#michael is in less than half as many episodes as not-sasha and almost a third as many as helen 💖💕 light and love 💞💘

[annabelle--cane]

"where's [character who was in like three episodes]"

jon swept the first poll I did for this so I'm interested to see what the results look like without him! welcome to the leads list, not-sasha.

[taiey]

TMA Character Episode Appearances

I like numbers so I used the wiki to count up how many episodes each TMA character appears in, with some changes. Here’s my list of episodes. Statements from that character are bolded and some of the short quasi-statements are italicised. Question to ask yourself before you read: who do you think is in the third-most episodes?

As the wiki says, it's easier to count the episodes John doesn't appear in. (12 episodes in season 3 and 6 in season 4.) So doing the subtraction, it's 166 episodes as of 184, if you include the liveshow and also 120 and 142, where he is, after all, in the statement.

Martin's in 72; by season, 6 9 17 15 and all of season five. Plus the liveshow, but not including the fluff episode. What I’m looking to count here is sort of a measure of how much content we have about them but also recognising that being spread out does tend to increase the weight the audience gives it. So “here’s the dog incident, btw” is new information but endorsed fanfic is just extrapolation from what we already have, plus personal invention.

The character in the third-most episodes is Basira. 42; 6 in s2, 15 in s3, 17 in s4 and 4 episodes so far this season. And it's not a slim margin. We actually really do have a lot more time with her than most characters.

Then we jump down to—so I previously made a post saying Elias and Melanie are both in 25 episodes? Except I wasn’t counting 160. My count absolutely includes the episode where we learn Elias’s true motivation and backstory, lol. 3, 4, 11, 6, 2—that includes Curiosity. Mentions are different thing harder to count, if you’re feeling he should loom more omnipresently; letters to Jonah Magnus don’t feel like appearances to me.

Tim is also 26 episodes, including the liveshow: 4 in s1, 7 in s2, 14 in s3, 2 in s5. Which basically means we have 5 [/or 7] episodes where things are okay between him and John. ☺

Melanie’s in 25. 1, 2, 12, 10, [pending]. The two statements that cover the end of her youtubing career give us a really solid foundation and then it’s amazing what you can do with key points and blocks of exposition connected by informative mentions.

Daisy's in 22 episodes. Just one in season two, 11 in s3, 9 in s4 and one in season five. We talk about her and Basira as one coequal unit a lot, probably because they are in-universe, but stepping back it’s suddenly obvious that, like, the narrative focus is always on Basira, even when the plots are ones that usually play out with focus on the Daisy character.

Next on the list is Gertrude Robinson, who, at 15 episodes, is quite possibly the only character I was expecting to appear less. Even moreso because I could go up to 21, depending on whether I counted the one with the pig, We All Ignore The Pit (in one paragraph that focuses on Kilbride), Dreamer (in a dream???), Third Degree (extensive description of her actions in non-statement format), Hive (you called me ‘dear’) orrr Burnt Offering?? with her circle and pictures, like??? I’m probably still missing some, honestly;—the more minor a character the more lenient I am about counting an appearance versus a mention; with 15 voiced I lean not but wobbilyly.

At this point I’m switching to an unnumbered list because I'm not sure I’ve thought of every character to check.

Georgie and Helen are in 13 episodes each —counting 47, Helen Richardson's statement, and all the Distortion appearances from 101 on inclusive. She is Helen Richardson, and also ate her. — including the WTG episode even though it wasn't written by Jonny because it was written by Sasha Sienna and doesn't have any other non-Sa... non-Sienna characters in it, that is totally objective ok.

Peter Lukas: 12. This includes Boatswain’s Call, in which he’s characterised so differently from his later appearances it spawned a fan theory that said appearances were secretly Evan Lukas, but not, as you will notice, without protest.

Not!Sasha is in 11 episodes. (That doesn't include the Not!Other!People appearances, because *waves hands* it makes sense to me this way.)

You may notice that Sasha James has not appeared on this list yet; that's because she's only in 5. 3 in season 1 and 2 in season 5.

Trevor Herbert! Almost forgot him. Nine episodes, in a palindromic season spread, 1 2 3 2 1. He gives... one statement that must have been three times longer than most, and half of one with Julia.

Gerry, Julia, and Mikaele: eight. (This includes Gerry’s appearance as ‘on fire’ in 117.) Julia and Mikaele both give two statements—well, one and a half for Julia.

Agnes, Annabelle and Michael Shelley: seven. Agnes’ is marking novel ground around the “appears in statement”/”mentioned” border; Annabelle is just normal and Michael Shelley is the obvious.

Jane and Nikola: six. The wiki says Jane appears in 152 and I find that hilarious but sadly no; it also says Nikola appears in 083 which I am dubious of but ok.

Jude, Oliver and Adelard??? Five??? You may have missed Oliver’s appearances in Hive and Grifter’s Bone, but I feel like this is definitely missing Adelard??? I guess it’s because that’s four statements from him, which is the most we get from any single person. [citation needed]

MANUELA DOMINGUEZ: four, her two statements and the other two from Daedalus.

Jordan Kennedy makes the list for the obvious reason, with three (three!) appearances. (55, 184, and I’m counting 120 because his bit goes on for a while)

okay, that’s all for now. go forth and correct me, please! c: