some of you take elias’ “you didn’t want this but you did choose this” speech too literally and not think of the context of the quote and who is saying it to who…elias is actively manipulating jon at this point of COURSE he would try to tell him he “technically chose it” why are we acting like the antagonist telling their victim that they chose their abusive situation is something the narrative 100% agrees with …. its not a source for the truth of the situation in the narrative like i've seen a lot of people use it
sometimes when characters say things theyre wrong!!!!!! especially when the character is actively grooming the other character for a certain purpose and is Notorious For Manipulation like lets think about context
yes a big theme in tma is choice but it more so proposes and explores questions about that theme in the narrative instead of giving us a specific set answer for those questions….you shouldn't take everything a character says as truth you should infer from the context of the character and the situation
tldr: elias telling jon he technically chose his situation doesnt mean thats true because theres this thing called informed consent + elias uses manipulation and emotional abuse tactics all the time
magpod-confessions:
.
Ok so yes I know the fears are a part of a whole yadda yadda but I would like to put this on the table for y'all
The Vast and The End, like imagine, the complete insignificance of your death, how each breath you take has no other purpose than to disturb air, how nothing you do will ever matter and all you ever hope to achieve will wither and cease once death claims you and all who might have held care for you and your being
Sorry I just love this combo sooo much <3
🗣️
magpod-confessions:
YEAAAAAAAA ITS SO GOOD ty anon this is great to think abt - r
Oh nonny you are speaking my language as the vastie on this blog - deceit
edgycarr0t:
Car 🥳
beabubb:
jon ink sketches my beloved <3
chickendoodle-soup:
martin blackwood. what a lad
therealdistortion:
I find it funny the way Jon blames himself for the apocalypse. Cause essentially what happened is that Jonah put a nuke in his lunch and he blames himself for it.
Like, imagine you got a sandwich for lunch. You’ve been looking forward to eating this sandwich for so long, you haven’t had one in weeks. Your friend got it for you from a restaurant and you are so so excited.
It looks amazing, it smells amazing, you are so excited. Then, you go to take a bite and there’s a fucking nuke in it. It explodes and kills everyone around you, except for you. Then you blame yourself.
You didn’t put that nuke in it. You didn’t know there was one there. You were just trying to eat lunch.
It was the guy from that restaurant, he put a nuke in your sandwich! And it wasn’t even like he put it in a random sandwich and you just happened to get it. No, he put it specifically in your sandwich so when you try to eat your lunch it will explode.
And you know that he put the nuke in your sandwich. Cause he wrote you a note explaining to you exactly why and how he did it. He told you it was so it would explode and kill everyone, and he told you that he put it specifically in your sandwich. And he hid the note so you would only see it after you started eating, at which point it was already too lat.
And you still blame yourself. Even though you had no idea. How does that make sense?
Jon, it is not your fault there was a nuke in your sandwich
season 4 was the season that felt like it revolved around one specific power the most, because the entirety of it was spent meticulously isolating and alienating jon. it reeked of the lonely, not just for martin, but for jon. something that i think gets overlooked is that the other archival staff’s violence and hatred toward him, and their inability or refusal to compromise or communicate with him, was likely very entangled with the lonely having a strong presence there. it certainly didn’t cause it entirely, but that’s what the fears do. they exacerbate what’s already growing there to an intense and alarming degree. one slaughter bullet took melanie’s anger and turned it into a violent frenzy. the lonely controlling the institute likely took the distrust permeating the staff and dialed it up a hundredfold. i think it was excellently done, but the one issue i have is that it was never addressed afterwards. post-s4 nobody ever acknowledges the mistreatment of jon or the way the lonely affected everyone, not just martin.
magpod-confessions:
.
you can read and enjoy whatever you want to but for me it really bothers me when i see fanfics of jon/elias or martin/elias. Elias genuinely did so much harm to both of these characters and putting them in cute domestic scenarios ignores so much of the development and natures of the characters.
i’m not saying elias can’t be sexy- he’s voiced by ben meredith for gods sake. Just can we not put him in situations with people he has manipulated and mistreated with most fics contingent on a workplace power imbalance?
(but seriously, read whatever tf you want. i’m just venting at this point)
magpod-confessions:
.
proud-clown-college-graduate:
sunpoweredautism:
could be survivor bias but i find it very funny that the entities usually wait until you’re at least college aged before completely ruining your life or killing u
now I desperately need a teenager or a child avatar. wouldn’t that be disastrously amazing.
People who go “EWWWWEWEW WHITE JON”/“now what the hell is this 💀”/just generally shit on other peoples interpretations make me want to throw something. Same goes for not fat Martin stuff. (And before anyone starts wailing, it was one line and it was implied that he was insecure about his size. And insecurity very much does not equal factuality.)
It in an audio format. The point is that it’s up to interpretation of the listener. When I entered the fandom space I was very surprised that everyone was drawing them more or less the same. I actually thought I had missed something in canon. And yeah, I eventually got “absorbed” or whatever you called it. I’m influenced by those head-canons in my own work too.
But implying that there is something wrong with someone else’s interpretation when there is objectively not is just weird behaviour. Trying to get everyone to conform to the same ideas and interpretations is erhhmmm… odd.
There’s 0 reasons why head-canonning Jon as brown is more correct than Jon as white, or vice versa.
We really should be encouraging people to create diverse art (yes, that includes pasty white men, my deepest apologies) instead of belittling or implying that there’s something wrong with it. Let people create art.
magpod-confessions:
.
phenphoenix:
A present!
justicewasserved:
so I see a lot of people going “hahaha wild that Jon thinks everything (such as the apocalypse) is his fault when it REALLY isn’t” and they would be correct but I keep thinking about why it is that he’s like that. I think a lot of people simply put it down to “that’s just how he is as a person” when I really think it’s more of a combination between personality, how he was brought up (not that well) and the web.
in mag 81 he’s never that specific about what his grandmother was like, and is very clearly trying to make her sound better than she actually is. but to me it sounds like she instilled a feeling that any and all problems that occurred throughout his childhood was his fault, or made worse by him. I’m thinking something like “I’m feeling so bad right now because I have to pick you up from school every day.” and if she did do this, clearly it worked because he is, in his statement as an adult, retroactively pinning the blame for all his childhood problems on himself for being a “deeply annoying child”. I really think that it’s not normal to think you are to blame for someone else bullying you and that it was probably caused by his grandmother making him think he caused everyone’s problems.
the mr spider event shocked him in a lot of ways but one of the main things that shook him was that he felt like he could’ve prevented what happened and he could’ve saved the guy’s life. obviously this is ridiculous - it’s clear to us that the web pulled him down the exact path which would lead someone else to interrupt his reading and get captured themselves. however Jon does not know this and clearly thinks he should’ve done better. I think that this, along with his upbringing, started the distinct way of thinking that he has where he decides that everything is his fault.
the web knew this would happen and then utilises it to make sure his crushing sense of responsibility causes him to get all 14 marks and then to, unwillingly, play his part in removing the fears from the universe.
i can’t stand onceler elias. no he would not be showing up to work in eyeliner and heels with a ridiculously expensive bright green suit embroidered with eyes, a perpetual evil smirk, eye jewelry, and a villain goatee.
i feel like there’s a difference between putting a character in a funky outfit for the fun of it, and misinterpreting a character so badly it’s clear you don’t understand them in the slightest. like sure put him in a nice suit or eye themed outfit for fun! that’s cool! but he’s a boring middle aged man and that’s a good thing! you don’t need to be allergic to wrinkles or larger body types. he probably wouldn’t look like a thin and muscular 20 year old (with slight eyebags to convey age) who goes to his daily office job in full glam and makeup. he’s a loser academic who finds paperwork enjoyable and has spent centuries perfectly content managing an eldritch little research nonprofit. he doesn’t need to be a scrawny little fucking twink onceler oc from 2012 that i could snap like a twig. bitch looks like he’d be semi-ironically shipped with sans. i want to hit him with a car.
magpod-confessions:
.
linnytheseagull:
Just finished tma and had to draw something
Expect more tma art because the hyperfixation is strong this time
sawthoone:
been attempting to learn how to draw jonathan sims. post tma brainrot is real and lethal.
podcast-official:
basira: all avatars are monsters >:(
jon: what about daisy who can and does literally turn into a monster to rip people apart for no real reason?
basira: noo not daisy :( jon how could you say that??? what’s wrong with you?? she’s trying her best!!
twentyonefirstmates:
i just cannot stop thinking of jon trying so hard to grieve for the real elias after he Finds Out because elias died scared and alone to the same power that destroyed jon, because elias was also forced to watch his own body become entirely alien to him as he became Something Else, because elias and jon have both been tortured and Changed by the same man, because jon might be the only person in the world who understands what happened to him and is definitely the only person in the world who cares.
But also, jon can’t think of elias’ face without having to choke back a scream, cant utter elias’ name without wanting to cry, cant think about elias’ body without the feeling of being watched, worms burrowing into his skin, the agony of not being able to remember his friend’s face, his mind being broken, hellish flames on his hand, falling from a great height, a knife against his windpipe, plastic fingers against his skin, dying, coming back wrong, darkness beyond everything hes ever known, dirt in his lungs, losing everyone hes ever loved, strings controlling his every move. He cant grieve for elias without grieving for himself. And he know, he knows, he Knows that none of it was ever elias’ fault. Elias was just some poor stupid idiot who ended up in an evil place and had his life stolen by an evil man, just like jon. Jon knows elias never actually did anything to him, but he cant forgive him for the things done by his body. He wants to grieve, he tries to grieve, he does grieve. But he can never grieve properly for the man who was lost because he is inseparable from the man who took him.
levaagrace:
“Jon shouldn’t have talked about Martin and called him incompetent and humiliated him behind his back on official archival material that would be used by other researchers!”
Jon shouldn’t have said ANYTHING about ANYONE on official archival material in the way he did! I don’t work in a library or an archive, but I’ve worked with sensitive material and proprietary information and can safely say he should’ve left out any detail regarding any employee under him or above him AND DEFINITELY LEFT OUT ANY INTRUSIONS INTO HIS RECORDINGS THAT WOULD MENTION SHAREHOLDERS BY NAME.
If you’re going to listen to this podcast, there HAS to be a level of understanding that there’s no attempt to relate it to real life archival methods and real life privacy laws and conventions. So much so, that by the third season, it’s almost a given that the only reason he’s still recording as he does is that it’s a compulsion and literally supernatural in nature. “You missed him too, didn’t you?” “I don’t even turn them on anymore […]” etcetera etcetera.
That’s something Protocol has above it that I absolutely love, and that there’s no conceit that it is supposed to be official documentation. It’s all streamed to us like we’re some voyeuristic third party they have no idea about.
So trying to turn what should’ve been, if they’d thought the premise through, off-the-record idle gossip and work complaints into harassment, is kind of… nonsensical to me. Especially when, as someone who worked a ~normal office job~ for eight years straight, complaining about your coworkers TO your friends and family and even OTHER COWORKERS is actually really normal and doesn’t mean you’re Satan himself.
Point is. Just cause Jon made a comment about Martin being piecemealed apart by Angela, doesn’t mean he actually wanted that to happen. A THOUGHT CAN’T BE EVIL. Y'all can talk about how intent doesn’t matter all you want, but at that point you’ve got to understand all you’re doing is calling out thoughtcrimes.
And no. Just cause Jon sent HIM out there, and just cause he believed that the ones that could only record on tape were real, doesn’t mean he genuinely put Martin in harms way. Especially cause we’re literally told the only way to get the curse turned back to you. And that interacting with Angela neutrally doesn’t automatically put a target on your back. Martin was as safe as anyone else, so long as he didn’t ASK HER FOR A FAVOR and then DIDN’T WAIT FOR IT TO BE FOLLOWED THROUGH. Or did you not pay attention to how the dude that brought the victim to Angela mentioned someone he knew asked her a favor and was fine afterwards?
Sorry. I’ve just had that pent up for a bit. Jon was an asshole, don’t get me wrong, but no more an asshole than anyone else on the planet with a shitty job and shitty co-workers and shitty mental health. It just mattered more cause it had consequences.
thebestlesbiabsharknamedfisy:
HUGE TMA SPOILERS FOR ALL SEASONS❗❗
patronofmonsters:
podcast-official:
basira: all avatars are monsters >:(
jon: what about daisy who can and does literally turn into a monster to rip people apart for no real reason?
basira: noo not daisy :( jon how could you say that??? what’s wrong with you?? she’s trying her best!!
Basira: *enables Daisy’s serial killing of both innocent and guilty people for years because she has a crush*
Basira: She’s trying to do the bare minimum of not killing people better!
Jon: *gives people some nightmares to literally survive, the first couple times unknowingly*
Basira: You’re a monster and I’ll put you down like an animal if you make one more wrong move
"Jon was toxic to Martin through most of the series!!!" Where? LOL. It was only in the first season that Jon acted annoyed by Martin, and literally upon the second season he 180'd entirely. I don't think the two even TALKED much until the last season?? If you wanna argue that it felt a little forced, then I'd get it, I wouldn't agree, but I could see the argument. But I literally don't see why so many fans think Jon is toxic towards Martin or the two would be "toxic yaoi" at all.
Literally, please explain this to me
magpod-confessions:
.
despite being violently hyperfixated on this series for almost 7 months now I have never had any interest in protocol at all… I guess I just like the open ending of tma and I don’t want it to ruin it for me somehow
I think no matter what happens to The Guys in protocol it will never be canon to me
I really hope they aren’t actually stuck in a computer and it’s just using their voices or something and it doesn’t ever confirm what actually happened to them I LIKE THEIR OPEN ENDING KEEP IT THAT WAY PLS AAARGH
magpod-confessions:
.
bakubakunyanyaa:
who else going to the J Mart
edenlouiseart:
[SNORTS JONMARTIN LIKE COCAINE]
I feel like the way some of the fandom treats Jon is unfair and tbh borderline ableist. It's not his fault that he got hooked on statements by Elias/Jonah, it's very clear that he was being manipulated into it from the beginning. And even once he starts having to take live statements, he doesn't want to have to! He canonically hates that he has to do that to people for sustenance, but that compulsion isn't within his control.
Like c'mon. It's very heavily implied that he becomes genuinely suicidal because of his self-loathing around this, and how the other people around him are treating him like a monster and demanding he "just control" something that he isn't actually able to. Which isn't to say that Basira/Melanie/Georgie/s5!Martin etc. don't have the right to feel that way/that their responses aren't understandable, but they still aren't fair to Jon.
Jon's existence such as it is might not be fair, because his presence does harm others unintentionally. But sometimes that's how things are, and it's equally if not more unfair for the others to act like he's just a monster who should be put down and is selfish for continuing to want to live and be healthy.
Honestly, it sort of feels like some of the fandom has ignored/forgotten that the situation Jon is in isn't unique to a horror story, and in fact has many parallels in real life (whether that be addiction, mental disorder/disability, trauma, etc.) and that to take the view of "well he should've just Not Done That Stuff, skill issue, anyways you can't blame the others for how they treated him" is not exactly going to make actual people who are/have been in situations like that feel welcome in fandom spaces.
🗣️ (but no pressure)
magpod-confessions:
I yea. Agree! I feel you can definitely have a discussion abt how much control Jon has over his actions, but at the end of the day, Jon has been manipulated to hell and back. But I also feel that a lot of it comes from a place of ‘If I was in his situation I wouldnt do that’ which has some victim blaming undertones, but also hes a fictional character in a fictional setting, which definitely influences how ppl talk abt him. If someone irl talked abt being abused and manipulated, along with having their addiction/disability taken advantage of, even if that same person would go on and on abt how 'The persons actually fine and its my fault’ ppl likely would be very kind and take the situation very srsly, which isnt the same kind of reaction ppl have towards Jon, due to him being a fictional character - rosette
yeah i. heavily agree with this too anon. im way too tired to put any true thought into this like rosette did but yeah. people really dont take jons situation serious, and this extends to other characters in the series as well. the fandom doesn’t often think further about avatars past 'haha they have to serve a dread power and they cant do anything about it’ . - deceit
wondering-jackalope:
MAG 56: Children of the Night. Supplemental.
Again, listening to the podcast for the first time, but I know that these two will be together in the end. I HONESTLY THOUGHT JON FOUND MARTIN’S CONFESSION (with the name erased, obviously)
Hence this lil comic, enjoy:з
-Was it Tim? Not Elias. Sasha?
darling-stardust:
I miss them so much ♡ I need to redraw this piece so badly
Originally posted to my old art blog @darling-stardustarchives back in 2021
sporeganism:
jonmartin headshots for fun
saw the anon complaining about people disliking basira, and i think this fandom has its priorities completely out of whack, morality wise. arguing about objective morality in a story specifically about free will and morality being infinitely nuanced is already stupid as hell, but what’s even stupider is claiming that anyone who dislikes basira or daisy is misogynistic and doesn’t get them and is just mad that they were rude to jon. like i think you’re conveniently forgetting the years of police brutality but okay, sure.
magpod-confessions:
.
every time someone doesn't consider tma actual horror media which deserves to have its darker elements explored, an angel loses its wings
...good god lotta angels falling out of the sky
magpod-confessions:
.
some of the reasons for why literally EVERY CHARACTER in tma hated jon didn’t even make sense to me. some of them did, i can acknowledge that jon isn’t perfect. but a lot of it seemed like people just wanted to make him the scapegoat for everything, it honestly just pissed me off sometimes. like yes, complex people in difficult situations and all that but why was jon specifically the scapegoat when elias was right there?
magpod-confessions:
.
I cant stand how Melanie was always given the last word on every argument, especially when she trampled over someone's boundaries. Like when she brought up "just kill Jonah like you did with helen" to Jon or when she was like "jon sucks because he's too close to the eye" with Martin when they had their one on one. What a shitty end to a shitty person's shitty entitlement.
magpod-confessions:
.
idc what y'all say basira was a huge hypocrite and she was annoying asf
magpod-confessions:
.
boyswillbedogz:
Except it’s the other way around.
martin blackwood has bpd. [drops the mic and runs off into the woods]
(am I projecting? ..maybe)
magpod-confessions:
.
patronofmonsters:
You know what drives me insane about fandoms nowadays??? That I can give any critiques on characters or even make simple fucking observations without it being taken like I’m staking all of my morality on my opinions of them.
Right now I’m talking about The Magnus Archives specifically. I LIKE that the characters are a bunch of traumatized fucked up hypocrites that can’t communicate for shit because that’s literally what make this story a horror story and not just sci-fi fantasy or action. What made this horror was the characters each being isolated in their own little trauma bubbles when an easy solution to the entire thing would have been teamwork, patience, understanding, and explosives.
I LIKE Daisy and Basira BECAUSE OF THEIR CHARACTER FLAWS. Daisy is an actual crooked cop that kills when she sees fit and gets away with it like actual cops do and Basira covers for her and makes excuses just like “good cops” actually do. Both of them are hypocrites and part of the fear/suspense in the story was not knowing if Basira really would try to kill Jon or “put him down” like an animal which is so fucking ironic considering what Daisy is.
I LIKE that Melanie was an insulting ass to him right off the bat and that she blamed Jon for her being there when it literally wasn’t his fault at all. I finally get to see a female character with actual anger issues just like we see men with anger issues in media constantly and it added to the story brilliantly
And I LIKE that Martin has huge manipulation and trust issues that bleed into his relationship with Jon in season 4 and 5 and he says things that are downright hurtful to Jon to get him to do what he wants even though he thinks it’s what’s best for Jon. It’s one of the only examples I’ve seen in media where someone who suffered abuse as a child wasn’t made into a “sympathetic villain” or a can-do-no-wrong character.
And don’t even get me started on Jon’s flaws, others go into that area much better than I could. But I LIKE that he went off the walls crazy in season 2 because if Jane’s worms hadn’t made him toxic to be around and paranoid he would have come to the conclusion that he needed to trust and work with other people much sooner and the whole story would probably have been a lot less of a horror story and more of a found family sci-fi.
I’m really tired of people acting like all queer characters have to be perfect role models that spew therapy talk and shit rainbows and anybody that doesn’t make post condemning their “toxic” behavior must also be a bad person, or the other way around where you can’t criticize any characters actions without other people in the fandom taking it like a personal attack. If you want to be spoon fed wholesome media that isn’t problematic or whatever go watch cat videos or something but I’m not going to justify my appreciation for characters every time I post about them. I’ve literally stopped myself from posting any fanfics I’ve wanted to because I didn’t want to deal with all the crap and I’ve decided that I don’t care anymore.
ladylolalilly:
just-another-misfit-lunatic:
boyswillbedogz:
Except it’s the other way around.
Fixed it!
wolfythewitch:
Smiling Jon sketches
b3ani-art:
Jon & Admiral doodles
I am very, very confused by the people who just *hate* Jmart, like yeah, their relationship isn’t perfect…..BUT WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?!
People will ramble on and on about how terrible of a bf martin is, how neglectful Jon acts, and then go praise a relationship that’s not even developed enough to show the problems in it.
Jon and Martin are real people and act like them, is that something so criminal? they’re literally walking through the end of the world and you expect them to…what? Be completely happy and unstressed? Not fall back on the habits and behaviors they’ve developed specifically to keep themselves safe? They aren’t in therapy, they aren’t healthy, and acting like it’s the fact that their together is the problem is just fucking stupid.
magpod-confessions:
.
cw// mentions of abuse, addiction, and brief mention of suicidal ideation
the way the magnus archives explores themes of abuse and manipulation is one of its strongest apsects especially in regards to elias and jon
i feel like the fandom doesn’t really take the abuse/grooming aspect seriously when it comes to jon, which is a shame because i think its executed really well…one of the reasons i love jon so much as a character is because a lot about his story can be so real and applicable to real life situations ! i think he’s a good portrayal of how addiction can destroy someone’s relationships and how being an addict and a victim of abuse can affect someone because of the guilt, shame, and suicidality that comes with it
i also like how the show emphasizes how jon IS smart and emotionally intelligent and is capable of recognizing manipulation when its happening to other people, but still ends up falling victim to it in numerous ways without knowing because it can really happen to anyone
(i also think jon and elias’ dynamic could resemble parental abuse specifically but thats a whole other conversation)
these aspects of his character i think are done really well and i wish it was more analyzed in the fandom
magpod-confessions:
.
circus0shifter:
ket4jet:
@mangozic ’s dtiys! thx for hosting!!
look at this mystery of a man… save the man he’s gonna drown
ultramarinaa:
Finished TMA200, I am NOT ok.
Anyways it’s time or be delusional and happy so look at John petting a cat (Admiral maybe?)
Many people have probably complained about this before but there sometimes seems to be a bit of a disconnect regarding what Jon actually did and thought in S1 and what he does in fanfics?? Which is fine, alt universes and fix-it's are obviously not going to have him be the same, but I've stumbled across quite a few in which Jons refusal to admit anything in the statements is real is portrayed as him.. actually not believing it? he explicitly mentions he only says that because he has no idea what to do if it's all real....it's actually spoken about TWICE in the S1 finale.. not to "uhm actually" too much but it annoys me. That man has seen supernatural stuff! He's experienced it!!
I also crave some nuance.. S1 Jon is (often) either portrayed as nicer as he was or just a completely stuck up bitch which is untrue.. sure he had a stick up his ass but he's not a robot..? I'm sure it's just the one fic that's left a bad taste in my mouth (not naming it of course) but Jon knows how to talk in a way that doesn't sound like a way too formal business email. I promise! I understand why S1 Jon is hard to characterize, since Johnny was also still figuring out the character, but I feel it shouldn't be that hard to make something up that isn't going very extremely into one direction. Yes he was raised by an elderly woman and speaks that way! Yes he's also had contact with pop culture and people his age!!
Anyways I love Jon I'm relistening to S3 and he's such a delightful cunt sometimes I love it when he's sassy towards people that deserve it (Elias)
magpod-confessions:
.
