Ok I will say. Hot take here but i think JM in s5 is not MEANT to be healthy. I think that’s the whole entire point. It’s never portrayed as healthy; they spend the whole time bickering and arguing and not trusting each other and being so horrifically extremely codependent it’s pointed out BY ONE OF THE AVATARS, THE LITERAL HARVESTERS OF HORROR. I think making them dysfunctional is entirely the point. The last episodes they appear in together they’re arguing about jon becoming GOD, martin is very obviously against it, and jon simply decides he Does Not Care. And i mean, in the grand scheme of things? Jon, well, he’s correct! Doom one world and not millions of others. Martin isn’t portrayed as correct here- (in ‘checking out’, Jon says he knows martin is fine with the theoretical suffering of others, but when he actually SEES it then he’ll be horrified- same logic applies to his take on release the fears vs keep em in 199) all of them are just.. people. With opinions. Not really any of them good, or the standard, or healthy in the slightest. If you’re constantly bickering with your boyfriend about the morality of consuming other people’s terror, asking him to smite people you dislike, and practically insulting him at some points.. i don’t think that’s an intentionally healthy portrayal. Jmart is purposefully dysfunctional in canon, and I don’t think it’s bad writing because of it. And it goes both ways, too! Jon can be pretty mean to Martin throughout the pod!! He insults him behind his back to vent his frustrations about their relationship! Because, hey, loving each other isn’t enough, you’ve got to Actually Make It Work. And they can’t (won’t?) ever do the latter.
Actually, another hot take: not a single relationship exists in tma without extremely jagged or messed up edges. Even the canon ones, especially jmart. Because it’s a hORROR PODCAST.
…evil murder husbands JE, though? I get what you guys mean, tbh. That may be the exception to the above rule.
Same anon as before, i just wanted to add that none of that is from a place of frustration I just want to have a discussion about s5 jmart tbh. I feel like how unhealthy jm is isn’t spoken about in the context of ‘what if it’s intentional?’ Because a lottt of people just assume it’s bad writing when. No, no, i think jonny knows what a healthy relationship looks like, and this absolutely isn’t it (and that is pointed out in-canon)
Outside of my jmart Thoughts, I absolutely adore your writing!! How you DESCRIBE things just completely sticks me in the room in a way I don’t usually experience when reading fic. I sadly don’t really have any jonelias prompts floating around up in me noggin (for NOW), but i just wanted to say that. You’re super cool! I like seeing your stuff on my dash! Sorry i’m an anon, also; I fear people may come for me with fire and pitchforks if i were to use my main lmao. You’re really great at writing their dynamic!!
hey! thank you for sharing your thoughts. i’m not really a productive person to have this conversation with though because i haven’t listened past MAG 166 (I have previously said multiple times that I never got past episode 4 of s5. turns out that’s incorrect! the last episode i got to was The Worms, I misremembered it as 4 episodes because the first 2 episodes of s5 take place in Daisy’s safehouse, so I was counting the number of statement episodes i listened to. they were extremely disappointing so they stuck with me. the jmart plays house episodes i just blacked out i guess as a defense mechanism.)
so, i really can’t weigh in on what you’ve said here because i haven’t experienced this season and i’m not going to. publishing both to respond and because maybe other people would like to have this conversation with you and it’s clear you’ve put a lot of thought into this understanding of the text!
what i will say though is that i don’t doubt that jonny sims knows what a healthy relationship looks like. i’m not pretending i know anything about him or his irl marriage (besides the crazy and immediate chemistry he and sasha have solely as disembodied voices) but he does write a lot of healthy relationships from his statement givers. people who love and care about each other in romantic, platonic, and familial ways that feel real and three dimensional.
but i’m actually totally uninterested in what sort of healthy relationships he can write, though. i don’t seek out healthy relationships in my fiction lmao i seek out interesting ones. i don’t want my blorbos to talk to one another like they’re on the couch at couple’s therapy.
my problem with jmart isn’t that it’s “unhealthy”, it’s that it’s rewarded by the narrative. i’m supposed to believe that jon and martin randomly getting together in 158/9 is a culmination of their hard work. a reprieve from their suffering. finally, after all that horror, they can end up together. it’s a reward for them! it’s immediately taken away and that’s supposed to be the tragedy. of having had a glimpse at happiness, or having closed your fingers around it, and then it being snatched away.
it’s like, have you seen the descent (2005)? if you haven’t i recommend it, it’s one of my favorite movies. good buried statement. if you liked Lost Johns’ Cave you’ll love the descent (2005). i’m gonna spoil it for you now though, so sorry if you haven’t seen it.
there’s a scene near the end where our sole survivor sees daylight. she crawls for like a mile with broken limbs over sharp rocks and her hand breaches the surface. she escapes into the open air. she screams in the most primal, life affirming, animalistic way as she breaths lung full after lung full of fresh air. and then we snap back to reality and she is miles and miles beneath the earth, hallucinating her salvation.
it’s really really affecting. it’s such a gut punch. you think, huh, we’re close to the end of our runtime, i’ve really come to care about this person. i’m so relieved that she’s getting out. i’m experiencing her euphoria at finally escaping. and then it’s all ripped away from you. it’s incredible!!!
that’s what 158 - 160 was supposed to be. jmart in their little scottish cabin with their little highland cows was the fresh air. except ,well, it didn’t taste like fresh air to me! it felt like turning around 180* and crawling back into the dark. i think jon and martin are awful for one another but more than that: i don’t believe that they find comfort in one another.
one of the chief draws of jon/elias is that elias is a reprieve for jon. he’s the one person in his life who he is close to that doesn’t hate him. that doesn’t verbally abuse him as soon as he catches sight of him. he’s also the person responsible for turning him into a monster but listen, you win some you lose some. every relationship has give and take. i: isolate you from everyone you know and drag you deeper into your paranoia. you: crawl to me for comfort only i can give you. romance!
i don’t see the doomed romance that people who like jmart talk about because i don’t see the two of them ever enjoying one another’s company. i don’t see anything that they have in common. i see them sort of hunker down as s1’s sole survivors but even then, martin is pulling away from jon as hard as he can. we as the audience know this is because of peter, but basira tells jon it’s because his mom died (??????) and he hates him too (?????).
so, i don’t think that jmart is bad writing because it’s supposed to be a great relationship and it’s actually really unhealthy. i think jmart is bad writing because their plot arc hinges on me believing, despite 160 episodes giving ample evidence to the contrary, that they are in love with one another. maybe it’s bad love, maybe it’s a lie or an illusion or a veneer. whatever. i still need to believe (i the audience, the beholder in whose eye this is playing out) that they are in love. with one another.
and i honestly can’t even picture them further than arm’s length apart.
um also turning around to twirl my hair thank you SO much for your kind words about my writing D: i really appreciate that, it means a lot!!! i think it’s obvious i care about this podcast a lot and i spend a lot of time thinking about it so thank you for sharing your thoughts with me and for reading my stuff. you are welcome here on or off anon, i’ll also happily not publish things if you would like me not to publish them.