Just By Giving Us Office Shenanigans, The Magnus Protocol Is Simulating The Terrifying Creeping Dread

just by giving us office shenanigans, the magnus protocol is simulating the terrifying creeping dread of early magnus to me.

theyre making alice so silly and sam so sweet “cinnamon roll” and gwen so adorably bratty because they Know we know its gonna hurt.

they’re playing on our knowledge of this franchise to curate such a secondhand sense of “Oh Fuck” just waiting for it all go to shit. it’s terror they dont have to explicitly allude to because they Know we know. so good.

i just know they made sam make cat noises in his sleep to up his “awww sweet fandom baby. sweet cinnamon roll” factor Just because we know they’re going to destroy him

they saw the way we write precanon and gave it to us on a knowingly poisoned silver platter. sam is fanon martin, alice is fanon tim, gwen is fanon jon, celia is fanon sasha. but all their cute office shenanigans are soured now by Oh God Oh Fuck. its *genius*. even though we dont know the characters too well they are familiar. they are familiar and we love them already because they are familiar. their pain is familiar too and we know its coming.

. and colin is there to be our Reminder that this isnt a cute sitcom anime. colin is living in the horror genre . he is our Reminder so we don’t get too comfortable.

archives was so good at slow burn upping the stakes. protocol is Not Doing that for obvious reasons but the fear it illicits is the same creeping dread feeling.