TW for brief non detailed ED talk ‼
i used to be a j/m girlie, but now that monster!jon has taken over my life the majority of j/m fics are either boring or just. rub me the wrong way with how they handle the whole 'jon has a physical dependency on statements, especially live ones'.
a lot of them tend to praise is martyrdom to the point of it feeling too close to encouraging EDs to me.
obviously, supernatural trauma dependency and real, actual EDs are entirely different things, but a good chunk of people with restrictive EDs also believe that starving themself is the morally correct thing to do.
i also dislike how many of them portray jon's insistence on martyrdom in general (a lot of those i read portray this as a Good™ characteristic, when i've always interpreted it as a quite obvious character flaw)
most of canon j/m i'm fine/neutral towards or find cute, except for end-of-season-5 j/m but that's a whole nother can of worms and this has already gotten so long NFNSNDNNA
j/m fans you're doing great sweeties!! /ref but it is just not for me lol
also SORRY THIS GOT SO RANTY/LONG HFHSJAJAJ 😭
Noooo, don’t apologize, I love rants! And this is a fascinating topic to rant about, so feel free to send them to me :3
(I’m putting this behind read more because of spoilers and whatnot)
Jon being physically dependant on statement is SUCH an excellent source of drama and conflict for his character, I love reading/writing about it. But tbh I never made a connection between this and ED despite literally writing about him intentionally starving himself and losing weight and suchlike… this is very strange in retrospect? It’s such an obvious correlation, and yet. And yes, I know it’s not the same thing as real-life ED, but there are definitely similarities.
As for the Jon/Martin thing: I get that. I love angst, so I admit I’m not terribly interested in the fluffy aspects of their relationship. For me, it works really well either as a happy ending to the Jon/Elias (which leans towards abusive and toxic in fics), or as a juxtaposition to one another (which is the way I’ve been trying to write it). Martin is clinging to the idealized, human version of Jon, while Elias is here for monster!Jon above everything else. And I love monster!Jon, so I’m unfortunately leaning more towards Elias’s side of the argument.
Jon’s martyr complex is also a compelling plot point. No, I don’t see it as good, per se, since I don’t think it comes from a particularly healthy mindset… but whatcha gonna do, two thousand years of Christianity means that European Culture boils down to martyrdom and self-sacrifice = good and morally right.
In conclusion: I now have a craving for a good corruption arch for Jon’s character. Let him BE a monster, come on. But also for fics that explore Martin’s inability (unwillingness?) to accept that Jon needs those statements. Both excellent premises!