2025-09-13 10:08:19 ¶ ● ⬀ ⬈

buonsai:

> I think the biggest issue I’m having with Protocol v.s. Archive is the difference in scale. In Archives, we start with just Jon reading statements to us. Through his own ramblings and footnotes and addendums (and the statements themselves of course), we start piecing together a story. Then, Martin starts popping up. Over time we learn about him, and eventually Sasha, Tim, and so on. Slowly but efficiently we are introduced to and bond with an entire cast of characters. It started from one and grew and grew and grew. In Protocol, we start off in a government building. There’s a whole cast INSTANTLY! Some who have bonded already and others are new, some have more history than others. We aren’t eased into a dusty wooden library with The Head Archivist talking to himself, we’re listening to a group of underpaid, overworked government workers bantering. Instantly we start off with just, more. I’m not going to get into spoiler territory, but those caught up know how vast the scale has become in terms of plot and setting. It feels like we’re uncovering more and more, but not really earning anything. I don’t think Protocol is bad, and I’m still keeping up with every episode, but it personally hasn’t felt nearly as fulfilling as Archives has. It’s been fun, sure, but not in the ways I sought in Archives

this is actually a lot of the reason its extremely hard for me to get back into malevolent or Protocol, off the bat there’s a whole new system (my favorite, I loooveer the filing system) and a new cast and the entire cast is THERE and talking, like, all of the time, and it feels like its spoonfeeding us information from a BUCKET and not the spoon I was prepared for