#tma is a tragedy

[future-crab]

The thing about TMA is that if I think about Sasha James too much I will cry and if I think about Michael Shelley too much I will cry and if I think about Agnes Montegue too much I will cry and if I think about Jonathan Sims too much I will cry and if I think about Naomi Herne too much I will cry and if I think about Gerry Keay too much I will cry and if I think about Tim Stoker too much I will cry and if I think about Jane Prentiss too much I will cry and if I think about Martin Blackwood too much I will cry and—

#tma is a horror podcast and i absolutely love it on those merits #but i think where it really excels is as a tragedy #SO many characters - major and minor - have these unique and insanely fascinating individual tragic arcs #i could sit and think about any one of them for hours #it’s just such good and sad and interesting writing #it’s what makes me so completely unable to get this podcast out of my head even years after it’s ended #tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #sasha james #tim stoker #martin blackwood #naomi herne #jane prentiss #gerard keay #michael shelley #agnes montague

[sporkberries]

There goes Antigone, off to pray

#been thinking alot about jon in the terms of a greek tragedy #his story and tma as a whole is undeniably a tragedy but jon... #he never has agency or choice in this he is quite literally doomed by the gods #even if he did prevent the eyepocalypse there was no happy ending for him that could ever be #he was well and truly doomed from the start #anyways i am very normal have some religious/catholic imagery #jonathan sims #tma #the magnus archives #spork art #eyes

[crberulean]

getting into the magnus archives after only seeing fanart is such a rollercoaster 😭 before listening i assumed the archival crew would be a loving and supportive friend group but in reality 1. they hate each other so fucking much 2. a lot of them are dead

#and i of course expected tragedy but nothing could’ve prepared me for the sheer loneliness of s5 #don’t get me wrong i really love fanart that depicts them as friends #but wow canon is not any of that #tma is anti found family #tma spoilers

[raspberrywiskey]

im so obsessed with this moment from we all ignore the pit. not even completely sure it was michael, but he was crying :(

edit: this post is very innaccurate ! sorry ! michael was not in the car in mag 97. it was the vast avatar jan killbride.

#SORRY I LOVE MICHAEL SHELLEY SO MUCH #not even that big of a michael fan. i just love the tragedy of michael shelley #tma #the magnus archives #michael distortion #micheal distortion #gertrude robinson #gerry keay #fresh catch

[cult-of-the-eye]

tragic horror is just here's a person. here's why their experiences, identity and flaws construct their own downfall in a permanent, unchangeable way. here's a monster. here's why their experiences, identity and flaws construct their own downfall in a permanent, unchangeable way. here's a person-

#tragic horror #horror tragedy #tma vague #tma #jonathan sims #tmagp vague #tmagp #the magnus archives #the magnus protocol #horror

[the-magpie-archives]

"I thought you might be lost." is one of the most delightfully romantic things Jon ever says to Martin.

It's so devoid of blame, of derision. A truly neutral statement, soft, no touch of sarcasm, no hint of cruelty. A gentle hand reached out to pull him from the depths of the lonely.

Such an unusual phrase for Jon, especially at that time. There's no definitives, it's entirely open to correction, open to being wrong. 'I thought' not I knew. It comes from Jon's perspective, he holds himself out to rejection, something that's hard to do at the best of times.

'you might be lost', not you were, not you are. He respects that this may well have been a conscious choice, that Martin really could have chosen to abandon him, preferring the lonely to the lack of certainty in their relationship. But it retains the softness and love, the worry and care. He was worried that Martin might not be able to find his way back, but not willing to drag him out of a place he might have chosen to be.

And that's not even mentioning the softness with which he says it. In an intense moment of great urgency and importance he's able to drop his fear, stress, and anger, in an attempt to reach the man he loves.

It's such an elegant moment of love; in a second Jon is willing to let go of the gravity of the situation and put all of his being into connecting with Martin, and when it comes down to it, it works.

#The magnus archives is a tragedy but how could a thing be painful if it doesn't first lull you with all you could ever want? #The amount of humiliation and failure Martin and Jon have to go through to make things work is far more romantic than love at first sight #Realism in communication doesn't kill romance it ENHANCES IT #tma #the magnus archives #the magnus institute #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jonmartin #jmart #tma analysis #tma the lonely #tma season 4 #tma spoilers

[elinekeit-artstuff]

ARCHIVIST: Sometimes... I imagine if none of this had happened. If we had just... met. Been together, without... all of this.

#the magnus archives #martin blackwood #jarchivist #jonmartin #2023 works #eye contact #body horror #eye horror #martin k blackwood #id in alt #oh yeah tma is a horror tragedy #the dinghy #teaholding #mag 200 #mag 199 #Where jon goes martin follows #that's the deal

[fiendishartist2]

honeymooning in the apocalypse <3

#they're so funny...... boyfriends at the absolute worst time #i love the way s5 is half romantic comedy and half horror tragedy #they really could do it all #my art #digital art #artists on tumblr #tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jonmartin #the eyepocalypse

[bernard-the-rabbit]

Maybe, maybe everything works out, and we end up somewhere else.

#my trashy art #tma #tma fanart #the magnus archives #the magnus archives fanart #jonmartin #jonmartin fanart #jonathan sims #jonathan sims fanart #jon tma #jon tma fanart #martin tma #martin tma fanart #martin blackwood #martin blackwood fanart #spoilers from tma!!!!!!! #i love to think that they died #i like the tragedy part of it #but like..i wanted to play with the possibilities #they are married btw #they drink tea and they grow old together and jon gets to see amazing cows

[nat-20s]

I think the reason that Jonmartin works so well as a romantic subplot is because in his heart of hearts Jon is an Austenian main male love interest that falls for the poor poet and probably spends too much time thinking about the intimacy of hand holding and Martin is aware that he's in a horror but DESPERATELY trying to change his genre to romcom as much as he can. They're perfect for each other.

#tma #martin blackwood #jon sims #jonmartin #imo this is why tim couldve never been in a romantic subplot. first season tim pretends hes in an office comedy #but fundamentally he knows and continues to chose to be in a revenge tragedy

[annabelle--cane]

imagine you're nonbinary and you're being physically puppetted around a stage by a giant spider for act 48,067 of a "comic puppet show" where you're forced to relive your worst nightmare over and over in perpetuity while being constantly shown the cherry picked worst moments you've ever had with everyone you've ever been close to and the announcer for the theater won't even use language that's inclusive of your gender 😭😭😭

#they're the STAR of your tragedy at least give them a 'distinguished guests' or something smh #francis ily. soon as this apocalypse ends we're getting you a physical hobby so you can tangibly see something you did with your own hands. #tma #marina marvels at life #id in alt text

[lazycranberrydoodles]

COME ON GUYS DON'T LET DIANXIA DOWN

#images i drew on my phone approximately 90 seconds before class started #tma vs tgcf is pitting two bad bitches against each other but #from the other guys propaganda he is apparently a beloved side character #which i totally understand. #BUT HUA CHENG IS THE DEUTERANTAGONIST WHO LOVED XIE LIAN SO MUCH IT UNDOOMED HIM FROM THE NARRATIVE #HE DIDNT CLAW HIS WAY OUT OF TONGLU TO BE BEATEN LIKE THIS #also tma has gay people that dont undoom each other from the narrative. L + ratio (/j/j/j/j we all love tragedies here) #hua cheng will never rest in peace and he doesn't want to because he has a smokin boyfriend #they are both angry goths but has gerry died THREE TIMES????? no. just once. lame. #gerry got his skin bound into a necromancy book that was eventually burned but hua cheng ripped out his eye to craft a sickass scimitar !!! #hua cheng haunts the narrative before he dies in a hundred tiny ways and then HEAVILY after he dies a second time #he's an awesome city owner and has violent beef with HEAVEN. and he carves statues and paints and builds temples #and is also a self conscious loser <3 #his gay awakening was intensely traumatic and religious for everybody involved. and he's had the same life mission since he was 10 #he is actively fighting ghost discrimination and getting dangerous magical items off of the normal human market #also he is always bedecked in elaborate silver and chains and eyeliner and ALWAYS in blood red clothes #HE CAN MAKE IT RAIN BLOOD!!???!?!? ALSO #he stick and poked his god's name on himself but his handwriting is so bad it's unrecognizable and the signs he puts up have evil auras #this has ceased to be propaganda. now im just gushing. only tgcf fans will see this anyway. whatever youre getting blorbo rant #tgcf #art #poll #hua cheng #lmao #my art #tian guan ci fu #hualian #xie lian #hob #heaven official's blessing

[its-your-mind]

guys guys guys

I have done some personal soul searching and I know why jonathan jarchivist sims made the professional decisions he made when he was a Newly Minted Head Archivist

He tried to apply logic to the managerial decisions of a megalomaniac kind-of-immortal servant of a fear god, who was at the time posing as a Respectable Director of an Academic Institution

like listen. clearly jonah did not give a single flying fuck whether or not the archive was organized. all he wanted was for jon to nom on some statements and get soul-tattooed by nightmare-fuel until he was good and traumatized enough to read like… a couple dozen words that would end the world.

But jon doesn’t know that! So he’s a researcher at this academic institution, and he receives a promotion out of nowhere into a completely different department. Obviously, he thinks, elias knows what he’s doing - he wouldn’t be in charge if he didn’t.

So now jon’s trying to reverse engineer the logic, because there must be logic and he’s not going to question the head of the institute. Like, you look at me and tell me you think S1 jonathan sims, wearing his armor of Prickly Academic, is going to admit that he has no idea what he’s doing to the person who has just promoted him. Definitely not.

So why, jonathan sims asks himself, would elias bouchard promote someone from the research department into this position? Obviously he feels that, along with reorganizing the archive, it’s necessary to go back and research all the statements down there!

And then jon poked that theory a bit by asking for tim and sasha to be transferred with him, and elias gave him the green light! So now you’ve got three researchers, and elias throws in one librarian assistant (who has a lot of experience, but not the background needed to guide the whole team), and so jon assumes that the job of the archive is proportionate: 3/4 research, 1/4 cataloguing, with the department guided by the researchers.

I’m gonna go ahead and assume that the only concrete direction jon was given was to “create audio recordings of the statements.” And thus, we have an archive that spends most of its time on research, creates borderline-impossible-to-reference audio recordings, and then catalogues almost as an afterthought.

#tma #the magnus archives #tma spoilers #jonathan sims #jonah magnus #elias bouchard #tim stoker #sasha james #martin blackwood #also #(and this is just my personal headcannon bc I have no choice but to project every aspect of myself onto jonathan jarchivist sims) #jon aBsolutely walked into that archive on day one #and was just FLOORED by the idea that all of these statements had been taken and NO ONE had compiled ANY research on them?? #Are you kidding me?? #We simply must devote all of our energy and focus to undoing this tragedy because it is what I #the new head of this department am trained in and know how to fix

[skitpost]

trying to pitch TMA to people based on its very queer cast is so funny to me. like yes the main character is canonically asexual. he does unfortunately experience The Horrors. these two things are not related at all.

#tma #the magnus archives #we can joke about tma being a workplace dramedy all we want #but someone out there is going to believe u. and they will be in for quite a shock #this is all in good fun btw i think it's really funny to pitch Gutwrenching Horror-Tragedy as Fun Gay Office Times #talkies

[5ths]

Not proud of this one might delete later :/

#the real reason TMA is a tragedy is because nikola died before she got to drop the skincare routine #the magnus archives #tma #nikola orsinov #the stranger tma #the unknowing tma #tma fanart #the circus of the other

[givemeureyes]

my favorite thing about jonathan sims ships is that they are all in some way inherently toxic except for like… jongerry. and maybe that’s bc they didn’t get a lot of time to be toxic but it’s just so funny to me. jongerry you will always be famous

#YES EVEN JONMARTIN #before y’all come in my notes saying ‘but what about jmart’ i meant them too #the inherent tragedy of loving and been loved by a man who can never actually accept you as you are and blah blah blah #jonathan sims #the magnus archives #tma #gerard keay #jongerry #also before i get shit for it #YOURE ALLOWED TO LIKE SHIPS THAT ARE TOXIC #it’s fine guys. no matter the level of toxic #i love toxic ships #i love when they’re horrible for each other