#tma episode 8

[aru-art]

sourdough rolls with homemade lemon curd what the absolute fuck man

[anydaynowany]

?????

[neo--queen--serenity]

TMAGP 8: A Summary

[feymarche]

tmagp 8 my beloved

[starrodent]

i haven’t recovered

[iwikpines]

gerry keay... my beloved...

[gl00my-vampire]

Right so here’s how doorkey can still win guys

[pillowspace]

We're so back

Edit: I made this post before finishing the episode, so I find it interesting to note that these episodes also share the parallel of... a certain someone

[sandwichedbread]

Jonathan the sims 3 reviewing the photos of (not)Sasha and her definitely very real boyfriend.

[bardic-irritation]

when I saw spoilers for tmagp 8 they were all along the lines of "Gerry and Gertrude are happy, and also there's some sUbTLe hIntS that all is not as it seems 🤔"

"not as it seems" my ASS it took about 15 seconds for me to decide gerry'd been lobotomized in this universe. it's like 5am and these people presumably showed up at your door with no explanation, and you asked NO questions before inviting them in!? wdym you "barely remember" what happened to you at the institute? how young could he even have been if the institute incident happened about 20 years ago, old enough to remember way more than that surely? the glitch/scratch when gertrude said she didn't think he could help them? is that indicative of someone using entity related powers like it was in tma or does it just mean she's lying? this is so funny to me it wasn't even subtle at all everyone just decided it was more fun to live in denial ig. I mean yeah, for sure. damn.

[jonathan-sins]

Me starting TMA: wow this is cool, but I’ve heard it takes a bit to get to the plot, so there’s no need to rush

My brain: Every Second Of Spare Time Is Going To Be Spent Listening To This Podcast And This Podcast Only

Me starting tmagp: wow I’ve been looking forward to this for MONTHS I can’t fucking WAIT to listen to the new episodes every Thursday!

My brain: You will do NO SUCH THING >:(

[some-zer0]

TMAGP 8 reminds me a lot of that one TMA episode with the fun house mirror that led to the starving dimension, although in that episode the starving people felt like other trapped victims and in this episode they felt more like manifestations of the space's hunger

[microclown]

Also, I don’t agree with Martin in his belief that a person shouldn’t exist if their existence is dependent on the suffering of others (I mean, in the real world, who’s comfortable existence is not at least somewhat dependent on the suffering/exploitation of others?) But I do respect him for extending that philosophy to himself once he realized it included him. Especially since he’s shown time and again how strongly he holds that conviction.

It’s interesting that at this point, aside from Callum (a kid) and possibly Helen (I’m not at the episode with her domain yet so I imagine I’ll find out soon) Jon is his one exception.

He’s known for a while that Jon’s continued existence may be dependent on the suffering of others, even before the apocalypse. In 154, he questioned if Jon would be able to survive blinding himself/severing himself from the eye, and in MAG 181, he raises this concern again.

And based on Jon’s description of what happened to John Amherst, it doesn’t seem like this is a “suffer through withdrawal and eventually you’ll recover” situation.

(I mean he was incased in concrete, something a regular human wouldn’t have been able to survive, so I guess we don’t know what would’ve happened if he’d been breathing oxygen, eating three meals a day and voluntarily abstaining from fear… but it wouldn’t exactly be safe or easy for them to experiment and find out)

Despite this, Martin isn’t sure if he’d be able to kill Jon. I’m sure he’s trying to convince himself that theres a chance both the world and Jon could go back to how they were before the fears, but I think in his heart he knows Jon is unlikely to survive without the eye.

The idea that Martin would ask Jon to kill him if the apocalypse can’t be reversed is also very interesting because Martin knows it wouldn’t help. It wouldn’t ease anyone’s suffering but his own. His victims would still be trapped. If anything, he’d cause more suffering by leaving Jon alone. And it doesn’t sound like he would ask for Jon to kill himself afterwards. Death as an escape is a privilege most in this world do not have access to - Salesa refers to it as “the greatest blessing” his camera gave him. At that point, Martin choosing to die wouldn’t be about making things better, or even about enacting some sort of justice, it would be solely about escaping his own guilt.

And yes, I have seen some spoilers for the end, so I know a lot of this will likely come up in a big way in the finale. I know almost no details though, and I’m still very interested to see how and why we get there….

[several-ravens]

i can confirm that i do not like jonathan sims because everytime he talks he has a very condescending voice, and he can't stop talking about martin (who seems like the sweetest guy ever) like he's an idiot and also gertrude was an idiot and also no one at the institute know how to do their damn job

athough i feel like it's completely intentional, so he's still technically not on the hate list, but he's not on the love list either

[lavender-wiitch]

going absolutely FERAL over TMAGP episode 8.

you know what the lonely architecture theme did remind me of? peter lukas’ ritual attempt. if anyone were a fan of brutalist and liminal spaces it would be him, precisely because of these effects, and i had thought about that while he was describing it (not saying any of EP 8 is his doing — i highly doubt it — just that this episode filled a hole in my heart where a statement regarding ritual should be, i really wanted to have seen that concept being developed). martin/norris narrating this statement and following through with the pattern of loss and loneliness around his cases is also on point.

but you know who is NOT feeling debilitatingly lonely this time around? GERRY MY BOY I MISSED YOU. him being happy means everything to me. it’s sad that sam and celia reached a dead end with him but honestly if gerry not knowing about his experiences is what makes him happy then that’s what i wish for him. knowing stuff usually inherently dooms everyone in this universe and he’s had enough already.

gertrude though? she could be hiding something. even if she’s just a peaceful old lady in this universe she has this vibe about her and i absolutely adore her for it.

[ego-sum-ex-altiora]

guys. this is my formal apology for actively rejecting the notion of the computers being john and martin. I have realised my mistake.

I know Jonny will write it well, but I could write a whole essay (in fact, i nearly did) on how the ending of tma was a perfect demonstration of the inexplicable nature of the show