#tma episode 171

[anodyne-audio-dramas]

the whole flesh garden episode of tma hit me very deeply as someone who's trans, has struggled with an ed, and has chronic illness, but the one line in that whole episode that made me stop in my tracks? the one that made my heart freeze and my eyes widen for a second because they were words that, in one form or another, i had repeated in my head over and over and over, words i had used to make myself smaller, make myself quieter, make myself less noticeable and less annoying and more palatable to others? the line that even now in the months after hearing it repeats in my head in jonathan sims's voice and makes me go cold all over?

to be wanted, you must be less.

[a-mag-a-day]

Literally such a transgender concept

d-diversity... w-win?

[xelidonia]

Straining fennel (Maratho adynaton) is excellent both as a garden flower and in bouquets. Don't hesitate to harvest the cut flowers-- they will come back again and again, as the plant sends up stalk after bony stalk in a desperate attempt to escape its bulb.

@a-mag-a-day

[shoggoth-the-bitch]

The Gardener

Okay, I got food and am ready watch. Let's do this.

Well, I don't love those sounds...

Ah, so the Flesh I'm guessing...

Jon, I know that on some level you can't help it but you can at least try to lie to the man. Martin doesn't need to know you find whatever these things are beautiful...

Oh lord, is that Jared?

"It's like you were trying to grow ugly." RUDE!

Gross...

Dude, Jared tried to be homophobic and simply was not prepared for a "yes, actually this is my boyfriend," sort of answer.

You know, Jared really could have done some good with the powers he had. I know that's not really how the fears are supposed to work but the world is full of people who need and want something change about their bodies. In a different kinda story Jared could have been a decent guy...

Damn, wait, is he actually gonna just give up without a fight? He wants to make a statement? Oh, wants to learn about the Flesh.

Ew? Oh, Martin almost certainly does not want to hear this... oh, this is all awful!

Interesting, so the Flesh also counts towards things like self loathing of the body? I imagine body dysphoria could feed into something like this and that's very sad to think about.

God, this whole place must smell terrible.

This is so sad, actually! Is this really the info Jared wanted? Like, is he into this?

You know, the Flesh was one of those fears that I didn't think would really effect me all that much but... yeah, okay, I get it now. It's not the first fear that would get me but it's not low on the list either.

Boy, I sure do wish Jared would stop popping a squishing in the background...

I should not have gotten food before doing this, I feel like it's not gonna stay down very long...

I dislike the Mortal Garden.

"It is the worst place to have ever been beautiful and it should not exist." That is such a good line. I feel like a don't praise the writing of this series enough but it really is so good.

Jon, you may be becoming too comfortable in this world...

Oh hon, no. Killing these people doesn't change anything, that was actually pretty obvious for a minute now. The terrors don't stop just because you killed one of their workers. I'm pretty sure this is strictly for Jon's own satisfaction at this point.

[martinblackwoodhater]

171 - The Gardener.

This was actually the first TMA episode I ever listened to and I just fell in love with Jared omg my king, also Patricia's statement like ruined me I can still recite the whole episode word for word 🤧

(Close up of Jared under the cut)

omg look at his little snout and his little teeth he's everything to me look at his hooves omg 💞💞💞

anyone PLEASE send Jared or rlly any art request <3

[podcast-official]

tma episodes that personally fucked me up on a deep and irreparable level: (* indicates one that impacted me deeply that i'll probably do an individual post about later)

mag 15- lost john's cave

mag 24- strange music

mag 74- fatigue

mag 84- possessive

mag 122- zombie*

mag 126- sculptor's tool

mag 134- time of revelation*

mag 144- decrypted*

mag 149- concrete jungle

mag 150- cul-de-sac

mag 156- reflection*

mag 157- rotten core

mag 162- the sick village

mag 171- the gardener

mag 172- strung out

mag 177- wonderland*

mag 178- the processing line

mag 182- wellbeing*

mag 185- locked in

[kat-and-their-cats]

TMA Favourite Episode Polls

Poll challenge to work out the favourite episode from each season and finally the overall show, episodes will be separated into groups of 10 chronologically, the winner from each of these polls will then be put into a season poll, then the winner from each of those will be put into a favourite overall episode poll. Everyday a new poll will be released and be open for one week, after all of the episode polls, then the season polls until the final for favourite episode.

Final Poll : MAG 34: Anatomy Class

SEASON 1 : MAG 34: Anatomy Class

1-10 : MAG 2: Do Not Open

11-20 : MAG 15: Lost Johns' Cave

21-30 : MAG 26: A Distortion

31-40 : MAG 34: Anatomy Class

SEASON 2: MAG 65: Binary

41-50 : MAG 42: Grifter's Bone

51-60 : MAG 57: Personal Space

61-70 : MAG 65: Binary

71-80 : MAG 80: The Librarian

SEASON 3 : MAG 111: Family Business

81-90 : MAG 81: A Guest for Mr. Spider

91-100 : MAG 97: We All Ignore The Pit

101-110 : MAG 101: Another Twist

111-120 : MAG 111: Family Business

SEASON 4 : MAG 160: The Eye Opens

121-130 : MAG 126: Sculptor's Tools

131-140 : MAG 132: Entombed

141-150 : MAG 150: Cul-De-Sac

151-160 : MAG 160: The Eye Opens

SEASON 5 : MAG 177: Wonderland

161-170 : MAG 164: The Sick Village/MAG 168: Roots

171-180 : MAG 177: Wonderland

181-190 : MAG 187: Checking Out

191-200 : MAG 200: Last Words

[void-lingerer]

Gristlebloom Orchid | SPOILERS FOR TMA SEASON 5

The concept of the Gristlebloom Orchid and the experpt for the care guide (taken from the transcript of episode 171 The Gardener) belong to Rusty Quill

More about the piece under the read more

So, the assignment was to make a design meant to be printed on a shirt, and ofc I decided to illustrate the most complicated design I possibly could on the project with the shortest deadline.

I do plan to at least make some plant guide concepts for the other 'flowers' of the mortal garden, making a complete series of it. I just think it's really neat and the mortal garden is so underrated. It was one of my favorite episodes.

I will probably make myself a shirt with this design at some point because it's too cool not to, but idk if I'll do anything more. Mayhaps I'll finally have the courage to pitch this as a proper merch idea to Rusty Quill if I get over my idolization of them TvT"

[autistic-archivist]

***TMA SEASON 5 SPOILERS***

(Also TW for things alluded to in the episode)

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Just finished episode 171, “The Gardener.” Holy fuck…TMA never fails to blow me away but this episode evoked a viscerally emotional reaction in me. I’ve dealt with eating disorders, self-harm, body dysmorphia, and chronic pain my entire goddamn life, so it’s no surprise this episode hit way too close to home. That bottomless pit of self-loathing, that hopelessness of being trapped in a body you hate as it’s betraying you…i only wish that on my worst enemy. And the way ep 171 written, talking about all these things (and more) and that violent fear of never being perfect in such a beautiful, eloquent way…fuck. I don’t even know where I’m going with this but I had to talk about it somehow. Don’t get me wrong, this episode is an absolute masterpiece, but it’s the first one that made me cry. I think I’m gonna have to take a glance at the content warnings from now on.

I’m gonna take a few deep breaths and carry on. I can’t get enough of the Magnus Archives and I’m sad it’s already almost over.

[emeraldotter]

It's really interesting seeing your opinions on TMA on top of the art and I'd actually love if you shared more! I'm like, the exact opposite about S5, no longer needing grounding made the individual episode stories hit less for me and I loved the metanarrative if only for how much more it moved compared to earlier ones. Getting more perspectives on it, having to think on it more, would definitely make it easier on my next relisten.

I'll be placing most of this under a cut, since I have a lot of opinions on S5 and I will be sharing major spoilers for the entire series. TLDR; I like the dreamlike quality of the stories, I like the more controversial subject matters, and I have a personal preference for the prose style(s) in S5. On the flip side, I don't like some of the choices in the overarching plot. Yes, I'm unfortunately That Fan.

I'll start by saying: I like season 5, overall. I think the ending is very impactful and some of the emotional beats really moved me. As someone who started TMA for the short stories (and went in totally blind), I approach each episode with that mindset, at least in part. Someone who prefers the metanarrative will probably have very different opinions.

The stories in S5 felt like stories that the writer had been saving to tell. Not all of them are 10/10s, but they felt more personally affective because their horror elements were more extreme while also referring more explicitly to lived experiences. I didn't need plot connections to them because I felt personal connections to a lot of them. It would take me longer to list the stories I like than the stories I don't. Part of that is purely personal preference, of course; I enjoy surreal visuals and belletristic writing.

Admittedly, I found some stories got a bit too on-the-nose, but I appreciated that the writer dared to depict more controversial topics. The stories felt sincere. I love horror because it’s a great vehicle for exploring painful (and often "inappropriate") subjects. I always felt like TMA shied away from some of the darker themes over the course of the series, so I enjoyed seeing the writer tackle issues that were only really alluded to in the earlier stories. 171 The Gardener, for instance, is way more effective than 090 Bodybuilder, which did not go far enough to be genuinely scary or emotionally impactful (to me.) The same could be said for many of the stories in S5, in my opinion.

I love the dreamlike quality of a lot of them, as well. The prose doesn't need to be tied down by a witness narrative structure anymore, which allows the stories to possess more creative framing. They're surreal and sometimes unnerving, as a result. The way that Jon and Martin drift through the ruined world contributes to that, in my opinion. It feels very Virgil-leading-Dante to me. We have these nebulous, strange environments, then we are plunged into stories that range from absurd settings (166 The Worms) to frighteningly mundane (188 Centre of Attention), which, no matter how weird they may get, hinge on very real human fears and tragedies. The first part of the season feels like a long nightmare to me, for that reason.

Then S5 keeps going and the metanarrative gains prominence and… Well, I just don't like the direction the plot takes. Most of my issues are with the themes and character direction, but I also didn’t like the pacing closer to the finale. I spent the whole Georgie/Melanie cult arc waiting around for the show to end. It didn’t add anything for me.

I acknowledge that my favorite characters in TMA are Elias and Tim, so that definitely affects my perception of S5. (And I was a Web Martin truther so... Yeah.) I also felt very strongly about some of the morally ambiguous questions that built up over the course of TMA. Characters like The Distortion and Elias offer interesting alternatives to what I believe are common moral opinions on violence, self-preservation, autonomy, and identity. These are all important topics to me, personally, and I enjoyed seeing what all of these issues mean for someone like Jon, who has again and again made his choices, but has made them under terrible circumstances without full knowledge of the consequences. Coming from S4's amazing finale, which made Elias's character even more ambiguous, I was curious what other points the story would raise about these themes.

And then S5 happens. The season where The Web comes in with the steel chair, most OP player on the server, and the story starts to feel a bit ridiculous. (And I like The Web!) It left me feeling like...okay. None of this mattered, then. I was very dissatisfied by the moral issues the story emphasized as well as the moral issues it de-emphasized. And the ending was just the cherry on the top of the never-ending Jon suffering cake. No one is sympathetic to him by the end, not even Martin or Georgie, and the narrative feels uncritical of this. It's genuinely hard for me not to feel like the story hates Jon.

(I'm a bit bitter. But I'm also an Elias apologist. My opinions are, as a result, insane.)

That all being said, I actually like the ending. I think all the actors brought their A games to the conclusion. I hate how Jon's decision is depicted, but I like how painful Martin's betrayal is. I like Jon's speech about the history and nature of fear. I like Martin and Jon's final moments. I felt like the actors had fantastic romantic chemistry there. (Not sure what that says about the story or me.) I enjoyed the ambiguity of their fate at the end because, to me, that serves as part of the tragedy. Jon didn't want to become "another mystery" and that's exactly what happened. (Well, I mean. He's dead. Right? He's so dead.)

I understand why people like the S5 narrative. I personally found it somewhat dissatisfying, because I think it could have been something else. But it's not my story and that is okay.

(This response originally had an additional 3,000-word-long whiny fanboy screed about most of my problems with S5, including separate Martin and Elias rants, but I possessed the moral fiber to cut it. You're welcome.)

I'm very normal about fiction.

[a-mag-a-day]

I’m gonna be honest, when Jared teases Jon about his ‘boyfriend’ I was so used to like… zero homophobia in this series… that I was convinced that Jared meant that to make him feel awkward with a friend/travel buddy … vs… an insult. Idk, it felt right to me that Jared would toss a comment as weak as that and it just fall flat. I’m not sure what’s the most cannon, but for i moment there I was so caught up in the despair of the end of the world I forgot homophobia existed

Oh god same. I forgot that Jared was a bully and that it was meant to be an insult.

[ramenwithbroccoli]

Hi there!! Saw that you likes The Magnus Archives!!

Which episode/statement is your favorite? C:

oh man, this got me thinking!

my favourite one would probably me MAG 74 "Fatigue". i love the way the dreams (or rather hallucinations) bleed out into reality until nothing is recognisable anymore. the narration is excellent here, scenes cut short, replaced by another ones, the world twisting in on itself. it really hammers that sense of losing yourself into you. i think that'd be the episode i would pick for someone who's not a fan of tma. it also encouraged me to experiment with different styles when writing :]

i also really enjoyed MAG "That Face at the Window", a standalone story posted after the main series already ended. i'm not really sure why it captivated me so much, but my mind revisits it all the time. also who put Jurgen Leitner voice in my lesbian horror story????

some honorable mentions (because it's extremely hard to pick just one episode out of 200+!)

MAG 19 ("Confession I") and 20 ("Desecrated Host II"), for it's captivating storyline and that poor priest who got beaten up by every entity all of sudden

MAG 45 - "Bloodbag", for making me think too much about mosquitoes and experiments

MAG 93 - "Contaminant", for being the one that really disturbed me

MAG 123 - "Web Development", for an interesting premise and always lingering somewhere in my mind

MAG 166 ("The Worms") , 171 ("The Gardener") and 195 ("Adrift") for describing the hellscapes so vividly they're still alive in my memory, even though i listened to them only once (haven't gotten to them yet on my re-listen)

[loverboybrightsideghost]

Top 5 podcasts (or podcast episodes if thats not too hard?)

oooh....okay top 5 podcast episodes

Wooden Overcoats S2E8 There Ought To Be Clowns

i mean what can i say. this episode changed my life. it means so much to me. antigone realizing that even her hero feels inadequate, even despite having inspired antigone so, trying to prove herself and almost killing herself in the process. chapman helping the funns even though they fucked up another funeral, because he knows how much it means to antigone. i love this episode and i love this podcast so much. (truly im fighting for my life not to make every episode on this list be from wooden overcoats...)

RQG 171 The Bow Bar

i remember exactly when i listened to this episode and it was one of the best times of my life not only bc i was travelling when i heard it but bc i just got caught in a very specific vibe that day and ive been chasing that feeling ever since. mother mother's inside came out around that time so now i have a permanent connection between this episode and the song two.

Welcome to Night Vale- Pilot

i was screaming at my friends for weeks if not longer about cecil being gay from the first episode. it was awesome. also i will never forget hearing the absolutely ICONIC "dogs are not allowed in the dog park. people are not allowed in the dog park." etc and having my WHAT THE FUCK AM I LISTENING TO??? moment <3 good times good times. wish i could wipe my brain and do it all over again for the first time

Wolf 359 Episode 46 Bolero

i literally stopped listening to wolf 359 for at least a year because of this episode. i NUH-UH-ed my way out of there so motherfucking fast it was insane. i will not spoil in case anyone hasn't listened to it and wants to but uh.....god fucking damn. (bonus episode: change of mind, the episode right after bolero. guh.)

and last but not least...

MAG 1 Angler Fish

who would i be without having listened to this. i genuinely have no idea. i haven't listened to tma in a while but i literally measure my life in before tma and after tma. there is no going back.

[bifrosted-flakes]

I’m listening to wtnv very slowly (I started like a year and a half ago and am only on ep 171 as opposed to when I listened to all of TMA in a week) and god is it stressful to hear shit about what’s going on in the most recent episodes who tf is Janet???

[dailymagpod]

The bottom 2 will be eliminated.