#i'd need to go through some wikis and transcript to remember what was happening so that's holding me back a bit

[anyctibius]

I didn't stop any of them because I didn't like them, it's more like *waves hands* life, you know?

[echo-of-the-eye]

The long as hell timeline of when i got into tma:

My experience with getting into tma was really long and complicated so I got curious about the timeline of how it happened. I'd forgotten a lot of the early stuff but I went through some old texts and stuff so. For no ones enjoyment but my own, a timeline of how I got into tma:

first heard about it from my friend (if you’re reading this, hi:)) sometime in 2020

fun fact, the first audio I heard was brutal pipe murder out of context (followed by the leitner rant)

then started listening sometime late 2021 (I’d reached ep 28 by nov 7th)

listening was going REALLY slow. it was my first time listening to a fiction podcast and I was absorbing NOTHING.

finished s2 january 2022

side note: I did not realize sasha was dead (I had a hard time with voices and it was so long between listening to season 1 and 2 I straight up forgot what happened. also I didn't know about the transcripts and didn't listen to the credits) and at some point my friend asked how far I'd gotten and I said s2. and they said something like "oh so sasha's dead then?" and I was like "what, no. wait sasha DIES?!" they ended up kinda saving it by pretending they'd gotten the season wrong or something so I thought they'd spoiled me for a future event and that it was going to happen soon. I was shocked when I realized she'd been dead the whole time and that my friend did not spoil me, I was just stupid.

don't remember clearly but I think I took a pretty big break at some point

oct-nov 2022 I was interested enough that I made a (pretty bad) short film based on the anglerfish for a school project

think it was somewhere around this time I started getting back into it and trying to listen properly as I reached s3. I went back and relistened a lot so I could keep track of characters and plot (I used the wiki a lot which… yeah I don’t think I really realized it was supposed to be a mystery? I looked up all the fears and stuff before Gerry explained them cause I wanted to understand what was happening. Patience is not my strong suit)

I listened to the s3 finale on a plane in february 2023. (don't think I’d interacted with the fandom, but I’d spoiled tim's death while reading the wiki I think. I didn’t technically know when or how he died, just that he would be dead by the end of the season but with the way things were going I was not surprised)

summer 2023 is when it became a hyperfixsation. I was listening to s4 and I was starting to check in on the fandom, trying (and failing) to avoid spoilers. I started reading fanfiction from the earlier seasons as well

started s5 in september 2023. took a break between s4 and 5 cause I was really dreading it ending. and I took a while to listen through s5 too

when I heard about protocol I realized I needed to finish s5 before it came out. didn't quite manage it. finished s5 after a couple protocol episodes had dropped. so around jan-feb 2024

then I started listening to protocol after ep 10 was out (I needed a break to process s5)

anyway thats it. think it's so fun when people say they binged all of tma in like a few weeks. when I took three years... makes me realize I’m pretty new to the fandom even though it feels like I’ve been here forever. I’m really glad I get to experience protocol live now.