#tma discourse

[hikaaa-bi]

hot take probably but i'm still skeptical about the whole "jonmartin are trapped in the computer" theory.

people are acting like it's basically canon now when it's not. just because there are some thematic connections between chester and jon/norris and martin doesn't mean they're canonically trapped in the computer. it's possible but i would personally like the story to preserve the ambiguous ending in tma.

i think it's more likely that the voices are linked to jon and martin (and jonah, or whoever else) but it's not them directly. i think it would be pretty random too for them to die in the tma world and get stuck inside a computer.

[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.

[landscaping-your-mind]

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.

[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:

[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.

[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

[hotpocket-facehole]

holy christ i could talk about this for hours. yes yes a million times yes. double standards n misogyny in this fandom. insane.

I just saw the anon opinion about doorkeay having so much more fan works and stuff than any of the women from tma, and I was literally just thinking about, and I wanted to add a thought that I had. I'm so sorry this is so long.

A while back, can't remember where, I saw someone use doorkeay as an example of a "non-toxic" ship, as compared to "toxic" ships like jmart, and it confused me so much, because jmart is canon and so we see what their dynamic is like in the show, but doorkey isn't so everything about them is fan-made. Now, let me be perfectly clear, non-canon ships are great, I love them, but comparing a canon and non-canon ship like that just does not feel like a fair comparison to me. But in think that kind of dynamic kinda contributes to this.

Gerry and Micheal (Shelley, particularly) really don't appear that much in the podcast, so we really doesn't know all that much about them. That means when characterizing them, you can kinda do whatever you want, since there's not much you're starting with. And that means, if you want, you they don't have to have any of those more problematic traits that characters with more major roles do. Couple that with the tendency of all fandoms to be come critical of female characters and more forgiving of the men, and you're got the potential for the perfect storm of favoritism (maybe not the best term, but I think it works). Melanie, Basira, Daisy, and Georgie all have messier, or even problematic traits, since they're in the show more and so we get to learn the """"bad"""" sides of them, but Gerry and Micheal get to be as nice and wholesome as you want. They get to be good and non-toxic, unlike the toxic women who seem problematic and bad in comparison.

I don't know if this totally makes sense, and again, sorry it's so long, but it's just been on my mind recently and I wanted to throw my two cents in.

Also, just want to finish by saying, I don't think there is anything wrong with liking Gerry or Micheal or shipping them (I do all of the above), and I don't even think there's anything necessarily wrong with fluffing things up in fan-works to make things more "wholesome" (again, I do it too), but it's just one of those things I think we should be aware about when interacting with a work.

Thanks for sharing! Let’s chat!

Anon is referring to this post!

Fans are allowed to interact with the content however they wish, and no one interpretation is better than another. This is has been said multiple times on my blog and I will never* not agree with it.

I agree- I don’t think comparing a cannon couple to a fannon couple is fair. It seems sort of difficult as well- those are very different relationships.

*the only exception being if someone is being racist, sexist, etc. in their interpretation!

Again, thanks for sharing! What about you guys? What do you think?

And as always, remember to keep your words kind!

-E

>Hello! I’m E, and I created this blog to be a safe space to share Magnus Archives/Protocol opinions in! If you are seeing this in a reblog, I want you to know three things:

1) I value respect and kindness over anything.

2) I cannot control what others say in response to anyone’s opinions.

3) Only you can control your emotions/actions/words. Choose to respond with gentleness, not anger. After all, we all are here for the same reason- why not enjoy each other’s company?

Thanks, and have an awesome day/night!<

[maria6136]

I never feel more alienated from the trans community in general and other transfems in particular than when I see people going after "TMEs" and "transandrophobia truthers" and so on, ostensibly in the name of defending people like me. Or derailing their own perfectly decent points about transmisogyny by including some irrelevant, gratuitous dig at transmascs (or intersex people or "theyFABs" or whoever the target of the day is).

What the fuck are you doing? Do you get some kind of rush from deflecting TERFisms onto targets you've decided are more deserving or privileged than yourselves? What are you trying to achieve? If you want to do some weird 70s separatism tribute act then please just go your own way already and leave everyone else alone.

As a transfem who is not a woman and doesn't pass as one I don't trust "TMA/TME" proponents to have my back in any case. And I'm much more wary of engaging with trans spaces than I used to be because of this bullshit.

I'm so sorry to everyone who has been fucked over by this tendency. I hope we can get over it. Can we please collectively at least try to get a grip and maybe rethink how we're doing things a little bit? Because unless the goal really is self-cannibalization it's not working is it?

[renthony]

It's real fucked up how many queer people dread Pride season due to both systemic queerphobia and queer infighting. Pride season always rockets up my anxiety, and I know I'm not the only one.

This shit sucks, y'all. We gotta support each other more than the queerphobes hate us. I'm not saying we have to love each other, I'm not saying we even have to like each other, but we cannot keep subdividing communities, circulating callouts, and dogpiling each other over who has it worse. That shit will kill us all.

We cannot keep thinking of our individual experiences with bigotry as, "I know [xyz kind of queer] has it worse, but...", and we cannot keep looking at other experiences with bigotry as, "that's bad, but [abc kind of queer] still has it worse," when the reality is that we are all being targeted. It's all bad! It all deserves to be talked about and fought against without trying to put it in some kind of hierarchy! Hierarchies are not fucking helpful here!

Some fucking unity, please.

[maive-the-sheep]

Tme this, tma that.

I'm intersex and i want you to stop being transphobic (yes, using these terms seriously is transphobic, even if you are trans) and intersexist

And stop saying someone talking about issues they are facing shouldnt happen cause you are facing issues. We are all in this together. Or do you want the bigots to win?

[xoxo-ren-xoxo]

Trans posts then: what's in my pants? Erm my phone XD !! This is an anon blog, my gender is none of your business!

Trans posts now: if you don't disclose whether you are tma or tme within the next three seconds I'm legally allowed to call you a nazi mens rights activist to all of my friends. Give me a detailed explanation of what your genitals look like and why so I can decide if you should have a voice in this conversation.

[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?

[anti-terf-posts]

i’m really curious as to what “tme/tma” users get out of using those terms. do they feel like they won some kind of oppression competition when they declare themselves as tma? do they feel like cis people like them more? and what is the PURPOSE of using those terms? like genuinely when is it useful outside of discourse? i’m really curious.

[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.

[briarpatch-kids]

I wish more people understood you can't "opt out" of experiencing misogyny by being trans. Trans men still have to access sex based care, still get systematic sex based oppression, and still deal with day to day microaggressions. Anyone deemed "failed" at manhood deals with misogyny in some form. We can't just "opt out" like people seem to think we can.

[annabelle--cane]

"is martin blackwood polish" - the greatest thread in the history of forums, locked by a moderator after 12,239 pages of heated debate