I keep seeing posts that are like “season 1 Tim would be friends with this character” or “season 1 Tim would make archives team watch trashy movies with him” or “season 1 Tim would do this, or this, and season 1 Tim is so friendly and nice with everyone!”. And like. There is nothing wrong with headcanons. But I feel like it’s very demonstrative of the larger fandom problem of completely ignoring canon to favour a carefully crafted, wildly spread and completely incorrect fanon.
Because believe it or not, season 1 Tim is…. not like that. When I first listened to TMA, before I had any interactions with the fandom, I didn’t perceive him like this. Then I started interacting with the fandom, and I, too, saw this interpretation and said, “Oh! I’ll add that to my belief system!”. But I recently relistened to season 1, and realised how wrong that was.
Tim is “the hot one.” Sure. That’s canon, Basira said it in season 2. However, Tim is also an incredibly closed off and secretive person. And actually, canonically, he doesn’t have many friends at the Institute. Which makes even more sense than him being friendly with everyone. He arrived at the Institute traumatised by The Stranger of all things, making him very distrustful of everyone. Yes, he became friends with pre-season 1 Jonathan “don’t talk to me I’m busy” Sims, but Jon was also a traumatised person who was desperately looking for answers.
Sasha (who, by the way, I find is way too often ignored by the fandom) is the friendly one. Sasha became friends with Tim and Jon, Sasha tried her best to make Martin feel accepted in the Archives, Sasha is the nosy one who gets into everyone’s business. Not Tim.