#i feel so vindicated in knowing other people think he looks like JM too

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Walton Goggins answers the web's most searched questions

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Piggybacking off another ask. I didnt get into tma until this summer so jm was already canon. How did it feel to go from thinking they would've be canon to it actually happening? At what point did the fandom go "wait do they have a chance?"

Whooooa boy. That's a big one.

For the first question: overwhelming joy and also an intense feeling of vindication. Joy for obvious reasons, vindication because, well... most queer ships just don't go canon. And jonmartin started like any other ship for me: reading into subtext, telling myself it wouldn't happen, that I was seeing things that weren't there. Sure, yeah, Martin was worrying over Jon, and sure, Jon talked about Martin on the tapes a lot, but that sort of intense devotion to each other happens with a lot of character pairings that later get brushed off by the creators as "they're just friends." To have TMA step up and say, no, you're not reading into this too much, the romance is really there, this is real... it was an incredibly validating moment. I'm not sure if I can put it into words properly, but having that support and encouragement from the creators, that message of "no, you're not being foolish for reading the story this way, you never have been, this is what love looks like..." it meant a hell of a lot, after facing down so many shows that try to sweep any hint of queer romance under the rug. (TMA was my first-ever podcast, and I was unaware of how common it is in the genre.)

For the second question, the fandom had already had that moment by the time I caught up. The first episode that I listened to live was 113: Breathing Room, and Martin's crush on Jon had already been made canon back in 106. I think 106 was the first inclination anyone in the fandom had that the ship had a chance, but there was still a lot of uncertainty of whether there'd be canon reciprocation until season four.

Weird tangent here: I noticed, in late season three/early season four, a very odd trend in the words the fandom used. When I jumped in, post-106, everyone said Martin liked Jon. He had a crush on him. It was in fic and meta, casual discussions and legitimate theories. Toward the end of the season, as Martin's feelings became more and more obvious, everyone started using love. He loves Jon, he's in love with him. People kept used like for Jon's feelings (he might like Martin back) until the first few episodes of season four aired, at which point it suddenly became an avalanche of love: he's in love with Martin, they love each other, love confessions became the primary theme of fanfic, instead of crush confessions. I don't know how many people noticed they were doing it, but somewhere deep in the fandom consciousness we had all become aware that this was far more meaningful than a simple "haha office crush how cute" plotline.

Back to the main point. There were a couple of things over the first half of season four that made it clear that it really was going full, reciprocated canon. Beyond just show content and how hard Jon was pining, there were two distinct incidents I remember:

1. Rusty Quill's official account retweeted jonmartin fanart. They had never done it before, they'd never retweeted any ship art before, and I cannot convey to you how ridiculously excited the fandom got about it.

2. Someone tweeted at Jonny to "stop blowing holes in my ship," and he replied "I see no holes. A lot of distressed wood, but no holes." (I believe Alex also responded with a bunch of gifs of sinking ships but it did not lessen the excitement of the moment.)

By mid-season four it was basically a certainty that it was canon, we were all just waiting for Jon to get the courage to actually say something about it. By that point the main question was if they would actually get together, or if Martin would go full Lonely/die and they'd just remain the star-crossed couple that never was. I cannot express just how stressful... well, basically the whole stretch from 154-159 was. Suffice to say, the apocalypse felt tame in comparison.