#the main arc of TMA is amazing and it makes the show what it is

[hezekiahwakely]

Started thinking about the Distortion's arc again. Dozens dead hundreds trapped in endless spiralling hallways for the rest of eternity.

[equalseleventhirds]

hi! feel free to ignore this, but i love your posts about annabelle and the major problems/missed opportunities about her in canon, which i COMPLETELY agree with and i’ll often change things in my au fics, but i was wondering if u had any advice for writing her character respectfully in canon compliant works?

ok so i'm only recently home from work and currently eating dinner, so my thoughts are (vague noises), but

i think there's like, two main elements to treating annabelle with respect when writing her: her canon characterization and her identity as a black woman. and while i can talk abt her canon characterization & my reading of her forever, i'm not rly qualified to give in-depth advice on writing a black woman beyond 'do research' and also like, 'don't do these clearly fucked up things'? (i can like, tell u some stuff abt researching to write poc tho, that's... in there. this thing got rly long.) anyway.

first & easiest is writing her with proper consideration given to her canon characterization (prior to the uhhhh end bit that rly reduced her down to someone much simpler than previously established). so often people make annabelle purely villainous, or basically just a mouthpiece for the web with no wishes of her own, or focus on what she can do for/to jon and/or martin (wrt either helping or hurting them this is kinda shitty tbh. like, making her interact with them? yeah! making her entirely story revolve around them and their wants/needs/feelings/story? come on). she's so much more than that!! she is complex!!! she is her own person!!!!!

pay attention to her story arc! her parallels to jon! the bits of personality that we hear! look at the fact that she was terrified of spiders for most of her life (and perhaps still is, even though she now must serve the web). consider her musings on free will, and her wondering if she herself even has any. think about how awful the experiment that made her an avatar must have been, how her unwilling transformation was brought upon her by unethical authority figures using her greatest fear. look at how her childhood may have influenced her, how she may crave attention or feel like she needs to be self-sufficient or resent people who shirk their responsibilities. also she canonically enjoys reading and wants to make television, she is an Artist and also rly smart, write her like that.

also like... ok listen....... supposedly she's amazing at manipulation; use that! i know s5 did a lot of.... not that, but as a child she bit herself to get her sister in trouble! let her play fucking five dimensional chess!! fuck mind control, fuck 'everyone knows she always lies', give her manipulation some gotdamn complexity. or, if you're choosing not to do that, make a reason? like, is she actively trying to change and be more honest? does she feel like it's not worth putting in the effort for what the web wants, when the web does have mind control at its disposal?

the second part of writing annabelle respectfully has to do with her identity as a black woman. i'm not black. i am not qualified to tell you exactly what you should and shouldn't do when writing a black woman (and also no group is a monolith you're gonna have conflicting opinions etc etc).

i am a poc and i spend a lot of time thinking about race in media, and my go-to advice is always to do research. for annabelle, look for experiences and things written by black people, especially black women, especially living in britain (bcos society & politics & things vary in different places). learn history; there's specific history that you should look at, especially when writing horror or about specific topics. for example, there's really awful history wrt black people being unethically experimented on by the medical industry (which canon does not address even tho that's literally annabelle's backstory). there's also, let's face it, a lot about police and police brutality in this show, both with police as major characters and with police/police investigations used to advance plot, and annabelle is a black woman. i've seen fics use police (daisy and basira, or cops in general) as threats against her, and somehow present that as a good thing bcos 'well she's evil'??? i.... listen i'm not black but i know that's fucked up to write.

additionally, and tbh broadly applicable to writing any poc, learn about offensive racial stereotypes and tropes. you have to know about them in order to avoid them. you have to learn why those stereotypes and tropes are racist and offensive, so you can understand what about them is bad and how to avoid them. and tbh, there are awful racist stereotypes in every direction, so you can't just do the opposite of one stereotype you found, or you may wind up falling into another one. imo one of the best ways to do this is to like....... make a fully fleshed-out character who doesn't become a one-dimensional stereotype?

and this was rly just a very longwinded way of saying 'pay attention to canon and do careful research' but yeah, pay attention to canon and do careful research (and be ready to abandon canon when some of those uhhhh racism issues in tma come up? or when earlier characterization is flattened in order to serve someone else's storyline, etc.)

[bubonickitten]

so ive been thinking of listening to tma for a while now but im a very anxious person. did it trigger your anxiety a lot? ive checked out the content warning list and i already know ill need to skip a few at least

TMA has definitely triggered anxiety for me at times, mostly on my first listen-through and with regard to topics that already make me anxious, but it didn’t trigger any panic attacks or anything, personally. But that’s just me. It totally depends on your own needs and triggers (as well as your general familiarity with horror as a genre). I think it helped that I binged it, so I wasn’t left hanging for a week on an emotionally-charged cliffhanger -- but now that I’m caught up, I do have to wait a week between episodes like everyone else, so it can be a bit more anxiety-inducing, lol.

Most of my anxiety was that sort of low-level, generalized, creeping dread that comes with the horror genre -- but I also tend to get really nervous even when I’m reading/watching/listening to/playing/whatever various other genres. (Especially when a character I love or identify with is in trouble and it isn’t immediately clear whether they’ll make it out alive, lmao.) Horror just tends to bring out a different kind of anxiety, and I like that sense of dread (well, depending on the subgenre of horror we’re talking about; there are some I don’t vibe with as much). But I definitely have to be careful with how it plays with my anxiety symptoms. 

(Putting the rest below a cut bc this got long.)

Almost all the episodes have a unique framing in that they’re comprised of a statement (basically a short story embedded within the overall metaplot, usually events that happened in the past), narrated by a single character (usually Jon, but not always), followed up by metaplot stuff. The season finales are an exception, usually they’re all metaplot happenings with a lot of action and multiple voice actors throughout. So, if you wanted to, you could follow the metaplot and not listen to the statements, or vice versa. (If you do that, I’d still recommend reading summaries of the statements, because even though they work really well as standalone short stories, they’re all connected to the metaplot in one way or another, even if it doesn’t seem like it at first, and there are recurring characters that show up in them frequently.)

The statements themselves usually don’t make me super anxious, probably because they’ve all happened in the past and I don’t have to worry about the main characters being in active danger. Most of my anxiety comes in when it’s current plot stuff happening with the main cast of characters. But, the statements are where you’re most likely to find specific triggers bc a lot of them deal with common phobias (spiders, trypophobia, claustrophobia, agoraphobia, decay, being watched, etc.) and other potentially triggering content (compulsions, paranoia, unreality, gore, body horror, police violence, etc.), as well as commentary on xenophobia, racism, and other -isms and real-world social issues (portrayed critically and not condoned in the slightest, but still present). The writing is so evocative and descriptive that even if I don’t have a specific phobia, it still brings out that sense of dread for me. (I also tend to have trouble with conflict between characters and there’s a lot of that, so be careful if characters being mean to each other puts you in a bad headspace.) 

In case you haven’t already seen it, there’s a Google doc with spoiler-free content warnings for each episode here; the unofficial transcript site has content warnings at the top of each episode page; and for episodes you know you’ll have to skip, if you still want to keep up with the metaplot, the Wiki is good for summaries, and each episode page is split into segments (statement/supplemental/etc.)

I’d keep in mind, too, that Jonny Sims has been clear that it’s a horror-tragedy. It won’t have a happy ending. That’s something I have to prepare myself for, as someone who gets very emotionally attached to characters. So far there have been a few deaths of beloved characters, and I’m 100% sure that this season is going to have some hard-hitting major character deaths. But one of the nice things about it is that Jonny Sims is good at treating his characters with compassion, even when he puts them through some serious grief and suffering. It doesn’t strike me as just another “kill your darlings” mentality, or throwing characters away without wrapping up their personal arcs just to make a cheap point. 

I personally like dark fiction that has a hopeful ending, if not a happy one, and Jonny Sims is definitely including humanity and hope and love even in recent episodes, but the ending is... probably going to be more tragic than hopeful. That’s a creative direction he’s intended from before the first episode of the podcast was even recorded, and he’s been up front about it and I trust him to execute it well because so far his storytelling and character development have been stunning, so I just have to do my best to prepare myself for any anxiety and grief I might experience as the series’ ending draws near, haha. (Nice thing is, this fandom has a lot of nice fanfic, so even if canon is rough, I have some outlets.) 

I’m rambling, so: TL;DR, yes, depending on what specifically triggers your anxiety, this podcast might be a rough listen at times. I find it worth it, because the story is really good (and again, I tend to get anxious even outside of the horror genre), and Jonny Sims is an amazing writer, and the podcast is brilliantly voice acted and soundscaped -- but definitely be careful and mind the content warnings. The current season (which will be the final season) is particularly rough because even though it’s still supernatural horror, it also deals with a lot of very real-world horrors. I mean, the whole podcast does in some ways -- there’s a lot of pointed and brilliantly written social commentary -- but the current season is especially raw, especially considering current events. 

If you have any specific triggers or content you’re worried about -- because the content warning guide is great but vague since it’s spoiler-free -- feel free to message me again (anon or otherwise) and I can go into detail about the specifics (depending on what level of spoilers you’re comfortable with).