skin, the smell of scorched flesh filling the room. He stopped screaming by the time I finished. Just whimpers at the end. I cleaned off the blood and took my photos, and for all the smell it didn’t look like there had been any burning at all. Harry stumbled out like the drunk he was, not even bothering to put his shirt back on. At first I was worried for when he’d be back to complain about the design I had actually given him, but I never saw him again. At least, not in person. Saw his picture on a news site though, he’d been killed in a house fire. The story got decent exposure actually.”

If we look at this specific sun tattoo through the lens of Smirke’s 14 (plus The Extinction) it bears the strongest resemblance to something like The Desolation. I mean yes The Desolation seems to have an affinity for fire but it’s an Entity revolving around the fear of loss and destruction as well as the pain associated with it. Fire symbolically connects to this very well due to being a painful and destructive force that can destroy entire houses. Harry eventually dies in a house fire which could fit very in line with The Desolation. Not only is the home usually something people don’t want to lose but The Desolation is also prone to manifesting as bad luck or weird accidents and the fear associated with them (such as with Jason North mysteriously having all his stuff breaking down and loved ones die in MAG 37(Bad Offering)). In MAG 89 (Twice as Bright) Jude Perry describes the Dread Power as “The Desolation. Blackened Earth. The destructive, agonising heat of burning flesh and land scoured of life. The light, the comfort of fire stripped from it, leaving nothing but the terror of its approach.” So a scorching hot sun could be very in line with The Desolation. Additionally, the domain Jude Perry watched over after the Change takes the form of a tenement block that constantly catches fire, destroying the victims’ homes in the process. The fire does subside at times but only long enough to destroy all the homes once they are repaired.

As far as other possible Entities I suppose there’s The End, since Harry does die in the end (but other Entities are no stranger to killing people either), potentially The Flesh with the body horror and maybe The Buried with the idea of ending up stuck in a burning house.

Harry’s death doesn’t really matter to Ink5oul though because they already snapped pictures of the tattoo and a lot of people loved it. “Followers, views, messages and… sponsorships. It wasn’t much, really. Almost nothing in cash terms but it wasn’t about the money. I have a small inheritance that takes care of that, it was about the respect. The adulation. The love. They started calling me an “influencer”, A “bold new voice in skin art”. I started making all these connections, hanging out with other influences whose follow-counts dwarfed even mine. I had arrived.” Ink5’ old friends start worrying about them but Ink5oul writes this off as jealousy and remarks “they were never very photogenic.” So it’s clear that the priority of Ink5 has completely shifted to becoming more popular. Ink5 comment about the inheritance continues the theme of wealth enabling those with a lot of it to harm more people than they otherwise would have.

“But a handful of pictures do not a career make, and so after another lull where I pushed through some more of my own designs I had to admit to myself that my skill, my real skill was in adapting Oscar Jarrett. If anything, I was doing him a favour – nobody remembered him at all but thanks to me his designs were fresh and relevant. Besides, its not like he was around to miss out on anything.” So Ink5 begins plagiarizing from Oscar Jarrett even more. Ink5 begins searching for some other tattoo designs from Oscar and while they are difficult to find it’s not impossible. However, they eventually use all the designs they copied and struggle to find new ones. At some point they come across a ledger with most of Jarrett’s clients and learn that all the skin touched by his ink never decayed, “Even after death, they were all flawless.” However, Ink5 runs into another snag because while the inks did last the people the tattoos were attached to did not (implying that they would often either die or mysteriously disappear. Think of Harry and the house fire that killed him or even Madam E). There was also the fact that tattooing these designs was very painful and Ink5 had trouble keeping people still: “It was very difficult keeping canvases still on the more complex designs and after I was done they would usually end up having grotesque experiences. That didn’t matter so much to me once the pictures were captured and posted online but after a while the police did notice a definite, if unprovable, connection between my tattoos and a series of rather disturbing accidents. Eventually it was easier to just use some chemical cocktails to keep clients quiet and become a bit more… nomadic when it came to studios.” Luckily for Ink5, and unluckily for their clients, all this stuff only added to their mystique and brand. “The fans ate it up, and all these empty warehouses gave me some space to think and reflect. Everyone wants a piece of you when you’re this famous.”

However, it’s not just the tattoos of Ink5oul’s clients that started behaving weirdly as they note “I don’t remember when my own tattoos began to change. I know it was around the same time I started craving “the look” more. Not the pleasure in a client’s eyes when they see their new skin, but the one I saw just before they went under: terror, helplessness, and the certainty that they would wake up changed in a way they could not understand. It filled me up in a way I can’t quite explain but I have never felt any other time. And as it did so, inside my skin the ink- There! Do you see it?” So it’s clear that the fear of their clients has somehow started feeding them or their tattoos. In Episode 2 (Making Adjustments) Daria describes Ink5 as having “an absolutely gorgeous floral serpent design running up their arm and into their neck that was so vivid it looked ready to slither off their skin and onto the chair.” This snake is probably connected to the ink 5oul is talking about. Snakes are often also used as a metaphor for things like gluttony or betrayal so I wonder if that’s somehow connected to Ink5 clambering for more and more popularity or how they lie to their clients so they can stick whatever tattoos on them.

“Jarrett doesn’t matter now. The ink flows through me and out of me, transforming the lucky into something newer and more beautiful than their own shallow tastes could have conceived. But I… I don’t understand it. There’s something inside me that remembers worrying about… I’m not sure. Did I always want to hurt people? To make them afraid? It’s so much a part of me know that maybe it always was. Have I changed, or have I simply emerged? What am I? I’m…” However, Ink5oul makes it clear that they are not sorry or remorseful for what they do / have done: “And why should I be sorry? This is what I deserve. I don’t even need to wait for clients anymore. I can do it to anyone, whenever the mood strikes me. But then I wouldn’t have anything to remind all those people that they are right, I am better than them. Besides I wouldn’t get to see “the look”.”

Gwen is surprised by how eloquently Ink5oul explained their situation and feelings. Ink5 asks “So you understand? You can explain to me what all these changes, these hungers are?” and Gwen says “Well, uh, it sounds like, perhaps through your actions you made contact with some sort of… power? And it’s changed you?” but this only annoys the tattoo artist because that answer was glaringly obvious to even them. What Ink5oul is describing sounds like the process of becoming some sort of Avatar. What’s causing Ink5 to transform is most likely the fear being generated with their actions. They seem really attached to the terror in “the look” and in Episode 6 (Introductions) Needles says “Oh the land is definitely marked now, same as me, and it feels good. It satisfies in a way I never really thought anything would. It fills that hollow, lonely hole inside quite nicely. It’s not sadism, or masochism, I tried both of those already. I think it’s the fear, the look in their eyes once they realize their mistake, it just makes me want to hold them close, so I do.” So there’s a similar focus on fear in that episode too.

Some might take Ink5oul’s talk of “hunger” as evidence of a new Entity or force but I’m currently unconvinced. Metaphors revolving around food and eating have been a thing since the original TMA. In MAG 89 (Twice as Bright) Jude Perry says “The point is, whatever form it takes, you have to feed it for it to grow strong. Otherwise you’re the one that gets consumed.” and we know Avatars can be weakened or even die due to “starving.” if they don’t feed on enough fear within a certain period of time. In MAG 200 we get “Once upon a time there was fear. Old fear. Primal fear. A fear of blood and pounding feet, a fear of that sudden burst of pain and then nothing. And that fear was nothing. Went nowhere. Knew not what it was. Then it became. Or perhaps it always was and simply entered. But fear was here and true and was itself, and it hungered. It wished to know more. It wished to feel more. It wished to be more. And to those things that hurried through the grass, that shivered through the night in their burrows and their caves, because they knew the dark held flashing talons and shining eyes, they fed the fear. It was blunt and it was simple, but still it was solid enough to satisfy. And the thing that was fear was sated and content.”, “And something else began to happen. Some minds did not simply recoil from them and feed them. Some seemed almost to call them, to court them, to hunger for them in return. Minds that saw the faces of the things that were fear, and were compelled as much as they were repulsed. Whether or not they knew what it was they did, they called out. And they were answered.”, and “And with this newfound power came greed. The hunger for more, the unformed, unfocused, but impossibly huge desire to exist. To join the minds that gave them shape and purpose, and finally drink their fill ‘til they were one and the same. They had no concept of how, or when, or even why, but they needed it. They needed it.” So here we can see hunger being connected to the Entities as well as their Avatars and followers. Jon has also described his urge to take statements as being a hunger and in MAG 148 (Extended Surveillance) he wonders “Does reading a statement of the Ceaseless Watcher count as a sort of auto-cannibalism, I wonder? Or some sort of bird-like regurgitation of fear? Re-consuming secondhand terror.” after reading a statement having to do with The Eye.

So I don’t think the “hunger” being mentioned in Protocol is actually a completely new theme but rather a continuation of a previous one and Ink5 has merely not realized that it’s the fear that this strange Power is reacting too. Something that was true for Needles and even some characters from TMA didn’t immediately realize that they had become an Avatar or somehow tied to an Entity. Becoming an Avatar does not automatically fill you in on your Entity or what’s happening. I suppose this case also confirms that Ink5 is only copying existing tattoos and they cannot make their own supernatural tattoo designs. There’s a clear commentary on the connection between trying to become popular and things that can pressure one to plagiarize.

There’s still one thing to consider though. Becoming an Avatar requires one to die but while this death can, and often is, literal it can also be metaphorical or symbolic. So if Ink5 really is a traditional Avatar then when would they have died? Well, you could very easily see their embracing of their online persona as a sort of ego death, especially when they cut many of their old friends out of their life. In a metaphorical sense Grace Wilde died so Ink5oul could be born. However, this is just my speculation and who can be 100% sure if Avatars as we understood them are really going to be a thing.

This is the part where I try to look at the case through the lens of Smirke’s 14 (plus the Extinction). If you want part of the reason I’m doing this you can read it here (Why Smirke’s 14). The other part of the answer is because it’s fun. However, Ink5oul proves to be a challenging one to place since each of the tattoos they “borrow” from Oscar seems to have a wildly different effect. I suppose if you wanted to you could argue that Ink5 is somehow connected to an Entity like The Flesh due to the body horror involved and the whole “they would wake up changed in a way they could not understand” thing. It’s also not impossible for Entities to involve other Powers in their work. Breekon and Hope were connected to The Stranger but delivered artifacts connected to various Entities (such as The Web and Buried) for example and the Institute collected a variety of non-Eye related artifacts for research and experimentation (Sasha notes being forced to interact with them at her previous job in the Institute). So maybe it’s merely one Entity like The Flesh interacting with other Entities. It could also be that the tattoos themselves are tied to specific Entities but Ink5oul is tied to their own Entity more directly. It’s also possible that Ink5 is something akin to an Avatar but doesn’t belong to a specific Power as we understand it. While the categories are useful they are ultimately a vague spectrum so it’s just as possible Ink5 is sitting on some vague or more nebulous part of the spectrum or that the particular Entity they are tied to doesn’t matter that much, or maybe their tied to multiple Entities (which we know is possible). It’s kind of hard to tell when not even Ink5 seems fully aware of what’s happening or what they’re tied to.

I can’t see a lot of other obvious picks for Entities here except like maybe The Eye with a desire to be seen and go viral along with the idea of someone using you to be seen (and we know Ink5 streams some of theit sessions) or The Web in relation to not being in control when someone forces a tattoo design you didn’t want on to you and The Web likes to do things like control movement or make people lose control of their body (like how Harry seem paralyzed during the tattoo process).

I’m also using Avatars as a reference point and it’s possible that “External” has a different meaning or connotation. Maybe External refers to what TMA would call Avatars AND Monsters or maybe we’ll learn that “Externals” have their differences. At one point 5oul asks “External to what? Your department? Society? The world?” and Gwen says “I don’t know. All of them?” Clearly these characters have no idea what’s going on so you can only take so much of what they say with more than a grain of salt but I could see how External relates to all these concepts. The Entities might be from another universe which would mean Externals draw their power from an external source, they are externals of the OIAR as an institution, and I doubt beings like Mr. Bonzo fit into normal society (thus making him an outsider or external_.

Ink5oul definitely doesn’t want to sign the OIAR’s agreement and Gwen snaps after Ink5 tells her to piss off: “(bristling) I know what I’m talking about when I say you’re being an idiot. It’s a good deal, and the only way your story doesn’t end in a “where are they now?” article that no-one clicks on. So just sign the damn contract while you still have a chance. You’ve got plenty of ink, and I’m sure even you can manage to write your own name.” I wonder if this is some kind of foreshadowing or Gwen is assuming someone will attempt to kill Ink5oul in the same way Klaus was supposed to be killed. Knowing how the OIAR works I wouldn’t be completely surprised if something like Mr. Bonzo was sent to deal with Externals that refused to abide by the OIARs rules or legal agreements. I also wonder if the paper has any supernatural properties since the papers signed when working in the Archives of the Magnus Institute in TMA were magically binding, so I wonder if something similar is supposed to happen here. I mean are they really just going to take Mr. Bonzo’s word that they aren’t going to kill a few extra people on the side every once in a while and if he decided to cut loose who would stop him, or would you just have to send more and more Externals to deal with each other and keep everything in check?

Gwen’s outburst does not go well and Ink5 threatens her by saying “You want ink?” “You really do have the skin for it…” “This is the part where you start running.”

## Conclusion

Yet another episode that I found quite interesting. The way the case came from Ink5ouls themselves was also interesting and it does more to show that cases seem to function like statements in many, if not all, ways. If you want the categories for this case in the transcripts they are:

CAT1RAB2534-12042024-12042024

Transformation (tattoo) -/- Social Media (influencer)

Incident Elements:

- Atychiphobia (fear of failure)

- Desecration of Corpses

- Body Horror

- Non-Consensual body modification

- Mentions of: exhumation, needles (tattoos), conspiracies,

burns/fire, drugging

- SFX: Tattoo buzzing

If you want to read my other Quick Thoughts you can do so here (TMAGP Quick Thoughts Archive).