Melanie King and Jonathan Sims are very similar characters. This is pointed out in Melanie’s conversation with Georgie in Season 5. when she acknowledges that their similarities probably have something to do with why she dislikes Jon so much. However, I’d like to point out that they’re so alike they even have similar backstories using the story Melanie tells Jon about why she got kicked out of the ghost hunting community.

Melanie realized that there was a huge list of places that her colleagues stayed clear of and decided to investigate. = Jon spends the entire series poking his nose into things most people would stay clear of.

Melanie’s friends started to distance themselves from her because she started crossing unspoken lines = Again, Jon through the whole series really, but a good example of this is when Jon awakes from his coma. His survival crosses an unspoken line, and everyone except Martin and Daisy push him away because of it.

Melanie started hearing not so subtle warnings about straying from the path but she felt like she couldn’t go back after she had seen something strange. She couldn’t ignore the call. = Jon gets told by EVERYONE at some point that he’s walking a path he can’t easily find his way back from, and yet he keeps going because he can’t ignore a call once he’s heard it say his name.

She started talking to people less. She stopped sharing her research. By the time something bad happened to her and needed support everyone had already given up on her partially as a consequence of her own reclusive behavior = This is just Jon’s arc in Season 2. He stalks his coworkers and doesn’t hide at all how little he trusts them. He hides the things he’s investigating from them, and when the time comes when he DOES need their support, Tim has already given up on him and he and Martin aren’t as close as they could have been.

Melanie and Jon are the same person, just in different fonts. Which was basically a death knell for any friendship that could have been between them. Both of them are too filled with too much self-loathing to be able to look at another person and feel comfortable seeing a mirror back. And that’s really the biggest cause of conflict between them.

Which Role The Magnus Archive Characters Would Have In A Murder Mystery

Gertrude - Gertrude is the detective who’s taken it on herself to investigate the case. She won’t stop until it’s solved.

Gerard - Gerard is the detective’s assistant who’s helping Gertrude investigate the crime. He is mostly there to be witty but he will point out something that rolled under a bed/couch/chair at some point and a say “What’s that?” while Gertrude goes to pick it up.

Elias - Elias is the culprit of this case. He really just can’t help himself.

Peter - Peter is the one who Elias tries to frame for the crime. After Elias lost one too many bets to him, he decided the only way to get him back was to frame him for murder. It almost worked too. If it weren’t for those meddling Institute workers.

Michael Shelley - Michael is the victim. He is doomed by the narrative even in a Tumblr post. He was killed because he walked in on Elias trying to steal a Leitner tome from Gertrude’s purse.

Georgie - Georgie is the party host. She didn’t want to be involved with a murder. She just wanted to have her friends over and eat a cheese board, which is far too much to ask for when you’re in the middle of the murder mystery genre.

Jon - Jon is the red-herring that everyone is initially suspicious of. The last time anyone saw him before the murder he was going to look for Michael to ask him for help clarifying something about a statement. Which made him the prime suspect for a period of time.

Sasha - Sasha is the vital eye-witness. She see’s Jon on the porch at the time of the time crime (he decided to smoke a cigarette before talking to Michael) and therefore she’s able to clear his name.

Basira and Daisy - Basira and Daisy are the cops that show up near the end with extremely relevant information about the past that is somehow very relevant to the present case. In this AU let’s say they’ve confronted Elias before on suspicion of stealing a Leitner, but nothing ever came of it.

Melanie King - Melanie is the one who saves the day. She tapes Elias giving a heated confession to Gertrude and that end’s up being the prime evidence of the case. Or she just like…jumps him. IDK go with your preferred interpretation.

Martin - Martin is a house party version of the butler. He just wanted to bring everyone tea and snacks and he ends up wrapped up in a murder mystery. This time the butler didn’t do it.

Tim - Tim personality guest. He is just there to be entertaining and fill in a chair, but then he gets super into it and ends up having a pretty good moment where he confronts the killer.

“Even now I can’t fully bring myself to regret that part of the events that led me here, and had we reached the Valley as planned, I believe we would have been far happier than most.” Is a line that’s extremely relevant line to The Magnus Archives as a whole. So much of the series is things going wrong in every way they could go wrong up until the apocalypse happens. And yet…it’s so hard to imagine any of the cast fully regretting all of the parts that lead to the end of TMA 200.

I can’t imagine that Melanie regretted getting to know Georgie more in her search for the truth about the supernatural, and I can’t imagine that Georgie regretting falling for Melanie…even though it meant she became a cult leader and got involved with The Institute at the end. I can’t imagine that Basira regretted every moment with Daisy. At the least, not the long car rides where they would listen to “The Archers.” I doubt Daisy regretted that part either, even as she grew to rightfully regret every other path she walked on.

I can’t imagine that Tim would have regretted growing up with a brother, or knowing Sasha, and the friendship they shared. I can’t imagine that Sasha would have regretted joking around with Tim in The Archives, even if she knew their words foreshadowed their fates. I can’t imagine Martin regretting that he doesn’t have to be alone anymore, and that he can finally be seen. I can’t imagine that Jon fully regrets getting the answers that plagued him, even if he does regret where they ended up leading.

And of course, all of this doesn’t mean they don’t have ANY regrets. I’m completely sure all of them wish things would have turned out very differently. But…if they could have reached the valley as they planned, and lived the better lives they wanted with the people they cared about, then they could have been happier than most. And that’s such a hard thing to completely regret.

My favorite character interpretation for both Jonathan Sims and pre distortion Michael Shelley is that they’re a little odd in general even without all the fear entity stuff.

Jon stares just a little too long when makes conversation. Michael moves in a sudden jerky way that would remind most people of a spider moving its legs. Jon always looks a little too…stiff. Like he’s a porcelain doll sat against the chair instead of a man. Michael never walks flat on feet, he noticeably puts his weight on either on his heels or his toes.

Jon’s eye, hair, and clothing colors always look a bit dull somehow. Like someone drew him and then turned the contrast down. Michael’s fingers and toes are noticeably long and quite a few people have told him that he has the longest fingers/toes they’ve ever seen.

I could pretend this headcanon is profound commentary on their humanity, but honestly I’m just very fond of viewing Jon and Michael as cryptid adjacent.

Since the creator of TMA says that Jon probably collects something just a little bit weird, I’d like to throw out a few guesses on what I think Jon might collect:

My first thought was that he collects pinned insects. Specifically moth’s and beetles, but he has a little bit of everything other than spiders. I don’t really have a reason to think this, it’s just the vibes.

Speaking of vibes I could also see him collecting pens that look unique in some way. Maybe some have signed some important document along the way, but most are just for aesthetic purposes. I could see him collecting unique looking pocket watches for the same reasons. Or old hand bells that have a pleasant ring.

Outside of aesthetics I could also imagine him collecting signatures from fairly important people. Jon seems like the type of person who would be proud to have something like that, which I don’t think would be as true for my other idea that he collects erasers. I don’t know why I think he would collect erasers, Jon just seems like that type of dude.

From a more “in-character” standpoint I could also see him collecting lighters. That would explain why he got a weird lighter in the mail and then never questioned it. I could also see him collecting book covers since he likes to read. And I’d also like to put forth the idea of him collecting old tea cups or mugs from all the Jonmartin shippers out there.

Anyway! This was supposed to be a short post but then I thought about all the “weird but not cliche” things Jon could collect and my brain started acting like a Jack Russell Terrier who’s been in a crate all day.

It’s so bittersweet that Tim is the one who goes back for Jon in “Hide And Seek.”

Tim has so many negative feelings toward Jon at that point. Most of which are warranted after Jon stalked his house and accused him of murder.

Yet, when Jon tells him and Martin to go home early because he’s “sick,” Tim is the one who decides that he and Martin should tail Jon and figure out what’s going on in case he tries to hurt himself or others.

It’s really an encapsulation of the thing I find most interesting about Tim and Jon’s dynamic: Tim is clearly angry at Jon, but he can never really seem to bring himself to fully hate him, despite always being at the cusp of that feeling. It’s like when Jon gets accused of Leitner’s murder and Tim at first assumes that he must have hurt Sasha too, only for his opinion to waiver a bit the second Martin points out that Michael or the Not! Them creature could have gotten her too…almost as if a part of him was still eager to believe that Jon was innocent.

I’ve thought about Jon and Tim’s dynamic a lot lately. It’s just so…they could have been such good friends in another universe. Maybe they are.