January 2025

I do like Jontim as a ship, but like, in a really specifically angsty way:

I like them as two people who had feelings for each other at one point before the series even began. It was nothing overly serious, and neither one of them were really perusing the other, but if they had been asked out a date they would have 100% said “Yes.”

Of course, that never happened. Or maybe they did have one date and it was…fine, perhaps even good, but they didn’t find time to meet up again after that for one reason or the other.

Then the Season 2 events of the series happen. And there’s these weird unsaid feeling’s between them that make everything worse. Jon is trying to silently grapple with his newfound distrust of someone he used to daydream about, and Tim is really struggling with the fact that one of his crushes got replaced by a monster and his other crush is someone he’s growing to resent more and more each day.

And, honestly, part of the reason why Tim resents Jon so much is because of his former(?) crush. There’s so much left unsaid. So many feelings left fractured that are never going to be put together because of Jon’s distrust. And Jon is aware on some level why Tim is so angry but…he doesn’t know how to fix things. So he doesn’t. And then he loses Tim in the Circus without ever trying to patch anything up, which is part of the reason he’s so desperate to fix thing with Martin in Season 4. He has the chance to make things right with someone else he’s grown to care for and this time he doesn’t want to squander it like he did with his former(?) crush.

So yeah I like Jontim, but I don’t personally mean that in a “I want them to be together and have a happy ending” way. I mean that in a “I want them to be a doomed "what could have been” that haunts the narrative" type of way.

My Ranking On: How Good The Magnus Archive Character’s Are At Cooking

Gerard - Gerry has no idea what to do in front of a stove. No one has ever taught him to cook, and he doesn’t care enough to learn. He lives off microwavable mac and cheese cups and cheap fast food, which is just fine by him regardless of how concerned Gertrude is about his organs.

Daisy - Daisy could make…something with a stove. She just chooses not to because she doesn’t like cooking when microwavable meals are right there. Because of how little she cooks her skills are…rusty to say the least. She can make a half-decent grilled cheese though.

Gertrude - Gertrude can and the very rare occasion does make small meals like scrambled eggs. However, much like Gerard and Daisy, she prefers fast food and easy to make meals. In theory she could make a decent large meal if she had a recipe and some spare time to make mistakes, but in practice she never cooks.

John - John can and does make small meals. He’s never really liked cooking, but he does sometimes make a small plate of stir-fry or something. All things considered, his food’s pretty decent. It’s just not great because he rushes through the cooking process to get back to whatever he was doing. But, I mean, it’s edible.

Melanie - Melanie is a big “make a sandwich or throw some pasta on the stove and call it night” type of girl. She could make a good meal if she had a recipe, but cooking’s never really been her thing enough for her to put a ton of effort into the craft. However, if Georgie asked her to make her something you can bet that she could make a five star meal.

Basira - Basira cooks most nights and her food is consistently good. Daisy is over at her house a lot in the evenings hoping to get a meal and eat together.

Martin - Martin cooks almost every night. It’s one of his hobbies and he knows well what type of foods pair best with what after his research into what foods pair best with tea spiraled a bit. He can make a REALLY good comfort dish.

Elias - Elias cooks most night, and with all his years of being alive, that means he’s a pretty skilled in the art of making food. He either makes a full five star meal with an appetizer, a main course, and a dessert, or microwaves ramen noodles. There’s no middle ground.

Peter - Cooking is one of those hobbies that is significantly more enjoyable in solitude, so of course he loves it. He cooks multiple times nearly every day as it’s something for him to do that doesn’t involve other people. No one will ever taste his food, but man is it good.

Sasha - Sasha is a fantastic cook. She’s the CEO of finding a recipe online and then making it his own. She’s literally never made a bad dish in her entire life and she does brag to John about her ability not to burn things.

Tim - Tim is great at cooking on an instinctual level. He doesn’t even need to have a recipe to make a five star meal that will change the trajectory of his friends taste buds forever. It’s a gift…and a curse given how much the people around him hope he’ll bring food to every gathering.