imagine if existential/cosmic horror could happen to british people and characters that’d be so funny
[the ground opens itself into an infinite, swirling maw. to look into its core is to look into the eye of cruelty itself. despite this personification, there is no humanity here. the sky is dark and quiet but the air is loud with squelches and cracks. the earth writhes with its very presence.]
that tma episode about the true crime club kids all going crazy and murdering each other was such an underrated episode this is literally the funniest opening to a statement ever
imagining the whole episode as a low budget two person play in which alex hastily changes between glasses and a fake muscle shirt to portray martin and jared respectively
To me the wildest part of the tma fandom is by FAR the people who are really into Jonah Magnus and Various Victorian Men, just because I forgot those motherfuckers even existed the second their episodes finished. I’ll see a tag for like, Ye Olde Dandyfoot Bungas and I just have to assume that was a real character and that now people are horny about him. Anyways
hi im sunny your local nonbinary person and ironically given my username also your local recovering addict
this episode is frankly the best portrayal of addiction in horror in a good while. possibly ever? most stories focus on the downward spiral and the inevitability of relapse- think the shining, evil dead, silent hill 2, layers of fear, the lighthouse, rule of rose, and on and on and on…. not exactly stuff that makes you remember addicts are, you know, people. in fact the addicts in these stories are explicitly the villains! one of them is literally called mad dog and put on a leash before killing a bunch of orphans!!!!
in short, they focus on what addicts do to other people, or occasionally themselves, not what addiction does to addicts.
172 is about the trials of recovery. francis is not at fault for their suffering; the people around them who discourage sobriety are the villains here (and also the sentient representation of the concept of addiction but you know). and that’s incredible to see! to not be blamed for being an addict! to see it treated as anything other than a personal moral failing for which one deserves to fall to supernatural evil forces!!!!
apparently the line most people had problems with was francis’ mother saying (approximately), “it’s a phase. you’ll grow out of it.” i can see how this might be interpreted to be about their gender, but given the episode is entirely about addiction, i don’t agree with that assessment. i’ve been told this nearly verbatim, and a few friends i’ve talked to had similar experiences. being young with addiction issues, you get a lot of comments like, you’re too young to have a drug problem. it’s just how it is at this age. you’ll grow out of it when you settle down.
note that the content warning for transphobia was not added until after the patreon release and a lot of criticism in the patron chat.
this episode did not treat francis’ gender as a source of horror. it was an accurate and reasonably sensitive portrayal of addiction, given the genre. i do not think there’s anything wrong with showing a nonbinary addict, and honestly found everyone saying otherwise to be incredibly hurtful. people like me exist. addicts exist. and we can tell when you think addicts don’t deserve to be treated with sympathy or dignity.
