#tma negative

[marshmellowtea]

don't even get me started on what happened to jonathan sims he was the ONLY ONE who cared about actually killing the fears instead of inflicting them on other unsuspecting people the people who were supposed to be his friends derided him for it and called him selfish and cruel for not wanting to damn other timelines and then the fandom AGREED WITH THAT TAKE LIKE THEY WEREN'T BEING SO UNBELIEVABLY FUCKING SELFISH IT MAKES ME SO ANGRY

[nonbinaryeye]

I've really grown to dislike how most of the people approach s5 Jon (and Martin) time travels back to season one AUs. Because it can be sum up as "no one likes season one Jon, he's so stuck up and grumpy and repressed opposed to future Jon who is much more chill and more fun".

Because I don't think Sasha or Tim disliked s1 Jon? All their conversations seemed always quite friendly and relaxed? They throw him a birthday party. And Jon liked them and thought highly of them as well he asked for them to be transfered to Archives. He understandably disliked only Martin for lack of skills he should have had but did not.

All the negative feeling Sasha and Tim had against him came literally from them thinking Sasha should have been given the position of Head Archivist but that's it. They were even not so much annoyed with Jon but with Elias here honestly.

I would like to see some take when they are all weirded out by s5 Jon. I want season one archival crew bond over how they think s5 Jon is secretive and says ominous stuff all the time (And if s5 Martin is present as well I want them to be annoyed with his bitchy attitude.) Because s5 Jon and Martin could not anymore see the world through lenses on normal human and they would be all "We know what is best for you" while s1 crew would be more "No you don't. Not if you refuse to give us proper explanation. Stop acting like you know better, stop acting as we cannot take care of ourselves."

[dathen]

This “every time you call him a monster, you’re forgetting that I am the same” conversation is 1000% what I was DYING for Jon to confront Martin about during the s5 “kill all the avatars cause they’re monsters” spree

[solely-ashes]

Forgive me but the tma fanon choice that baffles me the most to this day is deciding Helen is anything but white.

I think that was the most Spiral Moment the tma fandom has, almost convincing me I was wrong with my hc until she was confirmed to have been a Tory before being Distorted

[aethersspacetime]

There haven’t been many times that I’ve wanted to beat a character to death with my bare hands in a non gay way (don’t ask) but Martin Blackwood sure is at the top of that list.

[nightvale-thoughts]

everyone is like “are you sure you want to contribute to the tma 2 kickstarter?? what if it’s all a cash grab?” okay and? if it exceeds my expectations n it’s good then !! okay!! but !! i also love chaos n i love entropy n i love accelerationism. If this crashes and burns i want to be there for it. I want to liveblog in horror with everyone else.

[onithelovedemon]

Daily reminder that JonMartin fucking sucks and that sometimes Canon gay couples are worse

[somuchbetterthanthat]

Fixing season 5, some thoughts: The statements

Lots of things I don’t like in season 5, but one I tend to forget to talk about are the statements. Honestly because while I like the statements, I always loved TMA the most for the bigger plot and the characters. However, so many statements and stories are vivid in my head in the first seasons. Season 1 especially they’re basically all 'famous’ at this point. The core of TMA.

In season 5, like lots of people have said, the problem is that it’s all so nightmarish and “dreamlike” that it doesn’t... Stick. One nightmare leads to the rest, none of them (apart Jordan and Salesa and Rosie and Annabelle, for obvious reasons) are linked to the plot of the season, and while some of them are genuinely really enjoyable on the moment, they’re honestly forgettable.

Which is sad! and... expected. But here is an idea that I think might work, assuming we’re keeping 40 episodes, and assuming season 5 is 1. fixing the world (but all the different options we could find) 2. Giving all the characters a bow to their final arc 3. Soft ending tragedy.

Season 5 began just as it has, except it’s empathize a bit more -- not just one episode -- that while Jon DOES feels guilty, that he’s ridden with guilt and hates enjoying this and wants to fix this, he doesn’t manage to see people as fully people anymore, except Martin. Not in a “they’re food” way, but rather in a “every face and fear bleeds together and feel nice, and those are not individuals so much as they’re The Humans and I need to help Them” if that makes sense.

So Martin tries to talk to them, and Jon goes “they can’t hear you, they’re trapped”. You’ve got some of those surreal, dreamlike statements, gorgeous and beautiful to the ear, that we love just like Jon, but no characters sticking out from them...

Except slowly, over the course of the season, it shifts. (gonna try and explain under the cut. This. is going to be very long i’m sorry.) 

1) I feel it feels very fitting that the very 'real’ statement of the season is a statement about Jon, except it’s narrated from the point of view of the house. Mind you I had never thought about it before I decided to discuss the statements, but it gives an excellent, beautiful starting point to a season-long arc about the statements, that would culminate (and here i’m stealing the idea of @cuttoothed , who as ever has the most brilliant ideas) a statement about Jon, from Jon, entirely about his feelings as he sees them. In my opinion, it would work best if it was separated from other events finale (Like, say, mag 39/40 were, you know? Let the finale be messy and with no statement, and have the “last” statement be in another episode where we can cry about Jonathan Sims). But in any case, we start the season with Jon from a monstrous point of view, and we end it with Jon at his most emotional and human. 

2) Coming back to the statements givers. So we have a few of those surreal, gorgeous statements that feel dreamlike, that leaves a sense of unease but don’t let us grab at the statement givers, because that’s how the Eye sees it, and so how Jon sees it. Yes, sometimes we have names, we have the fear, but it’s not about the people, not anymore, but about what the domains gets out of them. Every episode or so, Martin will try to engage, and when Jon goes “they’re not --” Martin gets all bicker stubborn about it, and goes “well maybe i like talking to them all the same, Jon. Maybe you should try it huh”. and Jon laughs his fond laugh, but doesn’t seem to consider it. And then Not-Sasha happens.

3) Waving away the smiting arc a sec, although we’re assuming here it’ll stay, sort of. So the Not-Sasha happens, but when they move to another domain, or as they have a moment of pause, instead of the Gertrude’s statement, Jon starts to say he feels,, odd. Like he should be giving a statement, but nobody’s here, they’re in between domains, and it hurts more than it has before, and he doesn’t know why -- and so Martin panics, and asks him to tell him, or ask a question about “is this about not!sasha?” and wouldn’t you know it? Jon starts talking. First short paragraphs, about random people, like before, all normal humans beings, nothing that seems related to fear AT ALL. But then the name crop up.  The mother. Graham. And then. Sasha. We have a statement of Sasha, through Jon, of her most normal life; the horror comes not from the statement, not from a nightmare or the fear, but of what we know. Jon is telling the mundane stories of people who were lost. of someone he and martin lost. “An echo”.

4) Now, I don’t remember the order of the episodes so you’ll have to excuse me if this is not in order: Jon doesn’t get a statement after Jude. Because he already had it. He dismisses it as her being a monster, and Martin and him have more things to deal through anyway. He does get a statement from Jared, though, and, like many other avatars before him, we get that Jared was just. A guy. A guy who felt so bad in his own skin, that when he got the power to change things, he decided to help other people too, in the most horrific way. (Okay that implies that he didn’t give a proper statement to jon before hand, but. shh). THIS leads to Jon telling martin “actually this feels much worse than i thought, i don’t want to”. MEANWHILE, the statements that were so broad at the beginning of the season are starting to narrow down. We’re only following one person through their nightmare now. 

5) Amidst that, you’ve got Martin episode, of course, and you’ve got THE FRANCIS EPISODE. Note that this one is exceedingly important for 1. all the Jons parallels 2. Jon/the web an the hand it’s got on him and never released. It’s a big deal. it stays exactly the same. But anyway, and then Basira comes in. Now. In the spirit of what we said about statements: the Hunt statement might start as a random chase, but it distinctly becomes Trevor’s statement at least in the middle of it. This man we’ve heard so much of is now a terrified prey. Following that, we insist on the fact that Basira’s nightmare is chasing Daisy and realizing all the hurt she’s caused and how she stood there and watched. Jon accidentally (or not so accidentally) pulling a statement out of her. She’s furious as hell -- but we’ve got her whole pov, properly. She and Jon argue, Jon insists she won’t find daisy until she confronts it all and he was trying to help. The next statement is of one of Daisy’s victims, except something odds happens -- the statement giver seems to /wake up/ and /directly asks Basira for help/. She can’t, not really -- but she can kill Daisy, and ends this. cue grief, her leaving again. 

6) Callum’s episode is about Callum. Martin and Jon can still argue there, I think it’s fitting. But callum’s episode is about him and his terror. In the following statements, it seems as if more and more statements givers are /aware of Jon/ in the corner of their eyes. Maybe another wakes up, briefly. And anyway, so forth and so on, with more and more parallels, more and more proximity, until they get to a beholding domain, and they talk about the man watching them. The statement giver says “why are you watching me?” desperately. “WHy are you watching me, why, why?” and Jon starts to sob, and you understand that, just like in the web domain with francis, he could easily get trapped. It’s the fear of Jonathan Sims, right now. He says he’s sorry, he can’t stop, he can’t make it /stop/ and it ends with a hug from Martin and Martin getting him out of there. 

7) and then they reach the panopticon; jon get JONAH’s statement, but it’s a little bit about Jonah, and a lot about Jon already. The interview lines, they say together, still happen exactly as they should. The rest would have to be all changed because the whole plotlines towards the end are, mmh, less and less possible to keep “as is” but the point is, at the end of his journey, Jon is finally able to talk about himself, to deal with his own emotions. We’ve rehumanized the whole world, and we get Jon’s pov of what it MEANS to him. Why he’s made the choice he’s made /because/ of all those people. The end. 

(i feel like, if we get sasha, we should also get throughout echoes of Tim, Gerry, Gertrude, Agnes, etc. but less easy to neatly fit them rn). 

... Anyway, those are my disorganized thoughts on how we could fix the statement problem of season 5. Might do a series with all the other stuff I would change personally gjijtgi i don’t know; This was fun. I wasn’t at all procrastinating another thing I need to do, of course not.

EDIT I FORGOT MY MOST IMPORTANT POINT: THE STATEMENTS BEGAN AFTER A WHILE NOT ONLY TO BE WE FOLLOW ONLY ONE PERSON, BUT TO BE TOLD IN THE FIRST PERSON POV AGAIN, WITH ‘I’ STATEMENT AND ALL