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i've been getting back into tma recently and thought i'd finally try getting out all my thoughts on the finale and season 5 in general. unfortunately, it got really long so i'm just gonna focus on my problems with martin and his relationship with jon. of course these are all just my personal feelings, but... they aren't very positive.

  • firstly, season 5 made me really dislike martin as a character. people defend his actions as trauma changing people but why is this annoyance always directed at jon? he's praised for becoming more confidant/assertive but this only seems to present itself when he making fun of jon with other characters, getting mad at jon for making statements (even though it's something he has to do), using jon when it's for something he wants but then getting mad when he speaks up, etc.
  • people love to bring up what martin's been through but jon's never given the same courtesy? they've both been through the apocalypse and jon's been through his own struggles. let's not forget the amount of internalised guilt he has over tim's death, starting the apocalypse, etc. honestly, when peter says in mag159 "how much time have you spent together when not working, or bickering", i'm in agreeance with him. martin seems to want jon to change, not just some of his flaws, but who he is as a person.
  • i'm not coming out and saying it's an abusive relationship but it's annoying when part of the fandom dismisses people's concerns with their relationship. it made me really uncomfortable to listen to jon constantly apologising, especially when i've had people close to me be in similar types of relationships. i'm not saying jon is perfect (obviously) but he doesn't get mad at martin for being who he is.
  • i've always been a jon fan, have been since the start. the way he is treated as incompetent by the fandom (not calling anyone out but this idea that sasha would have been a better archivist) really irks me. especially because he has been manipulated and constantly had his agency taken away by other characters. he has been repeatedly blamed, undermined and mistrusted, to the point where he internalises that guilt. whenever he tries to talk about it, he's shut down, then martin gets mad at him for keeping secrets. i kept waiting for this to be addressed in the last season but it never was. made even worse by the man supposed to love him joining in on this.
  • i'm not a fan of romance playing a big part in the media i consume so i was happy to hear jonny and alex say that the relationship wouldn't be the main focus in the last season. but... that didn't happen. I don't entirely know what happened (though i do have some ideas) but the relationship seemed really juvenile to me? i kept trying to justify it as them both being emotionally immature (which they are) but the more i listened, the more it felt like it was just bad writing. like something out of a fanfic (no hate to fanfic, i both read and write it from time to time but i guess i expect more from a professional piece of work). a key example is the "boyfriend" line in mag171 which just made me cringe when i heard it.
  • i hate that martin is seen as jon's "tether to humanity" when the whole podcast is jon fighting against becoming an apathetic avatar, not for martin, but because he doesn't want to be that sort of person. the very fact that he feels so much guilt, for tim, for being the vessel in which the apocalypse was brought about, for feeding on other's fear and in some cases, feeling good about it, proves this. he doesn't want to be like the other avatars who do anything to serve their fear at the cost of innocent people. martin isn't jon's "tether to humanity" because jon isn't a monster. he might be part of it, but jon has his own set of morals that directly contradict martin's sometimes. it was him who wanted to stop killing other avatars. it was him who thought it better not to potentially condemn other realities to the same horrors.
  • i guess i thought most of this anxiety and distrust they had towards each other was largely addressed in season 4. i wasn't expecting their relationship to be perfect but i was expecting them to work through it in a relatively healthy way. if their relationship was supposed to be an example of codependency, i wish this was clearly addressed so we didn’t have to pretend they’re in a functional relationship.

a lot of the problems i have with their relationship and some of the characters in general tie into my larger problems with how season 5 was handled but this post has gotten way too long as it is so i’ll address the rest in another post.

#Oh good post.#reblog#tma s5#jm critical
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slingerapen

Feel this too for the most part. I did like their fumbling relationship in the first 10 or so episodes, but at some point i got very annoyed by their fluff/filler dialogues. I balme the pandemic but also.... eh

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wintercoille
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@slingerapen yeah, i also kinda liked how they were handling their relationship at the start but then it like… continued for the entire season. i’m sure covid had an impact, though i don’t think it’s the only reason

@elias-rights / elias-rights.tumblr.com

More like this

What’s toxic about JonMartin in canon?

It's a really interesting question to get into because there are many factors at play. Under a cut for length.

First of all is the simple fact that they don't know each other. From MAG 159:

PETER
It’s odd, really. You each think you’re so focused on the other, but how much do you really know each other? How much time have you spent together when not working, or bickering, or fleeing from that latest thing that wants to kill you? So. What are you seeking? The image you’ve each created of the other? The people you think you love don’t exist. Not really. And that’s a very lonely place to be.
ARCHIVIST

Sometimes I find myself thinking about "exactly where they've always been, Martin. Watching over my institute." Lives were changed.

another reason i dislike the whole ‘web orchestrated the ritual’ plot is that it puts into question EVERY character motivation from the past. 

every action a character takes can be interpreted as the web pulling the strings to get jon marked/get the ritual off and it cant be disproven that it *wasnt* them. heck, even martin’s crush on jon couldve been influenced by them

im not saying that the web *definitely* caused every plot development or action but the web reveal at the end cheapens all the characters for me now that i look back

i find myself theorizing about why characters did certain things without realizing it could easily be explained with ‘the web influenced them’. and that, imo, is so boring and disappointing

anyway my biggest issue with season 5 is the lack of narrative buildup to the finale. The end reveal of “ohohoho it was the web all along!!!!” is something so vague and easy to slap on that ANYTHING in prior seasons could be used as ““““evidence”“““  it being the end goal. like shit i guess jon having a lighter with a spiderweb on it is cleeaaar evidence he was manipulated the whole time! and that parallel universes (which were mentioned prior in like. .what. one statement. maybe two) were sooooo plot essential everyone would’ve known about them from the get go and wouldn’t’ve needed to come together to explain which random season 3 episode the concept even came from.

I just wish more episodes were spent developing annabelle man :( i know covid prevented her VA from being there on set but shit most of the other avatar’s development in the first 4 seasons came from jon ominously muttering about their past. they could’ve developed annabelle like that as a compromise.

I will say it again even though everyone following me has heard me say this like a broken record; JM's brand of toxicity could be a lot more interesting if underneath it they were compatible at all. They don't get each other's jokes...

I saw a very good post about how Jon and Martin let everything slide when it comes to the other and am much too rusty to properly critique it... Tragic.

Some people are happy that the finale wasn't as tragic. I mean it when I say that people are entitled to their opinions and feelings, but I also mean it when I say I'm entitled to thinking these people have horrible taste.

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