TMA Name Meanings And How They Intertwine With Their Character

Jon - The name Jonathan means “God has given” which is quite ironic considering a fear entity (that some people worship like a God in the TMA universe) spends the entire series giving Jon the power of The Eye. His last name is also deeply ironic, as the last Sims means “To Listen,” which…is not the right sense for Jon’s main thing, but it is perfect for a statement taker.

Martin - The name Martin means “dedicated to Mars” and “God of war.” While a name that means “God of war” seems a little intense for Martin, it does tie into the themes of his story about constantly being underestimated and having a lot more fierceness than he tends to outwardly show. His last name Blackwood means…you guessed it, “black wood.”

Tim - The name Timothy means ‘one who honors God.’ Much like Jon’s name meaning, his also has a hint of irony considering he serves a figure that is viewed as god-like in the TMA universe, but it’s ironic in the opposite way of Jon since Tim does NOT honor The Eye. However, his last name Stoker suits him a little too well. It means “one who tends to the fire”….which I don’t love considering his death.

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Sasha - The name Sasha means “Defender.” It’s a very sweet first name considering how many of her actions in the series are in the name of defending her friends. Her last name James is SUPER interesting because James means “holder of the heel.” That’s a phrase that comes from a Bible story about a man named Jacob who was born holding onto his twin brothers heel as a sign that he’ll eventually take his brothers birthright. Which is relevant to Sasha because she was supposed to take Gertrude’s place as head Archivist.

Melanie - The name Melanie means “darkness,” which is fitting for a ghost hunter who is first drawn to The Institute because she finds an Avatar of The Stranger begging the Angler Fish creature in the dark. Her last name King means “rule” or “monarch.” It’s a fitting name for someone becomes a leader of a cult in Season 5, and it’s a powerful name for one of the characters who has one of the strongest wills in the series.

Georgie - The name Georgie means “farmer.” That meaning doesn’t have a lot of tie-in to canon, but it could make a Corruption or Flesh avatar Georgie AU hit super hard. Her last name Barker means “Shepard,” which has a lot of relevance to her role in the story. Like a shepherd she tries to guide Jon away from the fears, and while she unfortunately fails due to no fault of her own, she is able to be there for Melanie when she walks away from the fears. Shepard’s also have religious symbolism which ties into Georgie’s role as a chosen one cult leader in Season 5.

Basira - Basira’s name means “wisdom.” That’s fitting for a character who is so grounded in logic that she’s able to think herself out of The Stranger’s ritual. Her last name Hussain also means “handsome” or “good.” So that could be a tie in to how she perceived her role as a cop before the Daisy character development, or it could tie into her role in helping stop the apocalypse in Season 5.

Daisy - Daisy’s nickname means “purity and innocence” and she says in canon that she uses that nickname because she likes the irony. Her real name Alice means “noble,” a powerful name for a women who uses her powerful position as a cop get away with brutality. Her last name Tonner is just as strong as it means “thunder.” A force of nature that is typically used to symbolize strength.

Peter - The name Peter means “rock” or “stone.” An ironic name for someone who’s so…“stoney” 🥁 His last name Lucas means “bringer of light” or “to shine”….which is not a name meaning a guy who likes to be followed around by fog probably appreciates.

Elias - The name Elias means “The Lord is my God.” In a similar vein to Jon, it’s an ironic name considering his body ends up as a vessel to a guy who practically serves The Eye as a religious deity. His last name Bouchard is no less ironic. It means “brave,”….which Elias is not shown to be in his statement.

Jonah - The name Jonah means “dove” and doves typically symbolize peace, love, hope, and renewal. While I wouldn’t use the words “peace” and “love” while describing a character like Jonah, “renewal” does ring a bell. His life is in a constant state of renewal as he has to jump from one body to a next. His last name Magnus means “Greatest” which could be a tie-in to both his pride and his role as the one who created The Institute.

Gerard - The name Gerard means “hard spear.” That doesn’t have any relevance to canon, but it does have relevance to his last name. His last name Keay is a variation of the last name Kay, which means “Wharf.” He has a name that’s extremely fisherman coded and that’s hilariously funny to me because it literally has nothing to do with anything.

Gertrude - The name Gertrude also means “hard spear” and yes I will be thinking about how Gertrude’s name parallels with Gerry’s forever. Gertrude’s last name Robinson means “son of Robin.” Robin’s tend to symbolize good luck, happiness, and rebirth. While that isn’t perfect symbolism for Gertrude, you could argue that she has good luck to be able to foil so many rituals and survive far longer than anyone else involved with The Institute. (Though personally I would assign her as a raven if I were to give the cast bird symbolism.)

Michael Shelley - The name Michael means “a gift from God.” I find the fact that his name references him as a gift a little disturbing in this specific, particular, context considering that Gertrude did give him away like one. His last name Shelley means “meadows edge.” Meadows tend to symbolize peace and tranquility, which fits both a character who had peace in ignorance about the fears and a character who seemed like a very soft person.

I think a very fun doorkeay dynamic is:

Distortion! Michael: “It must be odd for you, book burner. To be in a relationship with something that doesn’t truly exist. Michael wouldn’t have been able to understand why you are here, and I do not need to be Michael to question why you’re so willing to go through my doors. What do you see so appealing in delusion?”

Gerard: “I mean, this might as well happen. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯”

I’m a big fan of the idea of Gerard and Mary’s natural hair color being red because I like the symbolism of it.

Red is often associated with anger, violence, and danger. Those are all facets of Mary’s personality, so it would be suiting for that color to be attached to her very being.

However, it would also be suiting and deeply symbolic for Gerard to cover up the color of violence, danger, and anger he was born with by choosing to apply a color that’s just his own. It would be an act of rejecting the most violent parts of his Mother, and I think that would add a lot of weight to his choice to dye his hair.

Anyway, I love giving characters with almost no physical descriptions deeply symbolic designs in my mind. This post is just me trying to convert more people into red haired Gerry truthers.

A dynamic where Gerard starts dating The Distortion, and then it gets unspiraled and turns into Michael Shelley again, has so much angst and just in general potential.

When Gerard started dating The Distortion, he knew from the start that their relationship was…different. After all, Michael is a monster and he is a man. That creates a dynamic that’s hard for most people to get.

But Gerard has already spent most of his life resigning himself to not being “most people.” He’s spent so long around monsters that they make more sense to him than the average Joe who lives their life blissfully unaware of the world around them. A monster was one of the only thing he ever could have ended up with really, and he’s fine with that. It means he gets to stay in his world that he understands.

Then there’s The Distortion, who has ever conflicting thoughts about it’s identity. Is not Michael, but it is Michael, and neither and both can understand why someone with so much humanity would be so eager to be with madness. What’s left of The Distortion would not want to intertwined with humanity if it had a choice, and what’s left of Michael would not want to be intertwined with a monster if he had a choice. No matter who they are, it can’t understand the choice Gerry makes to be intertwined with something not made for him, and that lead’s to the assumption, and perhaps insecurity, that Gerard would be happier if it were human.

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Then they get undone somehow, and Michael Shelley’s left to put his life back together again. As overwhelming as that is, he’s relived that he gets to choose to have normalcy again. Humanity. He’s actually pretty excited about what the undoing means for his relationship with Gerard, because obviously Gerard is going to be happier with a fellow human then a creature made out of deceit.

But Gerard is not happier. In fact, he’s scared. He can deal with a hallway monster, that’s just an average day for him, but he doesn’t know how to handle other people. He doesn’t know how to handle a normal, kinda boring, guy who just wants a normal, kinda boring, life.

So Michael and Gerard’s relationship goes into this uncomfortable place where Michael feels like his humanity has been rejected and Gerry feels like he’s a fish who had been drug on land told he needs to grow legs to walk. Both of them feel like they’ve been rejected by the other in some way, and their relationship is on unstable ground a long time.

However, it does get better eventually. It takes Gerard having to step out of his comfort zone a lot, and really think about what type of life he wants for himself, but he does decide that there’s value in the normal life he wishes he was given before he was shown things he can’t unsee. And, meanwhile, Michael has to do feeling sorting about whether he wants to be with someone who’s so deeply tied with the fears that he was initially lost when his boyfriend turned back into a human. Michael does decide that Gerard is trying, and that’s enough for him, even if it means accepting that the fears will always be apart of how they met.

(Or you could go with a bad ending where Gerard just can’t be comfortable with normalcy no matter how hard he tries, and Michael just can’t accept that Gerard was more content with a monster no matter how hard he tries. Which leads to a break up.)

ANYWAY, I am clearly thinking a lot about the doorkeay dynamic. I love a ship where there’s canonically at least four different ways you could interpret their relationship (Gerry/The Distortion, Gerry/ Michael, Gerry/The Distortion who turns back into Michael, Gerry/Michael who turns into The Distortion.) and that’s even including ghost! Gerry!

Why Gerard Would Become An Avatar Of Each Fear

The Buried - Gerard has always felt a bit buried by the expectations his Mother places on him. That phrase has taken a more literal than metaphorical turn of late as he keeps having dreams where Mary places weight on his shoulders until he sinks beneath the ground, where the soft dirt welcomes him with open arms. He would assume that these dreams are nothing more than dreams, but he’s done this whole fear thing long enough to know that it’s alarming that he keeps waking up covered in dirt with a terrible ache in his shoulders …not to mention the new urge to dig.

The Corruption - Gerard could not bring himself to leave the bookstore after his Mother’s death. He tried, but he was always pulled back by the toxic memories that felt like home. Even when mold started to grow on the walls, he could not bring himself to walk away for good, and when the floorboards started rotting through, he dug his heels into what remained. He realized too late that the entire situation was a breeding ground for The Corruption, and it had a hold on him just as strong as Mary did, but in an odd way that’s okay. It almost feels like home.

The Dark - One minute, you’re in a goth club just hanging out, and the next, a strange person comes up to you and asks if you also find peace in the dark. When this happened to Gerard, he shrugged and said he supposed he did, only to be handed a card promoting a church. He knew it was weird, but “curiosity killed the cat” has never been a saying he liked all that much. He had to check it out. And he had to go again when it was just as weird as he thought it would be. Purely for investigation of course. The peace he found hidden from the world within the dark had nothing to do with it.

The Desolation - Gerard’s appreciation of destruction started small. At first, he just had a fondness for setting Leitner’s alight that were more trouble than they were worth. The way the flames consumed the paper was so…warm. So…consuming. So…efficient. They solved all his problem with one flick of his lighter, and that was intoxicating. It only seemed natural to escalate to getting rid of his other problems as well, up until he ended up burning down Pinhole Bookstore and truly embracing the flames.

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The End - Being a ghost isn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to Gerard. However, being an avatar of the end ghost might be. Despite his annoyance at the whole situation, he’s not shocked that it turned out this way. Dying in that hospital gave him plenty of time to feed The End, and when Gertrude brought him back with the book, not quite alive, not quite dead, and yet very afraid of what his existence meant for his mortality…well, The End latched onto him like glue to paper. As it turns out dying’s not that bad. It’s the staying dead that sucks.

The Extinction - Gerard has spent so much time worrying with Gertrude about a fear apocalypse that’s it’s hard not to think about the concept of human extinction. Especially when so many avatars are eager and willing to end the world just to serve their entitles in a more “pure” way. He can’t imagine wanting that. The concept of Extinction terrifies him, and it takes all he has to stay steady when Gertrude needs his help in defeating another ritual. But thankfully, he’s not stopping any rituals today. He’s only supposed to be helping Gertrude burn a few Leitner’s. Yet…it’s odd. He hasn’t actually gotten any burned. His eyes keep darting over to a letter on Gertrude’s desk. It reads “from Adelard Dekker,” and he doesn’t know why, but he can’t shake the urge to read it.

The Eye - “Better to serve the watcher then the lightless flame.” Gerard said those words for a reason. It’s nearly impossible in his line of work not to be tied to something, and Gerard’s always found the concept of forbidden knowledge much more welcoming than worms, fire, cannibalism, and all the other horrors the other fears bring. He’s fine with being the eye’s pupil. As long as it means he’s not belonging to something worse.

The Flesh (TW: Skinning) - Gerard was never really able to tell Mary no. He knew their bond was unhealthy…but he loved his Mother, and he wanted her approval more than anything. That’s why he agreed to help her with her ritual when she asked him to help her bind her skin into the book. He knew that he shouldn’t have agreed when he made the first cut, and he knew that he REALLY shouldn’t have agreed when it was all said and done and he had the urge to go out to the store and get some meat.

The Hunt - The most natural thing in the world is a child that wants their Mother’s approval. In that way, it’s not shocking that Gerard went to the ends of the Earth hunting Leitner’s for Mary. But what is surprising (but maybe shouldn’t have been) was when one of the fears latched onto that instinctual feeling and used it to make him an avatar of the hunt. He thought the urge to hunt might ease after Mary’s death, but…then he met Gertrude, and she gave him a purpose to chase.

The Lonely - It’s easy to be lonely in a world where you don’t fit. Gerard has always wanted a normal life more than he’s ever been comfortable saying. He’s spent so much time daydreaming about what it would be like to have normal friends who call him “Gerry” with a smile and allow him to leave all the fears far in his past. Of course, that’s not something that would really happen. People in the real world are just too…naive. He doesn’t fit in with them, and he doesn’t belong with them either. Maybe he’s just doomed to be alone. That would explain the fog that’s started following him.

The Slaughter - Gerard doesn’t think it’s wrong to kill a few Leitner holders if they refuse to hand over their books. And he really doesn’t think it’s wrong to kill the avatar’s of the fears he’s sworn to destroy. He’s just trying to make the world a better place after all, and the world is safer with fewer haunted books, and people, in it. Is a little cruel since Leitner holders and avatar’s alike often aren’t in their right mind by the time he finds them? Sure. But that’s a price he’s willing to pay. And he doesn’t quite remember why it wasn’t once. After he was shot by that war ghost Gertrude sent him to track down the means to the end all seemed so clear. He has to do a little bad to do a little good.

The Stranger - Gerard has never felt like he belonging anywhere. He is not ignorant enough to live within the “normal” word, but he has never managed to truly find a place in his Mother’s world, either. So he just drifts aimlessly in-between both, never quite sure what role he’s supposed to play or who he’s supposed to be. He knows his lack of firm identity makes him a target for The Stranger, and his facial features have looked a little…blurry lately, but that doesn’t make any easier to decide were he belongs.

The Vast - When you hunt fears it becomes easy to feel like you’re insignificant in the world. There are things that are so much greater than him…and the very annoying thing about his line of work is that those feelings can become literal very quickly. He’s started smelling ozone lately, and he can’t shake the dizziness that hits him every time he goes up the stairs to enter The Institute, but he’s not quite sure how to fight the sky when it’s so all consuming that all he can do is stare in helpless awe.

The Web - Gerard has very…complicated feelings about Mary and Gertrude to put it lightly. However, they did teach him the value in one thing, and that’s manipulation. He saw the way Mary would bat her shark-like eyes at his father and draw him deeper into her tide until he drowned. He saw the way Gertrude would act like a frail old and then go in for the kill when people would let down their guard. And he can play those games too. He’s really mastered the art of offering deals that people feel like they have no choice but to take. In fact, he’s so good, that Jon hardly hesitated when he leveraged information for burning his page. Spinning webs comes easily to him, he’s had very good teachers.

The lyrics “She looks like the real thing. She tastes like the real thing. My fake plastic love.” but with Gerard thinking about Michael Shelley while being with The Distortion.

The lyrics “She looks like the real thing. She tastes like the real thing. My fake plastic love.” but with Georgie thinking about her college friend Alex while being with Melanie.

The lyrics “She looks like the real thing. She tastes like the real thing. My fake plastic love.” but with Martin thinking about Season 1 Jon while being with Season 5 Jon.

The lyrics “She looks like the real thing. She tastes like the real thing. My fake plastic love.” but with Jude thinking about Agnes while being with her girlfriend.

The lyrics “She looks like the real thing. She tastes like the real thing. My fake plastic love.” but with Tim finding out Not! Sasha wasn’t Sasha.