It was in the way your grandmother hesitated when calling your name, as though primed for a different one, and the fact you weren’t him wore at her as surely as you did simply by existing.
From a young age you knew you were cursed.
It was in the way that, by the will of some cosmic force, you weren’t allowed to keep your parents. Not even the memories, as you were just too young to have any that last aside from their ends.
From a young age you knew you were hated.
It was in the way that someone ten years your senior never once relented in causing you harm over the years you knew him, your grandmother never once intervening despite its regularity.
From a young age you knew the world was unjust.
It was in the way it should have been you, not the one who hurt you, to die. It should have been you and the fact you lived was a crime you could never repay but with your future as collateral.
From a young age you knew you weren’t meant for this world and you feel like everyone else knows it too.
It’s in the way they talk about you behind your back and in front of your face. No matter how civil you try to be. No matter how gregarious and magnanimous. You know you deserve nothing and so do they.
So you stop. Stop trying to be wanted or loved. Stop trying to care for anyone but yourself. It never got you anywhere anyway. Instead you turn to knowing and learning. Maybe you can understand why what happened to the poor unfortunate who took your place happened. Maybe you can understand why the world is unjust. Maybe knowing will give you a place in the world, no matter how small or awful.
Your name is Jonathan Sims and there was never any hope for you to not become what you did. It was already written for you before you even started.
sorry i became obsessed with saving you. it’s just that i began to see you as a proxy for myself and thought that maybe if I could fix you i could learn how to get by
I love seeing the progressions of characters over seasons no matter the show, and I think Jonathan has just progressively morphed into a wet and slightly ripped paper bag as time goes on. Goes from prim and proper trying to look like a fancy archives boss man, to an exhausted half-drowned cat.
WHO THE FUCK SAID MELANIE NEED TO BE SYMPATHETIC TO JON? WHERE? CAUSE I SURE AS FUCK DIDN’T HEAR IT. AND TELL ME WHY SHE’S ACTING LIKE IT’S HIS FAULT SHE’S HAD A ROUGH TIME OF IT WHEN SHEEEEEE WAS THE ONE WHO CHOSE TO GO TO THE INSTITUTE TO GIVE HER STATEMENT???
THREE
FUCKING
TIMES
????
I HATE THIS I HATE THIS FUCKING STUPID PODCAST AND ITS BULLSHIT NONSENSICAL CHARACTER MOMENTS THAT HAVE NO BEARING IN REALITYYYYYYYYY
You know what. I’m coming back to this. Cause seriously.
There’s one thing I viscerally dislike about TMA that has nothing to do with the characters or plot holes and that’s how so much of it is left outside the fucking podcast.
There are so many illusions to moments we don’t see that supposedly inform actions and reactions that pisses me off cause I’m sorry but I just cannot buy it. Especially when these moments are directly contradicted BY THOSE ACTIONS AND REACTIONS.
So I’m sure we’re supposed to infer that Daisy or Basira at some point in season four asked her to be sympathetic to him (do you think she’d be around Georgie if Georgie asked her to be? do you think Melanie ever saw Martin once in season four? no. don’t be absurd). But I can only see Basira ever saying that ONCE. During the time frame between him BEING STABBED by Melanie and the nonconsentual surgery he performed at Basira’s behest. And by the time Daisy came back, I don’t see why Daisy would even bring it up to Melanie, cause Melanie had already begun to be ‘civil’ towards him at that point. But if Daisy had just cause, it wouldn’t have been more than once either. But who knows. Maybe twice is more than enough.
No. At this point. I’m going to assume this is a direct reference to the fandom at large. That this is the writers agreeing with the fandom that any act against Jon by the people in his life is righteous and just and needs no explanation. Jon existing as a whole around actual humans is justification enough.
Y’know. I would go deeper into why I hate Georgie Barker. But I get tired of having to defend why I hate a fictional female character and also that’s probably something I need to deal with in therapy. Not a public forum.
Anyway. So a few sessions back my therapist said something that sparked a realization in me regarding my opinion of Georgie and her ✨boundaries✨ and it’s that she was literally bad at them.
Boundaries only work if you uphold them.
What I mean is that when she clearly decided to stop contacting him after his coma/death, she should never have stepped foot on Institute ground. She should have never had a single conversation with him regarding anything. That was her boundary. Allowing him to be in her life. And she broke it herself.
More than that, by even going there to pick up Melanie, she broke the main boundary that got her to be angry at Jon in the first place! Going to the very place she SAW AS A EVIL.
You cannot have it both ways. You cannot expect someone to follow a boundary and not keep it yourself.
So no. I don’t think Georgie was as mature and levelheaded and morally upstanding and all that as everyone else specifically because she wasn’t. At all.
I love how all of this is couched in tenses that imply Georgie’s on the fence about whether or not she’s actually apologetic or blames Jon. Hedging her bets. Which. Fine. That’s how you have to be without fear. I can accept that. I can accept Melanie’s backhanded compliment as well. Hell. It even includes Jon briefly defending himself! When stacked with everything before it, this is an okay scene.
Nothing is resolved though.
None of this conversation matters, in the end, because they’re right back at where they started.
Jon fully denies that there’s anything she should apologize for, so Georgie continues to downplay her part in the situation despite her supposed acceptance of the responsibility given to her by the role forced on her. Georgie doesn’t fully commit to either remorse or blame, so Jon ‘betrays’ them when no one listens by going against the majority vote as he had no belief that any choice he made would make anything better at all.
And I’m not saying stagnation is bad if that’s the point. If this was to show that they’re not moving forward because they’re not out of the situation then that’d be one thing. Or maybe that’s what future conversations were supposed to show. In either case, this was clearly written to show they’re making amends. But it doesn’t. They’re not.
Melanie should’ve killed Elias, actually, despite how cathartic it was that Jon got to be the one, if only cause I think it would’ve been really funny for Elias to not have lied about the dead-man’s switch, and all of the institute to have died. Including her. And as she’s gasping her last breath, I really think it would’ve been worth it to her.
Alright! Time for that explainer of my playlist! First. Here it is.
It’s 28 songs so imma put a read more immediately…
Spider by Bo Burnham
This is a haha jokey one but also not. Like. It’s a short thirty-ish seconds of a dude screaming about a spider. There’s not much to explain except we as a fandom need to remember Jon’s arachnophobia and his trauma.
9 to 5 by Dolly Parton
“Barely gettin’ by; it’s all takin’ and no givin’. They just use your mind and they never give you credit.” No? How about. “You’re just a step on the bossman’s ladder, but you’ve got dreams he’ll never take away.” I mean. Come the fuck on. I rest my case
Sorrow by The National
“Sorrow found me when I was young. Sorrow waited. Sorrow won.” This line stuck with me when I first saw it here something like a decade ago. It felt like I was waiting for him to use it in a playlist. Cause I mean. Isn’t that just him?
I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow from O Brother, Where Art Thou
Don’t look at me like that. I am from Tennessee. It’s in my DNA to add a hokey folk ballad at some point, whether it fits or not.
Perfect by Alanis Morissette
This just makes me think of him and his grandmother tbh. “If you’re flawless, then you’ll win my love.” “Be a good boy. Try a little harder.” “How long before you screw it up?” “With everything I do for you, the least you can do is keep quiet.” Just the constant belittling I know he downplayed in his retelling of Mr. Spider.
Head Full Of Doubt/Road Full Of Promise by The Avett Brothers
“There’s a darkness upon me that’s flooded in light. In the fine print they tell me what’s wrong and what’s right. And it comes in black and it comes in white. And I’m frightened by those that don’t see it” Had to pull out the whole first verse here. In the fine print. In words that you don’t even know you’re reading. Couched in subterfuge. Everything about his employment, everything about what he is. Black and White. No matter how they try to spin it. It’s all they see.
Out Out Damn Spot by Anthony Rapp
“If you wanna know the truth about my life, it’s in disarray. I wish you’d met me earlier than today.” There’s a lot of repetition in this song. The same lines, repeating the same phrases triple time showing he sheer desperation of ‘Yeah, I’m being facetious about my life, the truth is I’m doing BAD, but I swear I was just doing okay! I was doing great, actually!’ when really he wasn’t at all.
Control by Halsey
I mean, would it BE Jon Sims Playlist if this wasn’t on it? Do I need to explain? “And all the kids cried out 'please stop, you’re scaring me.’ I can’t help this awful energy. Goddamn right you should be scared of me. Who is in control?” No. No, I don’t think I do.
Overdone by Ludo
Sometimes I just scream, “IF THERE’S A GOD THAT COULD SAVE ME, I ASK THAT HE OPEN THE SKY AND DO IT NOW.” It takes on a much sinister tone under this context. The whole song is about someone feeling like a danger to everyone around them and cursing their nature and wishing they were capable of being around people without hurting them. PAIN….that’s it.
Body by Mother Mother
Another prerequisite for any Jon Sims Playlist. Not gonna bother explaining. You get it. You understand.
Coming Undone by Korn
“Choke, choke again. I thought my demons were my friends. Pity me. In the end, they’re out to get me. Since I was young I tasted sorrow on my tongue and this sweet sugar gun does not protect me.” Hey, so, how about that suicidal ideation? Yeah. We’re getting into that.
Sticking It To Myself by Jonathan Coulton
You kinda just need to listen to this song. I can’t really pick out lyrics cause they all bleed into each other. But basically, it’s about a guy who has all this 'authority’ and hates it but also feels underappreciated and undermined and resentful towards them and will destroy himself to prove his worth. Sound familiar?
Artificial Heart by Jonathan Coulton
“They gave me a test to make me the best that I could be. They knew all along that there was something wrong with me.” This song just makes me think about how Jon was coerced into servitude to the Eye. That his facade and antipathy towards people because of his trauma was used to worm its way into him by promising him something like worth. If he would just give in and let it.
The Becoming by Nine Inch Nails
“The me that you know he had some second thoughts he’s covered with scabs he is broken and sore. The me that you know he doesn’t come around much. That part of me isn’t here anymore.” I mean isn’t this song just about Jon becoming the Archivist? Fully? The power and anguish of it? The futility of it? “It won’t give up, it wants me dead, and goddamn this noise inside my head.”
I Do Not Want This by Nine Inch Nails
“Don’t you tell me how I feel. You don’t know just how I feel.” Not to mention. “I have lived so many lives all in my head. And don’t tell me that you care. There really isn’t anything now, is there?” This song is lead into by the previous one and I feel they work in tandem to show what he was going through during season four. “And maybe I don’t have a choice. And maybe this is all I have. And maybe this is a cry for help. I do not want this.”
Whose Eye Is It Anyway??? by Jhariah
“I know you could never carry the burden you’ve left with me and I can’t give it back. So why even try?” This song is generally about wanting the people (or person) who wronged you to suffer but trying to convince yourself it’s pointless and would only bring you MORE suffering yourself instead. Jon’s thoughts on the suffering he went through, the suffering he wants to inflict, the suffering he’s willing to let others befall in the name of revenge. “When you seek vengeance you must dig two graves.”
Monster by dodie
“I’m guessing that I’ve grown horns. I guess I’m human no more. I can tell I’ve rotted in your brain.” I’m pretty sure this is also a requisite. But in any case. Yeah. More season four feels. Pointing out how they’re all the same as him, facing the same things and mishandling the same situations but hating him for it because of their own self-loathing. “I craft my words to fit your head. 'Cause no one listens to the dead”
Hurt People by The Garages
“I wonder if this lesion is ever gonna heal. But there’s stuff I gotta do. They yell at me for more. If he gave it up for nothing, then nothing’s what it’s for.” So. Okay. The context. Is blaseball. I will not apologize. The point is. It’s from the view of someone who 'came back wrong’ and… kind of cause people to be killed. And the fact that they still have to play the fucking game, despite the sacrifice that brought them back. Just… read my Jaylen Hotdogfingers and Jon Sims fanfic and come back. You’ll get it. They’re the same person. It’s fine. They’re fine. Ignore the death by explosion.
Home by Cavetown
You’ve seen the animatic to this song, right? Anyway. “Get a load of this monster. He doesn’t know how to communicate. His mind is in a different place. Will everybody please give him a little bit of space?” Yeah. Self explanatory. You understand.
Better by OneRepublic
Not gonna pick any specific lyric but like. This is just about anxiety and mental illness in general and wanting to be better but the difficulty of getting better when its not something pills or outside help can fix. It’s deeper than that. Jon knowing his issues but knowing there’s nothing he can do at all about it.
Black Rain by blink-182
Did I pick this song cause of the punniness of the band? Perchance. But I mean. “I went and searched for some answers, but all I found were monsters.” Also. “And all I have here is heartache. And bones, and mirrors for me to break. Only so much bad luck a person can take.” Y'know? It’s… it’s almost literally what he went though. Yeah.
Mr. Knowitall by Primus
“They call me Mr. Knowitall. I will not compromise. I will not be told what to do. I shall not step aside.” Look me dead ass in the eyes rn.
By Myself by Linkin Park
“Do I follow my instincts blindly? Do I hide my pride from these bad dreams and give in to sad thoughts that are maddening? […] Do I trust some and get fooled by phoniness? Or do I trust nobody and live in loneliness? […] I put on my daily facade but then I just end up getting hurt again by myself.” What is this if not Jon right before his death, faced with is mortality? I rest my fucking case your honor.
Broken Crown by Mumford & Sons
“So crawl on my belly 'til the sun goes down. I’ll never wear your broken crown. I took the road, and I fucked it all away. Now in this twilight, how dare you speak of grace?” Oh hey so this song is about Jon being forced to enact the grand ritual that ended the world. Mumford’s son himself told me. True story.
End of Me by Mother Mother
“Am I a fool to picture my own funeral as a real gala affair? Everybody’s there, everybody cares about me. Am I a wretch to fantasize about my death like it was some big event everybody laments? Where everybody says, 'What a life he led.’” More suicidal ideation time! I mean, truly, was Jon actually as egotistical and selfish as they say? Or did he just want ANYONE to care about him? Even a little? Is it truly wrong to wake up from a coma and wish at least one person was happy that you survived? Is it? It is? Oh. Okay.
Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood by The Animals
“I’m just a soul who’s intentions are good. Oh, lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood.” I think that about sums up Jon as a person. “But don’t you know that no one alive can always be an angel? When things go wrong, I seem to be bad.” Preach.
Relay by Fiona Apple
“And I see that you keep trying to bait me. And I’d love to get up in your face. But I know if I hate you for hating me I will have entered the endless race.” Is this not just Jon trying to be civil with the others during season four? “Evil is a relay sport when the one who’s burned turns to pass the torch.” Is this not just the reason why Jon decides extinguishing all life in this universe would be preferable to releasing the fears and 'passing them on’ to the next universe?
All Eye On Me by Bo Burnham
“You say the ocean’s rising like I give a shit. You say the whole world’s ending; honey, it already did. You’re not gonna slow it, heaven knows you tried.” I don’t know. I got into this series cause of Covid so the two are inexorably linked in my head and this? Feels like Jon during the eyepocalypse. When Martin is still in denial and bargaining. The whole 'all eyes on me’ being repeated doesn’t quell that impression.
Wow this was a long one. Anyway. There ya have it! If you want any, like, deeper discussion, go ahead and ask. But this is just my gut reasons for having them on here.
actually so fucking tired of some people ignoring or refusing the fact that the archivist is asexual
this is not a puritanical take on sexual content, quite frankly I Do Not Give A Shit™️ what people do or write but holy shit I’ve seen it start to spread to discussions (mostly on major social media platforms) about the archivist and it’s so fucking annoying
it’s getting to a point where people are devaluing the entire asexual community and even threatening “corrective action” which is just a HUGE fucking nope from me.
the archivist is asexual, if that gets your tits in a twist then go do some self reflection about why you’re getting mad that people don’t like sex.
just listened to 146 rn and oh my GOD i cannot STAND how they’re treating jon
HE DIDN’T ASK FOR ANY OF THIS! HE DOES NOT ENJOY THIS! HE IS ACTIVELY SUFFERING!
bassira needs to shut up bc she doesn’t know what she’s talking abt AT ALL
like has it not been established that he feeds on statements? he doesn’t just do it for funsies he NEEDS THEM TO SURVIVE
i’m not even the biggest fan of jon but oh my god they act like he’s some sadistic schemer or some shit
like yes it causes harm to innocent people but the alternative is him starving to death!
and he only actively fed off ppl when he didn’t have easy access to statements! it’s not like he goes out on the town every night looking for his next victim
jon deserves a year long vacation and a nap oh my fucking god
So true I cannot BEAR to listen to any of the s4 episodes because Jon is getting borderline abused in practically all of them
Everyone’s hypocrisy is pissing me the hell off, even if I can understand where they’re coming from. Basira shames and berates Jon while excusing Daisy’s behaviour in the same breath, despite both of them being the same! Melanie says it’s Jon’s fault that she’s trapped in the Institute, despite the fact she came here on her own accord and Jon wasn’t even present when she accepted the offer from Elias! Ughh it’s so irritating!!
I get it, people are not perfect and everyone in this show makes mistakes. Hell, nearly everything was caused by Jon acting irrationally cause he was so paranoid. But in the end, the podcast paints those hypocritical characters as good and rational!! They never had to suffer the consequences of their actions like Jon had to!! They just got to live semi-happily, no burdens for them to carry except some minor inconveniences maybe!
Also from what I’ve gathered the fandom doesn’t even allow people to criticise those characters. The survivors. You’re not allowed to whisper a word of criticism in their direction. Jon always gets shamed (even playfully) for being rude in the early seasons. People looove to jokingly insult him “oh he’s such an incompetent idiot!! Haha paranoid dumbass! He’s so mean ughh so annoying >:(” but when hes being hit from all directions by the only people left in his life no one even bats an eye, because then they’re such queens of boundaries of course! Cutting off the awful monster to preserve their own wellbeing! Rational and cruel at the same time.
I had to listen to Jon being treated like shit for an entire season just for s5 to offer him half-baked, retracted apologies that didn’t actually mean anuthing. None of this conflict was ever resolved. He didn’t become friends with all of them by the end. They didn’t accept him as an avatar. Not even his boyfriend did.
Only Jon ever suffers because of his own actions, and on top of that he’s treated like everyone’s punching bag! No one bothered to even try sympathizing with him. He was so utterly alone.
SPOILERS for The Magnus Archives through season 5!
I think it says so much about Jon as a character that he went into the coffin after Daisy.
She kidnapped him, threatened to kill him, held a knife to his throat, and he still went into the Buried knowing that he might not make it out in the hopes that he could save her. On top of this, he attempted, more than once, to cut off his own fingers, and when that didn’t work, he willingly had two of his ribs ripped from his body.
I’m sure this is a commentary on how low his self-worth is at this point - his pain is irrelevant because he’s a monster. His entrapment in the Buried wouldn’t matter because Daisy’s life is worth more than his. But I also think it shows how much of a good person he is.
He went into that coffin, knowing he might never come out, for someone who he could never forgive and who would never ask him for that forgiveness. A lack of self-preservation instincts doesn’t fully account for an action like that. He did it because it was just the right thing to do.
I also think it’s really fascinating that, out of all that he’s been through, that specific incident is what scared him the most, though my little analytical brain hasn’t been able to parse out why just yet, so if anyone has any thoughts on that I’d love to hear them.
Anyways, I don’t think this really gets across how strongly I actually feel about this specific series of events, but yeah. Jon is by no means a hero. But he cares deeply and he’s so intrinsically good and I think that’s enough.
I was thinking about it and I think Jonathan Sims was kind of conditioned from the beginning to believe he couldn’t save anyone. In his nightmares, it’s mentioned that he tried so hard for so long to help them, but all he could ever do was watch. So when the world ends and he sees all these people trapped in domains, he doesn’t even consider trying to get people out, because he doesn’t think he can, or if he can, it’s not like he can keep them out. Turns out he technically isn’t even protecting Martin, the Eye is. And we see with Georgie and Melanie that it’s only a matter of time before people get grabbed again. I think it would be really interesting to explore an au where he teams up with Georgie and Melanie instead of following the course laid out for him and they try to rescue people and free entire domains together.
It’s so easy to misunderstand Jonathan Sims as a character because he is such an unreliable narrator. He hates himself more and more as the show goes on, and accepts the worst interpretations of himself without argument, but every action he takes is so so human and I love him for it. I just want to dissect every line of dialog all the time but alas I have to work
Something about the way Daisy and Jude Perry are the most physically agressive women in tma and also arguably the only ones overwhelmingly depicted as stone butch
almost forgot about how Jon wanting to not die at barely 30 years old and choosing to live through the Eye firmly aligned him with the villains of the podcast, and more specifically Jonah Magnus who wanted to live forever. that the narrative of the podcast states time and time again that Jon should’ve let himself die at the end of season three because it was the morally correct choice that would’ve saved countless people from suffering. that his suicidal ideation was too little too late and that he fucked up by not staying dead.
The entire time I’ve been relistening to season 5, I can’t stop thinking about Jon Jarchivist’s state of existence as a disability metaphor. The role in things he’s been crafted for makes other people see him as having special privileges - and yes, there are perks! - but nobody really puts as much thought into how it affects his internal life, or the fact that he never chose this. Even the characters who are nice to him will make the occasional dig at him “always having liked being at the center of things”, as if he didn’t spend nearly every moment of the last few years trying to minimize his impact on others as much as possible, and seen it happen anyway only in spite of himself. He has a special diet and a requirement to stop and unburden himself regularly that can come on at inconvenient times, sounds physically uncomfortable if left unanswered, and impossible to leave so for long. The things that are good and restful for the others (sanctuaries from the Eye) fatigue and dissociate him, and his needs are always in an awkward balance with the differing ones of those around him, by practicality alone, even when he’s with a person who loves him.
So many moments in S5 read like mirrors of myself or my other disabled friends hanging out and traveling with abled friends or ones with differing requirements: the awkward half-apologies that happen when you can’t really control something that’s being inconvenient and it’s unpleasant for you too, the pushing yourself in spite of symptoms for something fun or restful for a loved one and yourself, the strained laughter at well-meaning digs, the struggling not to bring down the mood by explaining too much…it’s all there. Being the Archivist is a disability. It is that from the moment the requirement for statements to survive kicks in, but especially especially in Season 5, and that’s special to me. I sort of wish some of the other avatars had been more willing to be true allies, so that Jon could’ve had someone to talk and compare with. I think the company would’ve made him feel a lot less like a monster. (If, yknow, the company available was not mostly literal monsters or avatars too far gone to have much sympathy, alas)
all these worshippers who treat these creatures from the next world like gods are the exact opposite of Karolina Górka who couldn’t give less of a fuck that she almost got smashed to death by a ghost train in the subway and still uses public transport “cause that’s London”. and you know what? she’s pissing on all of these people
thinking about how jon has had survivor’s guilt since he was eight and through the rest of his life. and how jon recognises this in a guest for mr. spider, that it’s not a rational way to think.
ALT
though, the more i look at it, he only states the idea he could have done anything is ridiculous, not that rethinking how things could have gone might be damaging to him. and i think it is fair to say he at least considered the option of being taken instead, (the idea of the bully not getting involved implies jon would not have been stopped by anyone), but either way he’s thought about taking on the threat alone. either he can fix the problem or he can’t, either way no one else is getting hurt. this version of the mindset is very apparent in the season 2 finale, just before 81, but it doesn’t leave after he recognises it.
ALT
and he does recognise it. he tries to lean on others more, tries to recognise what he can’t actually do alone. but when he thinks he can do something, at cost to himself but that will be able to save someone, he does. because he still feels that conviction, that he needs to save people, that he doesn’t need to be saved, that he is less worth saving (besides, he doesn’t have that many people to lean on anyway). and with how characters blame him for things that are (in many cases) not his fault, just like how mr. spider wasn’t, or imply or state that he should be dead… it’s clear how this guilt would get worse.
(note: i don’t think guilt is the sole reason he acts self sacrificing in situations. the fact that he has several consistent analysable threads in his decision making is why i’m obsessed with him. caring about people, the need to have agency, etc.)
ALT
but like i say. people have discussed this a lot, both in and out of podcast. i was just thinking about how that feeling of guilt over being alive might have started even sooner.
ALT
like. even if it’s not as extreme as someone being killed by something that easily could have killed him instead. poorly disguised resentment over his parent’s deaths, over raising him, is the kind of thing that would easily lead to guilt, and possibly connecting those two things, in a childs mind. and thematically, it feels deliberate. people joke about how jon being an orphan is overshadowed by every other awful thing that happened to him, but it starts a pattern, of him losing a proper support network on top of everything, losing people he cares about. of resentment towards him for things that aren’t his fault.
like. mr. spider was always going to be horrifying and affect him throughout his life. but the traumatic events are not the only throughline. maybe he would have blamed himself less if he wasn’t blamed by other people first. even if sometimes it’s easier to blame yourself just to feel like it could have gone any different than it did.
My meanest ‘headcanon’ (i.e., something I just thought up cause I’m feeling salty) is that when Martin was talking with someone about Jon and he was saying ‘-cause I don’t think he actually-’… he was actually going to say ‘likes women’ and not anything about his asexuality and also that they didn’t have any discussions about sex during the ‘safehouse era’ cause THEY WERE BARELY TOGETHER AND DEALING WITH MORE IMPORTANT SHIT so actually I think Martin was eventually going to expect Jon to reciprocate any sexual feelings and when he didn’t then it would’ve been a sign of Jon’s inhumanity because everything is a sign of Jon’s inhumanity and also Martin is aphobic. All of them are aphobic I’ve just decided. That’s it. That’s the post.
I hate hate hate how the fandom oversimplification did not only affect the characters, but also the Fears themselves. The Eye is being a stalker and a nerd. The Lonely is being quiet and antisocial. The Slaughter is anger issues. The Desolation is arson. The Hunt is being feral. The Stranger is uncanny valley. The Web is spiders and lying. Etc etc.
The whole point is that these fears cannot be fully and separately defined. I understand that having objects and motifs you can tie to a Fear makes it more marketable and allows you to cover your clothes with eyes and spiders and stuff to show you are A Fan. But the whole point is everyone experiences fear differently and the entities are intertwined, and I loved that. It made the whole thing interesting.
This fandom is allergic to critical thinking and analysis. Fanfic tropes can be a substitute for everything apparently
The cousin of “he would not say that:” he would not keep saying that. It was a one off funny line for one particular situation. Every memorable line does not need to become a running gag.
Saw a post by someone (they apparently blocked me cause I’m annoying and everyone hates me) that said something along the lines of agreeing that the way Jon was treated in season four was dehumanizing and cruel (correct) but went on a tangent about how if you think it was for no reason that you’re ignoring nuance and whatever and like…
Who was saying they didn’t have a reason for treating him that way?
I don’t think anyone was saying their actions made no sense??? Basira’s hypocrisy and Melanie’s using Jon as a scapegoat are the only points I’ve ever seen made regarding criticism towards them??? The point was never that they didn’t have their reasons and weren’t victims themselves??? Where is this information coming from? They are incredibly realistic characters with incredibly human reactions and I wouldn’t like them if I knew them because of those reasons. I don’t like hypocrisy. I don’t like when people foist blame onto other people.
I’ve never seen any real criticism against the girls include the idea that they were dog piling on him for no reason when there’s several cause that would be idiotic. You’re likely conflating the idea they weren’t justified with this idea that they had no reason. Cause they weren’t justified. Sorry.
And another thing that annoys me about the conceit that Jon being a quote unquote bad person in season one being justification for everyone’s behavior towards him later on is that it says A LOT about how y’all think and treat people who aren’t mentally stable. Just fyi.
Something that I’m very interested about is why and when the S1 archive crew joined the institute in the first place. I was planning for a fanfic and that made me looking through their wiki and reread the transcripts.
Jon and Tim are easy, both had been mentioned in the podcast.
Jon had mentioned being a researcher for 4 years by the time canon happened, which took place in 2015, which means he joined in 2011. As for the reason, well, A Guest for Mr. Spider. I don’t think it was ever mentioned specifically but I think it’s very clear that he wanted to know more about the Leitners.
Tim took a bit of thinking, in the “when”. The incident of his brother took place in August, 2013. We can assume that mean he joined the institute around late 2013, because he left his publishing job to find out what happened to Danny. Which, I’m gonna be honest, surprised me when I first saw it.
Every fanfic I’ve ever read seems to make Tim already working in the institute when Jon joined, which is not true, Tim joined 2 years after Jon. I do understand the confusion, Tim and Sasha feels much closer to each other than Jon to either of them, so you would think they know each other for way longer than with Jon. I guess there’s a possibility that Tim already knew Sasha before the institute and maybe she is the reason he knew it existed in the first place. Either way, it’s a gripe for me now if anyone mentioned Tim being in the institute for longer than Jon.
Martin, we know why, he’s a drop out that needs a job because of his mom. Elias most definitely knew that he lied on his CV and hired him anyway because no one will miss him and he can use him or something, perhaps even because he thought it would be interesting to put someone with a big secret to work in a place that was made for a god of getting secrets out of people. As for when, however, it was never mentioned. We can make a guess, he was mentioned to have seen a statement giver from 2009, so he’s already work for the institute in 2009 at the latest, and judging by him being 29 in 2016, he dropped out in 2004. Meaning by the time he was transferred to the archive, he had worked for appoximately between 6-11 years. Which mean, also, he is potentially the one that worked in the institute the longest.
Now, we get to the one who we know nothing at all, Sasha. The only thing we know is that she at first worked in artefact storage for 3 months before transferring to research. She said she had been in academia for 10 years, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she had been working at the institute for that long, because she said “I’ve been in academia” and not “I’ve been working here”. Of course, it’s up to interpretation. We know she knew Gertrude and had talked to her, but knowing Gertrude, this is probably in 2011, after Emma died. I do believe she most likely had been there for longer than Jon, since that could also made her more qualified for the Head Archivist position (if this is a normal job). My personal belief is she started working there around 2009/2010. For the “why”… Sasha never mentioned ever having an encounter before Michael, so that’s probably not it. She most likely joined because it’s a research job. She also mentioned she couldn’t afford to quit after artefact storage, so she was probably also desperate for a job, just like Martin.
Then again, we all know how fucked the timeline is in TMA (looking at you, Jonny) so maybe the “when” are all completely incorrect, who knows!
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If anyone had any thoughts or corrections, feel free to share! - 💻
Ummm sorry for lowkey disappearing for a bit. Take this lazy post-coffin Jon and Daisy art as an apology! One of my personal hcs is that Daisy’s hair grew pretty long in the coffin because of the weird time fuckyness of it all and she chopped it off once they got out.
I also tried something new with the lineart this time, idk if i like it or if I should go back to the old way so let me know if it works. :)
design for daisy tonner!! ive been listening to tma and im on episode 190 now and shes been my favorite character so far in this podcast (other than like 4 other characters who are also my favorite)
I wonder what it was that made me, like, switch from agreeing with takes about how Jon is culpable for all the actions he took and were taken against him. To. How I am now. Cause I look back sometimes at my Twitter liveblog and some notes I took during my second listen through and all of them are a lot less Jon-apologetic than I am now. Even after I started to actually like him a fourth of the way through.
I know I say it was cause of the fandom, and that likely DOES have a large part in it, but I think it also had to do with how disillusioned I became with the series as a whole after the grand ritual was enacted at the end of season four. I think I just got tired of bad thing after bad thing happening? And the insistence of the series during season five that it was Jon’s fault — when up to that point it was. A bit more. Magnanimous towards his role in it — kinda soured me on any nuanced take regarding him as a character and plot device. And that’s on top of how boring season five was in general.
Idk. I just guess something sort of. Happened. Between my listening to season four and catching up to what was available for season five at the time. That made me flip-a-dip-dip out of trying to pretend that I cared about anything but wanting to see Jon heal.
Which I knew was never gonna happen and was my fault for hoping for in the first place.
I feel like headcanoning Sasha as black and making NotSasha white takes away a large part of horror of the whole situation, especially with how it’s treated by the fandom: made into a joke and laughed off.
I’ve always seen it like this: The terrifying part is not that someone you knew got replaced by an entirely different person. It’s that the new person is Not Them. They are wrong in a thousand little ways. Their face is round where before it was angular. Their front teeth are now straight where they used to be crooked. They no longer have the little mole near their chin. All the little quirks that made a person themselves, that made them unique and special to you - gone.
I understand that it would be different depending on the kind of relationship you had with the person who got replaced. But making it into “the person you knew is gone and there’s this rando there instead” is misunderstanding how this is meant to be scary. Especially since fans do it just to laugh it off as the NotThem being racist. Everyone’s forgetting how terrifying suddenly not recognizing someone you knew would be. It is that deep actually
I also think that it’s icky, but I can’t quite put my finger on it and am in no position to judge that
“The Hunt was me… But I don’t— I don’t think I liked it. I think it just made me… need it.”
was a big fan of the art trend on tiktok by the user @ Blueeer and wanted to draw Daisy throughout tma! Starting with her first introduction and ending with her last appearance as an amalgam of human and a wide range of traits from carnivorous animals.
I love tma fics where Jon can only speak in statements, and where there’s a will, we make a way by @bubonickitten is one of my favorites, and i’ve always wanted to hear what the pieced together statements would sound like, so i played around with audacity to make this. Part of the letter to Martin in ch11, actual text under cut
(I loserly deleted my old tumblr so I’m reuploading my art lol) I drew those some years back so please be kind! I still like them tho + I still have a stock of prints of them 😹
sometimes i think about how jon canonically had issues with wandering/elopement as a kid and slightly question how accidental the autism coding really was
Let’s be real. Jon could’ve NOT performed the surgery he did on Melanie and let her choose to not have the bullet removed and once she was past the point of no return everyone would’ve blamed him for any blood on her hands. Tell me I’m wrong. CAUSE YOU CAN’T. Jon could’ve made all the ‘morally correct’ choices and they STILL would’ve treated him like scum. Hell, I bet if he hadn’t been consigned to the Eye and wasn’t beholden to the Beholding, they would’ve blamed him for everything anyway. Talk about ASKED FOR IT, he could’ve been a gray rock and everyone would’ve taken turns at him with a chisel.
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