The character I hate most in tma is Donna Gwynne, I wish that grave robbing wannabe British museum thieving fraud from mag 64 had died in her episode. Like other characters do objectively worse things but as someone who intends to be an archeologist her actions feel personally offensive.
No but for real why didn’t Martin feed? He was fully an avatar in season four. Like he flat out just went ghost in front of Georgie and we’re not supposed to question that he could do the same sorta shit as Peter FUCKING Lukas without victimizing anyone? Or did they just decide that it only took Jon taking one live statement to make him haunt people’s nightmares because he was just that evil of a person? Like. Where is the logic.
TMA fans! Could anyone please tell me how old Martin is? I know I could google but I still haven’t finished s5 and I don’t want to stumble upon a spoiler (also: please don’t tell me anything that happens in s5!). I think I remember he talked about it when he told Jon about lying in his CV, but I can’t recall which episode that was and, again, I don’t want to google it.
TMA fans! Could anyone please tell me how old Martin is? I know I could google but I still haven’t finished s5 and I don’t want to stumble upon a spoiler (also: please don’t tell me anything that happens in s5!). I think I remember he talked about it when he told Jon about lying in his CV, but I can’t recall which episode that was and, again, I don’t want to google it.
TIA to anyone who is willing to help <3
Thank you soooo so much for this! Iirc this was in s2 so that would mean Martin and Jon are about nine-ten years apart (seeing as Jon is 38 in s1).
I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again. Jon the type of guy to lie that he doesn’t have a tattoo even as you are literally staring at it. Type of guy to say it’s a trick of the light. Or a skin condition. You will pry details about his life from his cold, dead hands.
TMA fans! Could anyone please tell me how old Martin is? I know I could google but I still haven’t finished s5 and I don’t want to stumble upon a spoiler (also: please don’t tell me anything that happens in s5!). I think I remember he talked about it when he told Jon about lying in his CV, but I can’t recall which episode that was and, again, I don’t want to google it.
TIA to anyone who is willing to help <3
Thank you soooo so much for this! Iirc this was in s2 so that would mean Martin and Jon are about nine-ten years apart (seeing as Jon is 38 in s1).
MAG 161
MAG 80
They both lied about their ages.
Wait, so 38 wasn’t true? O_O LMAO, I was so excited to be given a number, Sasha’s comment went right over my head xD
But, hold on. Leitner’s library was destroyed in 1994, meaning Jon was 8 in 1995 or 1996, making his year of birth 1987 or 1988. And that makes him… 28-29 when the series starts?? He’s the same age as Martin?! O_O
TMA fans! Could anyone please tell me how old Martin is? I know I could google but I still haven’t finished s5 and I don’t want to stumble upon a spoiler (also: please don’t tell me anything that happens in s5!). I think I remember he talked about it when he told Jon about lying in his CV, but I can’t recall which episode that was and, again, I don’t want to google it.
TIA to anyone who is willing to help <3
Thank you soooo so much for this! Iirc this was in s2 so that would mean Martin and Jon are about nine-ten years apart (seeing as Jon is 38 in s1).
MAG 161
MAG 80
They both lied about their ages.
Wait, so 38 wasn’t true? O_O LMAO, I was so excited to be given a number, Sasha’s comment went right over my head xD
But, hold on. Leitner’s library was destroyed in 1994, meaning Jon was 8 in 1995 or 1996, making his year of birth 1987 or 1988. And that makes him… 28-29 when the series starts?? He’s the same age as Martin?! O_O
Yep!!! :)
I hope it’s all right that I take an extra reblog to thank you not just for providing me with the info I was missing, but also letting me solve that puzzle on my own <3 I know we don’t know each other, but this think alone makes you an amazing person in my eyes. Thank you for letting me have this exciting discovery ^_^
Course! That’s why I stayed schtum! For the most part, lol. That’s kind of you to say!
Laughing at Jon saying Helen tricked them into thinking she was their friend. Like she wasn’t exactly convincing nor trying to be nor did you at any point treat her like you trusted her.
Like. Draw attention to the date. That’s in the middle of the final hiatus of the series. That’s before any of the final endgame stuff was brought up. So it wasn’t like the reference to that proverbial door was about them sending them to different dimensions! I just knew that, no matter what the outcome of whatever was going to happen, that in any ‘good end’ — see the doc title — there would be no way the fears would be GONE.
If I knew that even then, it’s no fucking wonder I found the bullshit moral quandary… ahFUHking bullshit.
They were dumb for taking the Web at face value and Jon should’ve killed all life. Full stop. No exceptions.
A funny thing about the widespread “Jon is stupid and keeps making dumb choices that lead to him almost dying” take is that if you were to really look at his behaviour, he very much acts in the way the “horror characters are so dumb” people would want him to act.
He doesn’t jump to irrational conclusions, doesn’t dive head first into danger and instead prepares for it as well as he can etc etc. He’s very distrustful of everyone and everything due to his paranoia, and tries to do as much research as possible before heading into the unknown.
You just get annoyed at him because you, as the listener, already know the things he’s researching, and possibly already know what his actions will result in. No, his fate couldn’t have been avoided if he had done something differently. The only way Jonathan Archivist Sims’s fate could’ve been avoided would’ve been by entirely rewriting his character story from at least the age of eight. Goodbye Mr Spider!
dramatic irony’s like an unheard of concept in the fandom i swear. like how would Jon possibly know that the whole world is out to get him because of the world’s most evilest boss 🥀 he’s trying his best guys
“And how do you think John’s going to react to that explanation? Do you think he’ll accept it calmly? Come through with a well-considered, rational response? Or would he assume he knows better than you and do something rash?”
what do you guys think, would John assume he knows best? And does Martin agree? He has to go along with Peter regardless of if he believes it, and considering he manipulates Peter, that implies to me that he may not have agreed. Very interesting to consider.
Personally I like to think John wouldn’t? He hates not knowing things more than anything, but he still respects Martin’s decision to keep him in the dark all of s4. He actively chooses to trust Martin. Yes, he hates Martin being in danger, but he agreed he had a good plan to get Elias out of the way and didn’t try to stop him there. He’s trying!
I think if it were any Jon prior to season 3 then Peter would be correct. That was how he was prior to being forced to rely on and bring in other people into the Unknowing. He was trying to connect with the others and do better by them. Even though none of them cared or reciprocated. And, personally, I think Martin did believe Peter. I don’t think Martin saw how Jon changed nor thought he was capable of it.
I’m gonna list my fanfic ideas and y’all tell me which sounds the most interesting to read okay?
Prefacing this by saying that any post!canon ones will be set in a canon!divergence au where they don’t get sent elsewhere, unless stated otherwise, and none of the post!canon facts we got from Protocol are true.
I know I say this constantly, but it bears repeating:
What all my issues regarding Martin, Melanie, Basira, and Georgie boil down to is that people act as though they are fundamentally good people who are under extreme pressure and extenuating circumstances while Jon is fundamentally a horrible monster that willingly makes all the wrong decisions and had to be tortured fourteen times over to even be considered just barely a person.
I could go on, mainly about the way y'all perceive and excuse the way they talk to and about Jon, but that’s going to require screenshots of transcripts and this was supposed to be short so…
guess who finally finished tma. anyway episode 200 is mmmm. okay I actually liked the ending a lot, and I loved Jon’s decision ‘cause. okay. “oh he’s selfish and suicidal” sure! sure, whatever but also the great horror of this post apocalyptic world has been that there is no other option than victim and perpetrator (the exceptions being Georgie and Melanie, which is not the best tone choice for me but). and that is what the final decision is! will you (and the world, but right now the world just feels like you five) suffer and die, or will you pass it on? and character wise, for Jon, whose survival to the detriment of others is literally seen as his biggest sin, chosing to not pass it on is just. it’s so good. it’s such a good ending
and then he backtracks. this pissed me off i’m sorry. oh so he really dies for nothing and still plays into the Web’s hand come ooooon can he get agency for five minutes i’m begging
WARDEN CALLUM Rumour is this one used to be a very particular human. WARDEN OLIVIA Ah you heard that too, eh? You believe it? WARDEN CALLUM I dunno. I hope not but they’re using the A word, so it’s definitely not nothing. WARDEN OLIVIA Mm. WARDEN CALLUM Feel like we’d know if he was back, though. Like it would feel different. WARDEN OLIVIA Different? Different how? WARDEN CALLUM Like the world was ending again.
It really does kill me that this is Jon’s legacy
we as the audience know him, like him, saw how he got to where he got to by the end of the show, but for the vast majority of people in his entire universe, all they know is that he is the man that ended the world
In this eassy i want to say that Jon never hated martin bc he thought he was stupid
In fact ill go as far to say he never thought martin as stupid
Air headed? And thoughtless? Yea but not stupid
Infact jon thought martin was the smartest one in the archives
Thats why he hated him so much
Jon thought martin was underminding him in every way through out season one
Martin from Jons perspective was the oldest, had the most qualifications, spent 10 years in the library, and way directly appointed by Elias
Bad first impression aside Martin was the most qualified for that position to Jon
Only for him to be bad at the job
Jon HAD to think that martin was doing it on purpose to show how bad he himself was at his job
Worst part? Martin was nice
I cannot tell you how Justified Jon would have been if Martin really was pulling what Jon thought he was being incredibly qualified purposely being bad at his job having a direct line to Elias to report how Jon is doing and then being nice on top of it yeah no Jon was right to be pissed if that was what was going on
Which is why the cv thing ment so much to jon
Bc no martin wasn’t doing all of this to make an ass out of jon
No he was just a guy struggling and in effectly the same boat jon was
So yea
In my next essay jon never claimed the supernatural didnt exist he just pretended to think the statments were horse shit
tbh the schadenfreude I feel knowing that the girls are suffering in a hell of their own making and that part of them might wish they had let Jon end everything because they believed the Web wasn’t lying and were instead manipulated into doing its bidding for nothing at all is all that is keeping me going rn fam
no hate & maybe I'm severely misreading-- jon is allowed to make mistakes, but when the archives girls do, it's death to them?? why would anybody be eager to literally end all life. They did what seemed like the best option they had at the time & were manipulated by the literal web. yk. like. the mother of puppets. but idk I guess its fair
None of them were eager to end all life is the point.
HOWEVER.
The others believed the Web’s mouthpiece, despite knowing fully that it was THE aspect of manipulation and LIES, and did what it fucking wanted them to anyway. Despite how they, THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE SERIES, dehumanized Jon for doing the Eye’s bidding in any capacity. Even prior to his becoming. Essentially proving that it would never have mattered what he did, they would always find a reason to hate him and see him as a monster.
So excuse me if I think maybe it would be cathartic to see them suffer for their failings like they were happy to see Jon suffer for his. And if that includes dying like he did then so fucking be it.
no hate & maybe I'm severely misreading-- jon is allowed to make mistakes, but when the archives girls do, it's death to them?? why would anybody be eager to literally end all life. They did what seemed like the best option they had at the time & were manipulated by the literal web. yk. like. the mother of puppets. but idk I guess its fair
None of them were eager to end all life is the point.
HOWEVER.
The others believed the Web’s mouthpiece, despite knowing fully that it was THE aspect of manipulation and LIES, and did what it fucking wanted them to anyway. Despite how they, THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE SERIES, dehumanized Jon for doing the Eye’s bidding in any capacity. Even prior to his becoming. Essentially proving that it would never have mattered what he did, they would always find a reason to hate him and see him as a monster.
So excuse me if I think maybe it would be cathartic to see them suffer for their failings like they were happy to see Jon suffer for his. And if that includes dying like he did then so fucking be it.
But also people cheer and hoot and holler when Jon gets his comeuppance for *checks notes* being rude and pretentious. And I LOVE doing a reverse uno.
Jonathan Sims has got to be the only character who could try to become God in order to kill everyone on Earth and still have me believing in his fundamental goodness as a person.
Tbh y’all wouldn’t like TMA if Jon had been a woman.
Y’all would call everything that happened to ‘her’ torture porn and what Jonah did to ‘her’ grooming and rape. Y’all wouldn’t find all the screaming and whimpering and nonconsensual lotioning funny.
Y’all would see a female character “”enjoy“” being all knowing and all powerful and be confused about why that was seen as a bad thing and monstrous instead of calling ‘her’ monstrous and evil yourselves.
Y’all already flatten and excuse the surviving girls so I don’t see why that would change except it’s boring to y’all to not have a male character you can point and laugh at for being dumb and in pain.
Randomly opened my copy of the third season transcripts to ‘MAG 102 - Nesting Instincts’ and I completely forgot that after the month long nonconsensual lotioning this happened.
Like. JON HAD TO COMFORT MARTIN ABOUT IT. MARTIN MADE A DIG AT HIS LACK OF BEING THERE. You can hear the way he grudgingly tries to take it back too. Ughhh. Jon can’t even begin to talk about it for fuck sake. And this is after he has to talk to Jonah, stopping Melanie from killing him, and Jonah makes gross ass comments about his ‘progress’.
Makes me ill, and not cause of no fucking beetle wife. I’ll tell you that for free.
Randomly opened my copy of the third season transcripts to ‘MAG 102 - Nesting Instincts’ and I completely forgot that after the month long nonconsensual lotioning this happened.
Like. JON HAD TO COMFORT MARTIN ABOUT IT. MARTIN MADE A DIG AT HIS LACK OF BEING THERE. You can hear the way he grudgingly tries to take it back too. Ughhh. Jon can’t even begin to talk about it for fuck sake. And this is after he has to talk to Jonah, stopping Melanie from killing him, and Jonah makes gross ass comments about his ‘progress’.
Makes me ill, and not cause of no fucking beetle wife. I’ll tell you that for free.
Like. Is it me? Am I the problem? Cause it don’t feel like Martin is concerned about anything but being seen as not caring. Like he was worried about getting in trouble at his grown ass age of fucking, what, 30?
Pro tip : fucking ask if someone is okay BEFORE YOU EXPLAIN WHY YOU DIDN’T HELP THEM.
Maybe I should read the season 5 transcripts or listen to that supercut of all the non-‘statement’ parts of season 5 (that’s eight hours long wtf) if only so I can get so upset at what is clearly an idiotic and false interpretation of these characters that I have and lose whatever this emotion I have towards Jon is.
If you think it’s somehow more morally correct to worry about individual people and their lives over a ‘nebulous’ countless others you don’t know. Then idk what to tell you. Trolley problem bullshit I guess.
At what point do you stop being able to see the individual and their specific needs when there’s billions of individuals with billions of different ways of suffering. Can you genuinely be concerned for every one of them on that individual basis without knowing every single one of them, or just the ones you see in front of your eyes. Where’s the line then?
When you don’t know the extent of the suffering, is wanting to prevent more by ending that current suffering by any means less moral than being okay with more ‘nebulous’ countless others suffering as long as THOSE individuals you’re aware of and see suffering stop suffering. Even if the way to end those individuals suffering may or may not succeed in the way you think.
Which, by all accounts, it didn’t. You were played. By your own sympathies and morals. Congrats.
No but for real why didn’t Martin feed? He was fully an avatar in season four. Like he flat out just went ghost in front of Georgie and we’re not supposed to question that he could do the same sorta shit as Peter FUCKING Lukas without victimizing anyone? Or did they just decide that it only took Jon taking one live statement to make him haunt people’s nightmares because he was just that evil of a person? Like. Where is the logic.
Stretching the interpretation FAR with my opinion : Martin did feed. He fed on Jon.
All of S4, Jon is surrounded by people who despise him - Basira, Melanie, Georgie, even Helen to an extent*. He can’t escape them, but they hardly ever interact positively with him. It’s a special kind of isolation, the “alone in a crowded room” meshed with “please talk to me”. It’s the “they all know I’m here, but they all hate me and won’t acknowledge me unless it’s to tell me off”
*Daisy an an exception here.
And Jon is terrible at recognizing his own feelings, so he thinks this is normal.
Martin. Dear Martin can feel the vortex of isolated self-loathing that is Jon. What better fear for the Lonely than a person so isolated and who believes that isolation is entirely justified?
Martin doesn’t need to poof Jon into the Fog Domain, Jon inflicts his torture himself.
Yeah I’ve heard this take before too and I don’t buy it. Martin wasn’t around to see them despise Jon and he definitely didn’t instigate it. In fact, he very much tried the opposite: asking Georgie in confusion about why she wasn’t talking to Jon when she revealed it and telling the others to talk to Jon about his victims thinking they’d care enough to help him. Wanting them to communicate to keep Jon from isolating. And the fact it did the opposite does not negate that. So there’s no way he fed off it.
I’m sorry but the moment the Magpod writers (Johnny specifically) started to get uppity about having tonal and plot inconsistencies that undermine the stated thesis of the show being pointed out and instead have them be waved away as ‘dream logic’ bullshit connected to the fears I stopped caring about what anything the podcast was trying to say and instead only care about what emotions it instilled in me.
A nuanced take on addiction and power dynamics? No that’s just victim blaming. Sorry. Show your work without the above stated contradictions. I’m waiting.
i forgot this web martin meme sjfkdlsjfiosj - harboring a crush on a dude with arachnophobia is not going well
[Start ID: Two panel comic of Jon and Martin from the Magnus Archives from an AU where Martin is an avatar of the Web. Martin is a fat mixed Polish/Korean man with short wavy dark hair that has a streak of white on one bang. He has a beauty mark under his lip. In his Web avatar state, he has eight black eyes, one set above his normal eyes, and two sets below, he also has fangs. In the part of his hair, there is a spiderweb pattern, and behind him there are some black spider legs coming from his back. He is wearing a dot patterned sweater and a teddy lined jacket. Jon is a thin Persian man with long curly hair that has streaks of grey, and has a beard. He is wearing a button up with a cardigan.
First panel, Martin is holding up his hands in defense, looking up with a fearful expression. He says, “Why won’t you love me, Jon?! I’ll be anything you want me to be!!”. In the second panel, Jon is holding up a broom with a furious expression. He shouts back, “I want you to be dead!!” End ID.]
A conversation I don’t think yall are ready for yet is that you can love a character sooooo much and relate to them and see yourself in them but at the end of the day they’re still fake and that’s why someone else’s take on them or headcanon about them isn’t a direct message about you or insult to your identity. If your identity is so wrapped up in a character that you can’t distinguish between reality and fiction, then you are the problem. Not some random person online who interprets the character differently than you.
this also goes for when you hate a character soooooo much and relate them to every person who hurt you and see everyone you hate in them, at the end of the day they’re still fake and someone else’s love for them is not a commentary on your trauma
No, actually, I think I’m allowed to do these things. If fiction affects reality or is a reflection of reality then I get to be affected by this type of thing. And I can, in fact, point out that their interpretation does show how they view me and my trauma.
“Jonah didn’t traumatize Jon, that’s not their dynamic.”
You’re right! He just led Jon by the nose into ‘choosing’ to be traumatized in order to make him into a harbinger of the apocalypse, stripping him of his humanity and utterly destroying his safety and autonomy.
You talk a lot about what you hate about tma and its fans, but what do you like about it? Who is your favourite character, besides manuela dominguez? (Or you might as well say what made you choose her as your fave idk)
Two things. One. What part of ‘liker’ makes you assume she’s my favorite out of every named character? Two. If you’ve read my hate posts, is it not obvious who my actual favorite is? I will not be elaborating. You can find two brain cells to rub together to figure it out.
I genuinely enjoy the statements. They are some of the most visceral writing I’ve heard. For the duration of those moments, I feel connected to and pulled into the lives of these people. The first two seasons, mainly the first, really excelled at making you feel the possibility that these things actually might’ve happened and actually could’ve been explained away in real life. This extends to how real the characters we eventually follow are. With all their flaws and hypocrisy and irrationality in consideration. You may not believe me, but despite everything I’ve said to the contrary, I DO find the character writing in this podcast one of the most dynamic of any other piece of media I’ve encountered.
Is it so unreasonable, then, that the moment the fans do what fans do and turn characters into caricatures, that my ire goes towards them AND how the narrative allowed them that belief?
I hate the show because I hate the fans coloring my perception of it. That’s all.
