2025-03-22 15:29:05 ¶ ●

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Idk if someone asked you this before but are you listening to The Magnus Protocol? If you are, what are you thinking of it so far? If not, is there a reason for it? (Btw thanks for answering my last question)

I’m so glad you asked that because I have soo much to say.

When TMAGP first came out it was kind of exciting. Everyone in the TMA fandom was hyping it up, so I decided to give it a go. But honestly, I didn’t find it all that amazing; I only made it to ep 28 before losing interest. There are a few things that discouraged me from listening to it further.

My first problem is with the form of it. Each episode is a compilation of different recordings - from a computer, from the cctv, from a phone. It’s original and interesting, but this also made it difficult for me to understand what was being said. I needed to look at the transcript during nearly every episode, because I couldn’t make out what the characters were saying. I’m not that good at processing audio, especially since english isn’t my first language, and the wide variety of form certainly didnt make it easier for ne.

This alone made it pretty annoying, since the main reason I listen to podcasts is to be able to occupy my hands and eyes with something else, like drawing. Having to read the transcript while listening is a bit demanding and requires my full attention, making the whole thing feel like a chore.

I also don’t like the frequent changes of the place and time of action - again, I had a hard time knowing what was going on without following the transcript as I listened.

My other issue is with the statements. In TMA they took the form of a written report, so they all followed the same pattern - they were all told from a first person pov, clearly divided into segments, told at a steady pace allowing tension to build up. TMAGP statements vary in their forms and shapes, once again making it both original and hard for me to follow.

That is not to say I didn’t enjoy them; I liked a lot of them, but there were also some that didnt speak to me at all - they were just not scary in the slightest. I did not have this problem with TMA - even if a statement didn’t resonate with me personally, it still made a great standalone story.

Another one of my issues is that there is so much going on. The episodes focus way more on the plot than in TMA in my opinion. I’m aware this might be because of the smaller number of episodes that TMAGP is going to have in comparison to TMA. But still, I couldn’t really bring myself to care about any of the characters, and, by extension, I don’t care about their stories either. The statements are, and always have been, my favourite part of the podcast(s).

I aslo have a problem with TMAGP being basically “TMA: the sequel”. There are a lot of references to the original podcast, and you need to know all of them in order to actually understand what’s going on, because a loooot of it is left unsaid. In TMA you didn’t have to do all this detective work - while you could technically spend every episode searching for clues, the narrative did a pretty good job of explaining it to a clueless listener (me). You can’t fully enjoy TMAGP without knowing everything about TMA first. Again, that’s demanding.

Another reason for why I’m not very into TMAGP is that I don’t care for JonMartin. Season 5 wrapped it all up nicely. I don’t caaare what they might be doing in other universes. They never mattered much to me. And most TMAGP fans I’ve seen focus mainly on the characters that appeared in TMA: “omg Gertrude and Gerry are happy! Basira is a techer! Jon and Martin did this and that!” I don’t care sorry. I’m here mainly for the horror short stories.

So yeah I’m not really into TMAGP. I tried listening to it, but only ever got so far as episode 28 before getting bored and dropping it.