#south asian jon sims

[dspd]

There's something so satisfying about the idea of short, south asian king Jonathon Sims. By which I mean he looks like he should be a background character in a Bollywood movie, working in a Sri Lankan call center while the main character is running out of work to meet her two decades older prince charming who just happens to have a blooming business in California and whisks her away to a 3,000 sq. ft house in the hills. Meanwhile background character Jon is somehow tangled up in computer cords and panicking as his flailing pulls all the server cords out of their sockets and the 2nd love interest's 3 hour wait time just jumped to 15 and he sobs and smashes his flip phone again the table as the music swells and the end credits start up.

[cult-of-the-eye]

All these brown Jonathan Sims I'm seeing and every so often I'm presented with one that looks very close to my dad...

[fox-guardian]

[ID: A digital drawing of Jonathan Sims from The Magnus Archives ad Samama Khalid from The Magnus Protocol. It is just their heads. Jon is an Arab man with scarred brown skin and long, curly black hair with gray streaks and a mustache and beard, and Sam is a South Asian man with brown skin, short curly black hair, and a mustache and small goatee. Both have brown eyes that have been drawn as very huge and sparkly. They are giving pleading "puppy dog eyes" expressions. The background is a pattern of sad green and red cat and dog faces, and there is a gold and green "VS" between their heads. end ID]

~~~~

i present to you all

The Puppy Dog Eyes Showdown

the ultimate battle between our current most sopping wet eye guys among these two podcasts. i beseech thee to cast thy vote in favor of whomever has the most convincing, most unbearable, most Powerful pleading puppy dog eyes out of the two of them.

NOT NECESSARILY FOR THESE DESIGNS ofc, the pic is just there for vibes. please, look into your heart of hearts, what do you believe?

[notsosmallbean]

the only thing more tiring than doing drawing challenges is posting the results. I'll start trickling the buildup onto tumblr now. also I'm so peeved because I SPECIFICALLY chose a tma prompt list like "I'll want to work on this because this is my current hyperfixation!" and then on like October second It’s Always Sunny snuck into the archive and kidnapped my brain. so once again I'm dragging myself across glass shards to want to do this

I still very much like the ideas here, though I hate the results. Jon was also a bit taken by the lonely in season 4, and I could see him being an avatar for it. and of course the only natural progression was to allow Martin the smiting power he so deserved

(image ids in alt text and under cut)

[First image: A sheet with two monochrome drawings. The first is of Jonathan Sims and the second is of Martin Blackwood. Jon is a thin South-Asian with dark skin and dark curly hair that billows out into mist, dressed in a button up and tie. His glasses are fogged up and you cannot see his eyes. This drawing is labeled "Lonely Jon AU". An arrow from this drawing to the second reads "And a roleswap!" Martin is depicted as a fat white man with curly hair blowing in the wind, wearing a hoodie. His eyes are entirely black and he holds up a hand, harnessing some power. Behind him are many simplified glowing eyes.

Second image: A list of Magnus Archives themed drawing prompt list for all the days of October. Day three is "AU/Canon Divergence" and day four is "Roleswap".

End image IDs.]

[cashew-cow]

@tmaappreciationweek day three, with the prompt ‘au’. they’re ghost-hunters and best friends (they hate each other), you honor.

[Image ID: a drawing of melanie king and jon sims from the magnus archives. melanie is a short, east asian woman with black hair dyed bright red at the tips, upon which rests a pair of sunglasses. she is frowning at her small, handheld camera, and resting one hand on the top of jon’s head. she is wearing a leather jacket with spikes on the shoulders and a knife, coffin, and star pin on the lapel. she has two patches: a trans lesbian patch and one that says ‘fuck terfs’ in trans colors. she is wearing a spiked collar and a necklace with the lesbian symbol. her shirt is dark green with ghosts on it, and she is wearing an assortment of rings and bracelets. she has a pleated red skirt over a pair of fishnets and black boots with yellow and purple laces. she has two arrows pointing at her that label her as ‘the Face’, and ‘actual ghost-hunter’. jon is sitting beside her, a notepad in one hand and a pen in the other. he is a thin, south asian man with long graying hair, glasses attached to a chain, and a turquoise button-up shirt. he has two lapel pins in the shape of eyes with a thin band between them. he is wearing a long black and blue striped skirt and calf-length socks with ghosts printed on them. he has green converse shoes on which he has put a trans pride flag. he is wearing an asexual ring and looking at his notepad. he has two arrows pointing at him that label him as ‘(skeptic) empath�� and ‘editor’. the background is of a repeated pattern of ghosts, and on it is written ‘the archives, ghost-hunters extraordinaire’. below them is written their names. End ID]

[stardustfanfare]

this fuckin guy

ID: a drawing of jon sims from the magnus archives. he is drawn from the chest up and depicted as a south asian man with short wavy hair half tied up in a small ponytail at the back of his head. he is wearing a t shirt and cardigan and he has rectangular glasses on. end ID

[harold-smith]

the cast of the magnus protocol is more diverse, which suggests that the creators understand the fans want to hear the voices of people of color. no idea if they've added anyone to the writing and editing teams to back this up. i suspect that the casting of Shahan Hamza in the central role is directly in response to the dominant fanart depiction of jon sims the archivist as a man of south asian descent

Sims did issue an apology over the character of tom haan, but it's still hard to belive no one thought to pull the plug on that idea before it released. i can't find the apology itself, just references to one existing, though i think it came up in one of the q&a episodes

i think that the extremely diverse accepted ‘canon’ fan designs for the magnus archives make people think the podcast was better about diversity than it was theres no indication the archives staff isn’t largely white that’s just popular fanon. wasn’t the main canon chinese guy a flesh avatar running a scummy mystery meat takeaway shop. do you think we should maybe unpack that

[tmaandsp]

shout out to ppl who depict jon as south asian. my gender euphoria fucking skyrocketed after i got into tma

[welcometogrouchland]

i am once again requesting jon in a sari on any tma art request post (if you would like to do it ofc 💜)

*rings my little service bell at the food counter* one handsome fella for table 5?

[image ID: a digital drawing of Jonathan sims from the Magnus archives. He is a thin brown skinned man with black greying hair that is fluffy and reaches almost to his shoulders. He has facial hair, pockmark scars on his face and arms, a burn scar on his hand, and stab wound scar on his abdomen. He is wearing a kandyan sari. The sari is a shiny magenta colour, and underneath he wears a yellow crop top with pink accents and trim. He is standing with his face in side profile, his right hand holding his left arm in front of his stomach. The background is a pink square on a peach background. End Image ID]

[trashbatistrash]

Old doodles of jon sims tma

(I haven’t actually caught up with everything yet)

[abrahamshipwreck]

But hey theres a trans character and an Indian character so we are 'Allies'. (Really just feel like theyre banking on people who HCd Jon Sims as South Asian despite him saying in an episode he trusted UK cops which automatically clocks him to me as white as milk)

Like I get the appeal of having 'immersion' for a podcast serial/radio play style but if every episode has key story points be muffled on top of your characters having steong accents and foley I cant imagine its easy even for people with adequate hearing.

I dont remember TMA being this bad with it? Yeah there was more plausible option for the audio to be clearer but that makes more sense to me than have a recording 30 feet away, in a bag, recording actors who drop consonants, and have background noise.

[ririprobably]

i don’t have enough energy to coherently articulate this thought but man. the tma fandom is so much less woke or progressive or whatever you want to call it than you guys think you are.

like for reference i have seen Many People say things like “oh unlike the wtnv fanbase, WE depict the main character as a poc. look at how progressive we are 🤪” and first of all.. wtnv is from an era in which the majority of the characters common on this website were white and skinny and yeah that sucks but it’s not comparable to the environment we exist in or the media we consume in 2020 (in which! btw tons of people depict cecil as a poc). white default was still a thing. it IS still a thing. it’s a system to unlearn but unlearning it doesn’t make you... better than teenagers from 2015??

but even beyond the wtnv comparison. it seems like the mentality is that tma fans are extremely socially aware, which is true to an extent, is extremely common even though there is absolutely no critical thinking put into the way fans talk about race, and y’all use that as a way to ignore the actual issues with the way poc are depicted. drawing a character with dark skin does not equal representation or social awareness. i can’t speak for every poc obviously but as someone who is south asian and middle eastern, there are times when fan depictions of jon get.. really uncomfortable. same with a lot of content i’ve seen about annabelle (especially from before 180). it’s a spectrum ranging from “this feels a little prejudiced” to “this is a microagression/this is dehumanizing/this is playing into a rhetoric that is used to justify racism” and a lot of the time i DON’T think it’s conscious. i feel like i have to clarify that i’m not saying that anyone is a raging racist because of course you’re depicting this character as a person of color out of a place of good intent. but good intent isn’t enough sometimes. if you want to depict poc in your writing/art/etc. as a white person i would advise doing research on whatever group you’re representing or just.. talking to a person from that group? slapping the label of “minority” onto a character is, at best, lazy or, at worst, genuinely harmful to that group. like i cannot urge you strongly enough to analyze a) the character you’re depicting and how their traits tie into the ethnicity/race you’e representing (race impacts identity SO much beyond just “i experienced racism”/“i didn’t experience racism” and i feel like a lot of people, myself included, forget) b) your internal biases (which are so deeply engrained. everyone struggles with internalized biases! everyone needs to unlearn them!) and c) how you represent this! cultural identity goes beyond a skin tone.

actually this applies to so much more than tma and at some point i’ll write something on racial representation and how it can be harmful in general but. going back to my original point lol. white tma fans think critically about the characters you’re depicting as poc and HOW you’re depicting them and also maybe stop being so self congratulatory <3

[cult-of-the-eye]

Fucking love basira she's so angry!!! I also love collective headcanon hijabi representation it's beautiful!!! Love poc in horror who aren't getting killed for the shock of it!!! Complex poc!!! Tragic poc!!! Happy poc!!! Queer poc!!!

[capitalistelias]

I'm only gonna say this once because I don't and shouldn't need to repeat. White people, this is about you specifically.

If you accept the popular headcanon that Jonathan Sims is south asian and then proceed to post or reblog posts that call him feral/depict him as overly messy compared to characters headcanoned as white/make him out to be more aggressive or rude than beyond what we've seen canonically, cut it out.

I shouldn't have to explain how or why that this is racist and if you don't know, search it up and learn. And if you do see this and dm/post a message here for me, talking about how Jon is shown to be angry, mistrustful or disheveled sometimes and that your posts are about that then please take a step back and realise I'm not fussed with those depictions, I'm talking specifically about him being drawn/referred to in text as being overly dirty/feral/aggressive or the like without any awareness.

Thank you.

[notsosmallbean]

been busy having a wonderful time with my life so i didn't post this or day three yet wahh. this moment really gives me the hurt/comfort at the moment :')

(image ids in alt text and under cut)

[First image: A monochrome drawing of Jonathan Sims and Martin Blackwood on lined paper. Martin is a fat white man with glasses and curly hair, wearing a hooded jacket. Jon is a thin South-Asian man with dark braided hair, wearing a collared coat. They're stood with their foreheads pressed together, both with their eyes closed. Jon's hand is on Martin's cheek. Around them is fog, and above them reads "Not anymore".

Second image: A list of Magnus Archives themed drawing prompt list for all the days of October. Day two is "Hurt/Comfort".

End image IDs.]

[cashew-cow]

@eyes-eyes-eyes-eyes-eyes-eyes dtiys (that i screenshotted so very very long ago and only just drew)

[Image ID: a digital illustration of jon sims from the magnus archives. he is a thin south asian man with graying hair that has clearly grown out past a near haircut and several round scars ob his face. he is sitting in a bathtub fully clothed in a white dress shirt, a black tie, and black pants. the shirt has become slightly transparent from the water and you can vaguely see his nipples and top surgery scars through the fabric. in one hand he is holding a lot cigarette and the other is dangling over the water with a black ring on his middle finger. he is looking into the middle distance from behind square glasses. the wall behind him is tiled and blue and the few bubbles in the water have small eyes in them. next to his head is written #eyesdtiys with a stylized eye below it. End ID]