#tma discourse

[hezekiahwakely]

Can we. Can we talk about how Melanie was—effectively—losing her mind during all of season 3 and half of season 4. Can we talk about that.

Her emotions were being twisted into only feeling anger during all that time. For over a year. She leaned into it because it felt good, that was her downfall, but we can't deny that she was being influenced.

Her erraticness and volatile behaviors during this time can't be separated completely from the bullet wound seaping Slaughter poison into her leg.

Is she completely innocent in this scenario? Absolutely not. But she is just as much a victim of the Fear's influence as any of the other male characters in the series who we idolize for having sexy grey morals. We can't be treating her like some sort of pariah in the fandom for not reacting perfectly in terrible situations.

#sorry went on a little tangent there #all of the above are my feelings roughly about daisy too and how the fandom treats her guilt for all she did under influence of the hunt #under the fearfluence? whatever #tma #melanie king #this blog is a melanie king stan zone now we protect melanies character 'round here #the double standard is just. whew #tma discourse #<for anyone who might want to avoid

[go-to-the-mirror]

If Melanie, Basira, or Daisy had been in Jon's position, you would not have demanded kindness from people who were personally victimised by them.

Melanie, Basira, and Daisy, all gave statements, they all had to deal with him in their mind, watching their worst nightmares. If Melanie was there, being confronted about hurting random people, you would not have demanded Jon show sympathy for her.

I think, maybe I'm running in the wrong Magnus circles, but people forget that Jon had a choice, that was very much the point of MAG 147. Jon had a choice in hurting people. Jon chose to hurt people, yes it was influenced, yes it probably would've been more helpful if they were a bit nicer to him, but they're not infallible, and they're not neutral in this situation, because Jon has hurt all of them in the same way they found out he was hurting others.

So, frankly, cut the women some slack.

#happy almost tma girls week #melanie king #basira hussain #daisy tonner #jonathan sims #tma #tma discourse #tma fandom #archive for all i care. hi jonny if you see this. why did you see this. #mag 146 #mag 147 #i want to let everyone know that i love him #but i also love melanie #and she gets a lot of undeserved flack #mostly bc she's a woman im just gonna say it #tma fandom meta

[avatorofthelonely]

Guys, I wanna make it clear that like two things can exist.

You can make posts about how JonMartin can exhibit aspects of a toxic relationship (I mean none of them are particularly good people by the end of things so ofc) and it’s fine to want to discuss it and make meta posts.

It’s also fine to want to make fluffy posts about JonMartin and simply ignore parts of canon in your fan work.

I’m just saying this bc I definitely see people subtweeting my posts and like guys,, this is a meta/discourse blog primarily, I’m gonna dig into things but that isn’t inherently against fluffy/happier interpretation and fan work??

Like I’ll bring out the meme if I must:

#tma #the magnus archives #tma meta #tma discourse #jonathan sims #martin blackwood

[goldenhawk-k]

There are two wolves inside of me. One is excited to be a part of an active fandom with an ongoing source with the magnus protocol. The other is terrified because I know what discourse active fandoms bring and I have heard the war stories of tma season five. I am a newer tma fan.

#the magnus archives #tma #tmagp #tma discourse #I guess

[bluejayblueskies]

turns out i'm still mad at how everyone in t/ma treated jon actually

#like. okay. #without getting to far into discourse bc frankly it's not worth dragging that all up again out of the depths of hell where it belongs #and because i have thought about the other characters' motivations and about the nuances of how a terrible situation impacts all involved #etc. etc. #there really was no reason to go so hard on the 'jon is The Embodiment Of Everything That Has Ever Gone Wrong In The Podcast Ever' thing #it got to the point where it was actively frustrating to listen to especially in season five #((and tbh listening to rq commentaries only made it worse bc it made me realize 'oh they. they don't think that the way jon was treated #is actually as bad or as big of a deal as i did' #which kinda turned me off canon tma content for a while)) #anyway. idk i just sometimes question whether or not the other characters acting the way they did toward jon was actually #necessary or if it was just a remnant from when jon was supposed to have a corruption arc that was never corrected for some reason #discourse #tma discourse #(if this shows up in the tag i'm sorry i just. hghhhhh. if tma2 starts pulling the same nonsense i am quitting immediately #and retreating into the arms of male/volent my beloved)

[oaxleaf]

I've always had a weird feeling about how the fandom tends to antagonize Basira in particular and I think I know why 👀. It's also the same reason why the listeners reinterpret Annabelle as the nefarious agent behind the events of Jon's life and not The Web.

the thing is that they both do have genuine flaws and faults. basira in particular deserves a lot of criticism for her actions. it's just that people tend to forget that this is part of what makes them good characters. and although i've seen a lot of love from the fandom towards them, it's also no coincidence that the two biggest canonical woc are the one who also have their actions misunderstood the most and whom the fandom tends to give much less grace or attention to the nuance of those actions. and honestly, i barely find anything annabelle did as particularly morally compromising. she was an agent of the web sure, but that's precisely what she was - an agent. i seriously doubt she had a large part in creating those plans or was even aware of the full scope of them all throughout

it's a pattern i'm so sick of seeing in fandom. i think the sentiments have cooled off a bit since i joined the fandom, or perhaps i've just curated it really well (i try to avoid discourse, because i find pretty much all of it to not be very constructive), but it's still something you'll find in pretty much every fandom you join. poc characters' actions and personalities often get deeply misunderstood, and female characters are villified or looked at far more harsher than their male counterparts. and if we're talking about women of colour? yeah, there's always a good chunk of people that refuse to engage with the canonical characters

#i want to once again stress that i am white as a fucking ghost #hence why i mostly focus on how their characterization is missuderstood #i'm hardly even a woman tbh #so i really encourage people to talk more to woc in this fandom to get into the full intricacies of it all #tma #the magnus archives #tma discourse #i honestly wouldn't call this discourse and more of a civil reflection and discussion #but eh. i'll tag it anyways #basira hussain #annabelle cane

[you-can-be-what-you-want-to-be]

I don’t get the Georgie confusion with the coma.

Like Ok, imagine for a second that when going to visit your dead ex boyfriend in the hospital who has multiple times said he thinks he’s turning into a monster. You run into a guy who strongly feels of death, and then your ex comes back to life. The last time a corpse did this your best friend died and you were incapable of feeling anything for a long time.

Still, you try to ignore that and be a comfort of some sort, and you know he has self destructive habits and pushes past his limits, so you tell him to stay still and stop making things worse. He doesn’t listen and says he feels fine. This is obviously unsettling and you say so. He accuses you of wishing he died instead of just saying that it’s weird he feels fine after waking up from a coma bc 1) he was dead 2) normal coma patients also don’t feel fine after six months in a coma.

You say you hope he treats this life better than the last of he gets any choice in how it goes, but you doubt he will. You then go to get a nurse. Every time you have offered him help, even offering to put your life in danger for him, he has turned you down and tried to cut you out of his life (the comment about how he’d move out immediately and stop being such a burden when she asked him to explain the tapes she asked him to not do in her house come to mind). You had already not been speaking to him for years before this shit started and your current partner hates him.

You decide to stop trying to find problems he actively is attempting to stop you from helping him with and go back to your previous not speaking from before you let him couch surf.

#tma #tma discourse #georgie barker

[bizarreandjarring]

i hate this i started listening to tma in january this year so everything was very quiet and other than a couple discourse posts that i ignored everyone was so chill. now that new stuff is promoing i’m like oh. oh no. is this a toxic fandom???? for fucks sake can we all please grow up a little bit. i am an adult with a job so if i see something on the internet that i don’t like i just FUCKING IGNORE IT

#why are people so comfortable with making these dramatic ass PUBLIC call outs and hate messages and shit like #WHAT #is this a teenager thing or just a too long on the internet brain thing #by all means bitch with your friends and complain privately but like don’t harass creators of like fan content or The Actual Show #what is wrong with you all #tma discourse

[distortionposting]

I wish people would stop gatekeeping designs in this community. It is a podcast. We only have tiny canon details for each person if at all.

That being said, what the hell is with people tearing others down over body types for Martin? There's different amounts of fat, just like there's different placement of fat deposits in a body, and if you can't be normal about that fact, I WILL block you.

#tma negative #tma discourse #i 👁 u all bullying artists over their depictions and I want u to think hard about y u think it's ok to harrass people w different opinions

[txttletale]

Obligatory "in good faith" premise.

I've seen an argument against tme/tma that focuses on the fact that there's no similar terms for other types of oppression (as in, no terms like "racism affected/exempt"), and how tme/tma aren't good terms because they imply there's people who can't be affected at all by transmisogyny, regardless of whether it would be "misdirected" or not (which I do think it would be, although a lot of people against tme/tma would disagree).

Since tma/tme functionally ends up meaning just "transfem" and "not transfem" (or at least that's how ive seen it used and advocated for), do you think there's something to the idea that we could just say that instead when discussing transmisogyny? Or is there something about these specific terms that adds to the conversation?

I mean, I guess it would be awkward to put "not transfem" in your bio maybe

i mean like. there are those terms, though, those terms dfo exist, they're jsut called 'poc' and 'white'. liike the construction of 'whiteness' is such that it basically literally means 'racism exempt' within the context of white supremacy (which is ofc the context in which most discussion of racism takes place).

i feel like people are really getting caught up on like, 'exempt' and 'affected' as like, total absolutes 100% of the time and bringing up edge cases as though this absolutely refutes them when i think that's not a particularly useful thing to do for what are fundamentally abstractions for discussing a particular set of nuanced and diverse relations to transmisogyny! like obviously every single person has a unique and specific relationship to transmisogyny, but that doesn't make the terms useless an ymore than 'gay' or 'trans' are useless because people have complicated sexuality or gender situations.

& i think that if we started saying 'transfem / not transfem' then all the exact same edge cases and arguments would just start shifting onto the definition of the word 'transfem'. which i don't think is synonymous with TMA. i think that e.g. arguing that drag queens who regularly have their lives threatened by nazi militiamen with guns are not Transmisogyny Affected is kind of sillygoofy, right, but a lot of them don't identify as transfem! & i think moreover that saying 'trans women' and 'non trans women' kind of is the exact same maneuver as people who say 'don't say cis' because like the implicit content of using those constructions is that there are 'default' people who need no descritpor and then there are 'transfems', right?

+ i think TME/TMA are valuable because they articulate exactly what's relevant about the distinction, which is a relationship to transmisogyny. like a trans guy isnt 'TME' because he's a trans guy, but because if he gets into an argument with me he can pull out the classic 'aggressive' 'scary' 'creepy' 'predatory' 'sexual deviant' cards and try to have me socially murdered and have people side with him by default, something he shares with a cis guy and a cis girl in the exact same situaiton. because of the Trans Misogyny that i am Affected by and he is Exempt From and that therefore can be weaopnized against me in any interaction.

#ask #tma/tme discourse #<- tagging in case people are geting sick of it

[socialist-microwave-laser]

incredibly uncomfortable finding out a mutual of mine (thankfully one i wasn't very close to) has been rbing shit complaining about "theyfabs." absolutely vile, if you think that shit is anywhere near okay please weed yourselves out. unfollow, block me, whatever. apparently i haven't been vocal enough about this

your transphobia and bioessentialism is not made progressive by supposedly doing it in defense of other trans people

afab trans people don't have privilege over amab trans people. different experiences do not inherently mean one is better, more desirable, or more privileged than the other. it means they're different

afab vs amab is a reductive binary that not only ignores so many complexities of experience and brushes away even the attempt at intersectionality, but it contributes to the ever-present problem of perisex trans people only acknowledging that intersex people exist when it's convenient to do so. also your bioessentialism is not made progressive by supposedly doing it in defense of other trans people

i've made nicer worded posts about this but they seem to have gone under the radar so let me try again. tme vs tma is a dumb ass fucking excuse for any sort of "analysis" and shows everyone you have no idea what the hell you're talking about. NOBODY is "exempt" from transmisogyny that's the fucking point of systems of oppression!!! they're SYSTEMS!!! white people are not racism exempt! non-muslims are not islamophobia exempt! skinny people are not fatphobia exempt! straight people are not homophobia exempt! stop talking out of your ass and think about your words for longer than five goddamn seconds! also! your bioessentialism is not made progressive by supposedly doing it in defense of other trans people!

stop attacking other trans people! there is an entire fucking attempted genocide happening and you're here just spinning your wheels in the fucking mud getting pissy at random trans people over the internet who are in the exact same struggle as you are! you're not getting anywhere! all you're succeeding in doing is LITERALLY creating new slurs to be used by transphobes against those who should be your fucking siblings

your transphobia and bioessentialism is not made progressive by supposedly doing it in defense of other trans people. it wasn't cute when kalvin garrah did it. it's not cute when blair white does it. and it's not fucking cute when you do it either

#i'm sorry this is so angry i genuinely do believe in the importance of having constructive conversations about this. this post isn't gonns #change minds. it'll just piss some people off. but right now i'm hurt by the fact that somebody has managed to be mutuals with me for two #months and think that this is something i would in any way shape or form be okay with #queer #transgender #anarchist #transphobia tw #discourse tw #transandrophobia #tme/tma #intersexism #intersectionality

[lilyminer]

(Some new tma posting courtesy of my pre-magnus protocol full relisten)

I honestly have no idea which of these is funnier:

Shipping gerrymichael in a existential “how could you love me in this incomprehensible form I take?” way. Meanwhile Gerry is just a horny little goth man going like, “wdym?”

Shipping gerrymichael in a wholesome cute way where this terrifying goth pyromaniac fell for the sweet little trusting archival assistant pre-distortion.

Or shipping gerrymichael in a wholesome cute way, but Michael is still very much an incomprehensible monster but actually just acts like a confused little house cat and Gerry just puts up with him acting basically like Helen did in season 5.

#p.s. I will not be entertaining timeline discourse I don’t care it’s already a crack ship #tma #the magnus archives #gerry keay #gerard keay #micheal distortion #michael distortion #michael shelley #micheal shelly #gerrymichael #gerrymicheal #tma shipping #doorkeay

[cripple-punk-dad]

I hate you "TME" I hate you "TMA" I hate you "AFAB" I hate you "AGAB" I hate you "AMAB" I hate you limiting trans labels to further separate us I hate you "TIM" I hate you "TIF" I hate you forcing a separation between unifying experiences I hate you gatekeepers I hate you transmedicalism I hate you infighting I hate you exclusionists

#trans community #trans #trans men #trans women #trans femme #trans masc #trans discourse #tme #tma #transmedicalism

[annabelle--cane]

yknow I've said before that georgie's apology in mag 190 is the last beat that wraps up her and jon's arc about culpability and support and addiction, and I would like to say that past me is a little dumb idiot, because that scene isn't the last beat of their arc, this one is:

cigarettes and the web lighter, the show's ultimate symbols of subtle manipulation and loss of control. it's a tangible representation that not only has georgie changed her mind about how jon handled his situation, but she's also accepted that she's not immune to having her own strings pulled, making a dodgy decision, and being sucked inexorably into the fray. in a bit of a reversal from their earlier roles, in this conversation jon tries to take all the blame for the apocalypse and georgie's the one telling him "obviously it's not your fault that you didn't outsmart the embodiment of schemes. everyone makes bad choices, it's just rotten luck that yours turned out to be tied to all this." she's left behind all judgment for "bad" habits and choices, she directly understands that none of this can be dodged forever.

#taps sign again that says 'why does all Georgie Discourse ignore all her s5 scenes they're kinda important' #gworgie.... #tma #id in alt text #marina marvels at life

[bluejayblueskies]

In ascending order

1. Tim. Was taking out anger better directed at Elias on Jon because he didn’t, you know, psychologically torture subordinates who got too uppity but ultimately had a very valid point about how Jon’s inhumanity made it difficult to trust him and his very continued existence causes other people to suffer also not obligated to forgive Jon for his shitty behavior in S2

2. Basira. Martin from someone else’s perspective, aggressively overlooking and excusing her partner’s crimes (despite said partner themselves not agreeing with that) to try and have their cake and eat it to.

3. Georgie. Establishes she is smart, levelheaded, and emotionally intelligent enough to deal with supernatural bullshit but then pulls a complete 180 in S4 and also has a massive double standard where she gives Melanie credit and support for wanting to get better but also punishes Jon by cutting him out of her life for *checks notes* being alive. She’s very frustrating but she does also own up to that and apologize and I will give her credit for that.

4. Melanie. Literally just wants to be mad at anyone but herself and refuses to acknowledge how her own choices got her into the mess she was in. She admits to Jon’s face that the bullet stayed in her because she wanted it and still continues to treat him like crap.

(i'm assuming this is in response to my 'i'm still mad about how people treated jon' post)

i do agree that tim doesn't owe jon forgiveness for the stalking, but i don't agree with the 'jon's continued existence causes people to suffer' part of this. i'll always be a believer in 'jon is allowed to be alive without being punished for it.' (i won't get into the inhumanity bit since i find that i define 'humanity' differently than other people, and i think what you're trying to say is that jon becoming spookier makes it hard for tim to trust him, which is something i would agree with.) i think a lot of tim's anger at jon comes from fear and feeling trapped rather than actual hatred towards jon, actually, but i don't feel much up to crafting an actual meta for that at the moment, sorry!

aside from the fact that i don't think daisy's crimes (hunting down and killing people for years as part of the police and engaging in police brutality) and jon's crimes (forcing people to relive their trauma against their will, but ultimately not killing them) are equitable, i don't think that martin actually excuses jon's actions. he's the one who gives the s4 archives crew the tape with jon's victim and thus makes jon stop taking live statements. martin supports jon in seasons 2 and 3 when he's being hurt and tortured and has few people in his corner, but he's also very ready to call jon out on his actions if need be. i don't think basira and martin are very similar at all.

i agree with most of this point! georgie's double standard in s4 is very frustrating, and she does recognize at least a bit in s5 that she wasn't the better person for just running away from it all.

any time i think about melanie, i just remember how everyone (including jon himself!) told her not to get involved with the institute but she did it anyway (very watcher-aligned of her). her arc is actually one of the most interesting to me bc of how much anger and the need to claw her way to the top motivates her, and i genuinely think that under different circumstances, she and jon might have been the kind of friends who rib each other constantly but would fight god for each other.

#ask #anon #forgive me if this is too argumentative i can't tell if you're agreeing with me or trying to present an argument against me #or something in between #but yeah the only side character i genuinely dislike is basira #the rest i find quite interesting even when i >:(( at how they treat jon sometimes #tma discourse #(i also did not write this up to be a very In Depth Well Thought Out Meta so keep that in mind! #i'm too sleepy for that haha)

[oaxleaf]

I think it's about time we named the way the TMA fandom reduces Annabelle and Basira to the scary black woman trope for what it really is

oh yes, certainly. although i myself have managed to curate my fandom experience to avoid most of that sentiment, it is deeply frustrating and dissapointing to see that there's not an insignificant subsection of people that very much view them as such. i find it to be especially potent when you compare how they are viewed to other characters of equal morality and can see a very clear pattern of how people, consciously or not, view basira's and annabelle's actions as more aggressive and with far less nuance and grace than characters who have done equal or worse things. these people's perceptions speak for themselves. hell, you can even compare them - two of the only prominent canonical woc - to characters that are commonly headcanoned as black or brown and still see a significant gap in how people treat them

however, as important as i find this issue, i'm not sure whether i'll speak on it more? at least not unless i find that i have anything important to say. look, i'm a white kid in what's probably a 90% white area. i have, like, 40 followers and, although i try my best, i really don't find myself to be very qualified when it comes to talking about the treatment of race in fiction and fandom. i try my best, but i'm worried i'm more likely to fuck it up than provide anything useful? i think there are people far more knowledgable - not to meantion actual black people and poc - who would be able to provide nuanced and interesting discussion on the topic far better than me. not to scold you anon - i 100% agree with what you're saying, do not get me wrong - i just feel like i don't want to speak on topics i don't feel qualified or experienced enough upon to have any kind of authority? although people are more than welcome to speak their mind on the topic, and you are encouraged to educate me on it, i hope i'm not expected to be the one with the best answers. i'm honestly a far better target for learning than teach, you know?

#yes yes yes i agree with you #i just don't really wanna say anything myself #because as hard as i try half the chance is that i don't know what the fuck i'm talking about? #i'm just a random white kid #i'm not like banning the topic or anything but i'm really not qualified #i also try my best to filter out content that i find treat the woc of the show unfairly #so i don't even have enough experience seeing it to have a fully formed opinion #because it's really hard to adress people's shitty opinions when you've already fled those opinions like the plague #tma discourse