#I don't participate much in fandom discourse anymore b/c I struggle with the whole in-group/out-group dynamic

[poeticsandaliens]

Honestly... I fucking love the romance in TMA. It made me let my guard down, even though I knew I shouldn't. The tenderness of it made the horror more visceral. And the ending so much more heart-wrenching because despite the fact that these two people have changed so much since we met them - enough to love each other - they're ruined by the same human flaws they've had since the outset. That Jon's betrayal isn't a descent into madness; it's just the guilt-ridden control freak that he's been since the very first episode. The flawed human that we've all come to love.

It's not perfect, but I think it enacts a similar technique to what Phoebe Waller-Bridge describes in her work (particularly Fleabag). That she uses the comedy to get her audience's guard down so that when the drama comes crashing in, we bear the full weight of it. The romance made me a more vulnerable audience, and I think the open ending felt both more hopeful and more tragic than if we'd never been given that tenderness to begin with.

I think... if I'd gotten balls-to-the-wall full-send avatar Jon, or a total descent into madness, I would have felt spared.