#used to exclusively ship jmart

[thecatspasta]

You ever just realize multishipping exists and feel all your powers are unlocked

[magpod-confessions]

obviously everyone can ship what they want to but honestly it really annoys me when people exclusively ship rarepairs. It just kinda feels like they are trying wayyy too hard to be different, its ok, you can like the canon/popular ships they are popular for a reason. Especially when they are like 'I hate jmart, my favourite ship is *insert character that appeared in one episode x character that had literally nothing to do with them' or when they are a multishipper and ship literally everything except the popular or canon ships. 🗣

Eh disagree. I think ppl who do exclusively rarepairs are interesting bc they use the relationships to explore characters in ways canon never could which I enjoy a lot. I definitely see where youre coming from but personally I dont feel the same - rosette

as something who makes the craziest ships known to man . i disagree . i enjoy canonical ships but i also am a multishipper and will ship anything i find interesting . - deceit

[saym0-0]

trying again. okay.

polymechs is very much a thing i think,, basira gets called to the institute to investigate a very serious murder and stuff but also has to avoid eye contact with jon(ny) so they dont start giggling

after basira gets hired/held ransom tim starts coming in and bringing lunch for the whole archives for no reason beyond wanting to fuck with the other assistant who before this didnt know jon and basira even knew each other. maybe they do the funny bit where he pretends to cheat w jonny but its really healthy happy poly. the possibilities are endless

i think tim would take her name also (tim hussain) this is not because i dont want to figure out how to contort gunpowder into a real last name nope definitely not (it is)(also i think its funny)

also they exclusively refer to him as her wife, when asked why they say its bc tim wore the dress at the wedding and thus deserves the title. also i think basira/ashes will use she/they bc theres something uncomfortable using she/her for ashes exclusively

simply because im not in the mood for angst im gonna say ts was always a Stranger, only they didnt notice for like a week because they were sleep deprived college students and by that point they decided collectively that it was good enough company to Just Not Really Think About It. so they know its some kind of sentient wooden doll with potentially nefarious intentions but they dont really care very much?

as for the other mechs, i dont think any of them are really involved with The Spooky beyond a mark from the stranger each and probably also noticing a little more than the average person off the street

marius is in med school, and takes great glee in adding 'yet!!' after he gets not-a-doctored

ivy works in a library and is consistently mad about jonnys job as archivist ('one day, jonny. one day im going to follow you to work and get that damn archive sorted.. >:(' )

tbh i Dont Know what most of them r doing in their own lives. they show up to perform shows, torment jon(ny) in fromt of his coworkers, and have like cute romance or smth then disappear again

i think jonny and nastya are childhood friends (maybe met a couple years after the web leitner thing) but they've been calling each other siblings since before any of the others met them

with georgie i think shes monogamous but since the mechs polycule is like. open im not sure the exact terminology she dated jon(ny) in college just like. separately from the rest. shes homies w all of them though

maybe they shared a flat in college and carmilla was their landlord & neighbour that sounds really funny actually

atp im more making a regular human mechs au instead of a tma crossover but we ball im having fun

also!! with the exception of jon(ny) and basira/ashes their names & personalities are exclusively based on mechs canon, im not gonna start using actual names because that just leans a little close to rpf for me (mcyt fandom trauma 😔) and they all have mostly human first and last names anyway so im keeping them

like with the georgie bit any tma ships are also possible!! idk which ones i want to include yet (probably jmart or polychives) if any but i do think it would be funny for someone to be like 'shit! hes taken! :(' like four times with different people over the course of a few months then realising 'wait a minute.. maybe my boss doesn't go through partners like candy and is actually polyam. maybe i do have a chance!'

okay this is actually making less sense the more i write so im stopping here you get the jist

need more mechs x tma aus with mechs ships, i feel like this is an unexploited form of comedy. this is entirely because i think ashes-is-basira and ashes-and-tim-are-married are two things that can and should coexist

[radiosandrecordings]

I wrote a big long post, and I’m not quite sure what my point is and also it’s 2am so by the end it’s pretty much nonsensical but I just wanted to get some feelings out in words, it’s more of a For Me thing really but idk, someone else might feel similar so: 

Been thinking about Stuff recently and as I am want to do with every thought that rattles through my hollow little head, I’ve tried sifting it through a jmart lens. This originally came from a discussion I was having yesterday about how the fan base has changed a lot since jmart became canon, especially in terms of new people listening. But it was more in the context of it... I think there’s a tendency when people listen, specifically ones who came because they’ve seen fan art or they heard ‘omg canon gays!’ (It’s really becoming the new Night Vale and I have Thoughts on that but that’s for a separate post) to listen through the show as a means to get to them being ‘a canon couple’. 

And I suppose there’s a route I could go down here where I talk about how that’s kinda derisive to the show to treat this whole complex story as only a vehicle to get you to the concept of boys kissing, but to me it’s more like... I mean ‘fandoms’ as they are now, really do have a tendency to put an emphasis on romance as the main thing to be focused on, even in media where it isn’t found, that’s old hat. But I Don’t Like That. I mean, obviously I love romance stuff, I read as many fluffy jmart fics with 0 bearing on canon as the next person, I’ve been writing those since season 3 when we had no idea this was coming, when it was still ‘the dinghy’ to a lot of people.

But the whole kind of overview of it is reductive not just to the show but to other forms of relationships I think? Again this isn’t TMA exclusive, this is a common thing, I’m just filtering through one specific thing here. One of my favourite quotes from Jonny was from the S4 Q&A, when he was explaining why Daisy and Basira aren’t a romantic couple, which is a whole OTHER thing and people’s ignoring of his whole logic for that has made me kind of prickly against the ship now, but that’s another topic. Anyway, he says “So, with each relationship within the series there is a specific thing that I’m trying to explore. A specific dynamic that I feel is- is the core of the relationship in something that I am really interested in exploring.” And I adore seeing TMA through this lens. With each character Jon meets, trying to figure out what it is that their specific dynamic with him is supposed to convey. How the whole show is about how people interact with each other and that’s why to me when you boil Jon down to his only relationship being his romantic one is just feels off. 

Like I adore jmart, I truly do, and I get why they’re the most common. Romance is easy and fun to write about, and they’re the two main characters, they’re the ones we lock onto because we spend so much time with them. But if you sat me down and told me to make a list of my favourite dynamics in TMA, personally I would have them ranked third. I would rather talk about Jon and Georgie all day firstly, and then after that Jon and Gerry. Maybe there’s not as much to say for those two dynamics as their is for jmart due to the sheer amount of jmart interaction and content we have in canon, but I think the dynamics that are being explored there are more appealing to me personally to look at. 

Another thing is this notion that relationships only really start when they’re agreed upon to be a reciprocated romantic partnership, and I think that’s something often missed when people rush forward to get to S5 and see them act all coupley. This idea that their interactions only matter if they’re in service to a ship. I don’t think people ignore them interacting before that, but more that people have a tendency to hone in on the parts they think they can point at and go ‘See, see, that’s where he has a crush on him!’. As if their dynamic wasn’t interesting in itself before it became romantic, and only holds worth once they have feelings for each other in a romantic manner rather than simply caring about each other, or even how they might not care at the start. Like, if you are friends with someone for five years, and then get a crush on them for one year, and then start dating, you have had a relationship with this person for six years but the one year of your feelings being romantic doesn’t change the five years to be un-platonic, you were just friends then even if feelings came later. 

Side note -  Obviously the romance gives it obvious appeal and reason for acclaim because if you come to TMA from out of an audio drama sphere, you are likely starving for healthy gay content and so of course you want to focus on that bit of rep. But there’s better media for that, audio is full of it, just because TMA is the popular show doesn’t mean it’s what you’re looking for if you genuinely don’t like horror or the story it’s telling and are only there for the romance. You can shop around a bit until you find the story you want, I promise you it’s out there if you go looking.

Back from the side note - I think what I mean to say is. This is probably me venting my frustration at allonormativity a little in pushing romance as The Superior Dynamic and all other relationships a character has as side notes. Though obviously there’s the caveat that Martin is Jon’s most important relationship to him, hell he called him his reason! But maybe I’m just a little frustrated at their romance being treated as a crux of the show instead of one important thread in a whole woven tapestry of themes and relationships. Again this isn’t dunking on anyone for making fluffy content because I will be sitting here gobbling that up, it’s just more of a... Vent at the way relationships are viewed in general? A bit of a “Funny, you criticise the prioritising of romantic relationships over all other kinds but yet you partake in the writing of non-relevant fluff fics!” I know, but there’s absolutely a place for them because they’re Good I think I just feel like they shouldn’t be the overwhelm if that makes sense? Even some of the stuff I’ve said here now that I look back doesn’t even really apply to jmart specifically so it’s more just. throwing my thoughts at a wall and using jmart to understand some of it I guess.