#tma negative

1) I feel it feels very fitting that the very 'real’ statement of the season is a statement about Jon, except it’s narrated from the point of view of the house. Mind you I had never thought about it before I decided to discuss the statements, but it gives an excellent, beautiful starting point to a season-long arc about the statements, that would culminate (and here i’m stealing the idea of @cuttoothed , who as ever has the most brilliant ideas) a statement about Jon, from Jon, entirely about his feelings as he sees them. In my opinion, it would work best if it was separated from other events finale (Like, say, mag 39/40 were, you know? Let the finale be messy and with no statement, and have the “last” statement be in another episode where we can cry about Jonathan Sims). But in any case, we start the season with Jon from a monstrous point of view, and we end it with Jon at his most emotional and human. 

2) Coming back to the statements givers. So we have a few of those surreal, gorgeous statements that feel dreamlike, that leaves a sense of unease but don’t let us grab at the statement givers, because that’s how the Eye sees it, and so how Jon sees it. Yes, sometimes we have names, we have the fear, but it’s not about the people, not anymore, but about what the domains gets out of them. Every episode or so, Martin will try to engage, and when Jon goes “they’re not --” Martin gets all bicker stubborn about it, and goes “well maybe i like talking to them all the same, Jon. Maybe you should try it huh”. and Jon laughs his fond laugh, but doesn’t seem to consider it. And then Not-Sasha happens.

3) Waving away the smiting arc a sec, although we’re assuming here it’ll stay, sort of. So the Not-Sasha happens, but when they move to another domain, or as they have a moment of pause, instead of the Gertrude’s statement, Jon starts to say he feels,, odd. Like he should be giving a statement, but nobody’s here, they’re in between domains, and it hurts more than it has before, and he doesn’t know why -- and so Martin panics, and asks him to tell him, or ask a question about “is this about not!sasha?” and wouldn’t you know it? Jon starts talking. First short paragraphs, about random people, like before, all normal humans beings, nothing that seems related to fear AT ALL. But then the name crop up.  The mother. Graham. And then. Sasha. We have a statement of Sasha, through Jon, of her most normal life; the horror comes not from the statement, not from a nightmare or the fear, but of what we know. Jon is telling the mundane stories of people who were lost. of someone he and martin lost. “An echo”.

4) Now, I don’t remember the order of the episodes so you’ll have to excuse me if this is not in order: Jon doesn’t get a statement after Jude. Because he already had it. He dismisses it as her being a monster, and Martin and him have more things to deal through anyway. He does get a statement from Jared, though, and, like many other avatars before him, we get that Jared was just. A guy. A guy who felt so bad in his own skin, that when he got the power to change things, he decided to help other people too, in the most horrific way. (Okay that implies that he didn’t give a proper statement to jon before hand, but. shh). THIS leads to Jon telling martin “actually this feels much worse than i thought, i don’t want to”. MEANWHILE, the statements that were so broad at the beginning of the season are starting to narrow down. We’re only following one person through their nightmare now. 

5) Amidst that, you’ve got Martin episode, of course, and you’ve got THE FRANCIS EPISODE. Note that this one is exceedingly important for 1. all the Jons parallels 2. Jon/the web an the hand it’s got on him and never released. It’s a big deal. it stays exactly the same. But anyway, and then Basira comes in. Now. In the spirit of what we said about statements: the Hunt statement might start as a random chase, but it distinctly becomes Trevor’s statement at least in the middle of it. This man we’ve heard so much of is now a terrified prey. Following that, we insist on the fact that Basira’s nightmare is chasing Daisy and realizing all the hurt she’s caused and how she stood there and watched. Jon accidentally (or not so accidentally) pulling a statement out of her. She’s furious as hell -- but we’ve got her whole pov, properly. She and Jon argue, Jon insists she won’t find daisy until she confronts it all and he was trying to help. The next statement is of one of Daisy’s victims, except something odds happens -- the statement giver seems to /wake up/ and /directly asks Basira for help/. She can’t, not really -- but she can kill Daisy, and ends this. cue grief, her leaving again. 

6) Callum’s episode is about Callum. Martin and Jon can still argue there, I think it’s fitting. But callum’s episode is about him and his terror. In the following statements, it seems as if more and more statements givers are /aware of Jon/ in the corner of their eyes. Maybe another wakes up, briefly. And anyway, so forth and so on, with more and more parallels, more and more proximity, until they get to a beholding domain, and they talk about the man watching them. The statement giver says “why are you watching me?” desperately. “WHy are you watching me, why, why?” and Jon starts to sob, and you understand that, just like in the web domain with francis, he could easily get trapped. It’s the fear of Jonathan Sims, right now. He says he’s sorry, he can’t stop, he can’t make it /stop/ and it ends with a hug from Martin and Martin getting him out of there. 

7) and then they reach the panopticon; jon get JONAH’s statement, but it’s a little bit about Jonah, and a lot about Jon already. The interview lines, they say together, still happen exactly as they should. The rest would have to be all changed because the whole plotlines towards the end are, mmh, less and less possible to keep “as is” but the point is, at the end of his journey, Jon is finally able to talk about himself, to deal with his own emotions. We’ve rehumanized the whole world, and we get Jon’s pov of what it MEANS to him. Why he’s made the choice he’s made /because/ of all those people. The end. 

(i feel like, if we get sasha, we should also get throughout echoes of Tim, Gerry, Gertrude, Agnes, etc. but less easy to neatly fit them rn). 

... Anyway, those are my disorganized thoughts on how we could fix the statement problem of season 5. Might do a series with all the other stuff I would change personally gjijtgi i don’t know; This was fun. I wasn’t at all procrastinating another thing I need to do, of course not.