The whole Jess Tyrell thing is funny to me cause like. Y’all are aware that she wasn’t the first, right? Like. That’s a pretty important thing. She wasn’t the first and if you’re going to call Jon evil for doing that then he’s been evil since episode 13. Which, thinking about it, was probably the intent of the writers. I get how it was different. It is a very different thing, giving a statement willingly versus being forced to give one. That’s not what this is about. But people act like the reason he’s evil for it is because she was traumatized afterwards. And not. Y’know. Not giving people the opportunity to say no. Because at no point had any of them, not Basira or Daisy or Melanie or even Georgie, confronted him before then about being in their dreams. They had ample opportunity to be like “what the fuck did you do?” but they said nothing. And it wasn’t like they didn’t realize it was him. Daisy and Georgie at least were aware it was him. So I just. Can’t help but not care about the Jess Tyrell situation because… Jon was never given a choice to say no about anything to do with what happened to him.
Cause it’s not about “they shouldn’t have stopped Jon from feeding on people” or “they should’ve been nicer”. Jon needed that wake up call and it’d be hypocritical of me to be upset at them ‘being mean’ since I’d love for Jon to be as ‘mean’.
No. It’s their hypocrisy that pisses me off.
They call Jon a monster and tell him he either stops or they’ll kill him. That what he was doing was evil and they have every right to end his life. Not even taking into account all the blood on Daisy’s hands, nor how Melanie and Martin were both heading down the same route and no one cared to lift a finger to stop that.
Except Jon.
The others only cared about Martin isolating himself in how it could be a sign of betrayal. Basira wanted to use Melanie as a weapon. Same goes for her towards Daisy. In a similar vein, Melanie HATED Jon for taking that from her. And the sheer GALL Georgie had to tell Jon to talk to someone while also turning around and telling Martin to cut Jon off completely because he was doing nothing but damage. And that’s not even taking the Distortion and it’s presence in their lives into account. None of them took a single moment to realize just how hypocritical they were being for acting on any kind of moral superiority over Jon.
I do care that Jon was stopped. I do care that he hurt random people. If I didn’t care I wouldn’t still be this invested. I love Jon and every awful thing he does and how hard he tries to do good despite it. I wanted to see him get better. I wanted to see him come to terms with what he did and what was done to him. I didn’t need an apology or an absolution of his ‘sins’. What I needed was them to accept that he was dealing with the exact same things as them. I needed them to actually want to help him instead of seeing him as a problem.
Because you can’t tell me that even if they hadn’t known about Jess that they wouldn’t have found something else to treat him like a monster over. Cause they already were over the whole ‘came back to life’ and ‘reading minds’ thing. Melanie’s first reaction was to try to kill him. Given enough time I’m sure Basira would’ve followed suit. And Georgie just wouldn’t have cared when they did.
No but the fact that Melanie went back a THIRD time to give a THIRD statement is exactly what I’m talking about.
We know, by the end of season 3, that from the start Jon has been dream hopping. That all of the ones who gave him live statements see him in their nightmares. That it’s as regular to them as sleeping at all. We can’t know if it got worse after The Unknowing but from what I recall, it definitely sounded like the way Elias was describing those dreams was how it had been since Naomi.
Here’s my point. Considering this. And considering how Melanie specifically sought out Jon once she got back. With two nightmares for him to visit and retraumatize her with. I just… can’t see how we’re supposed to think of the dreams as horrible, life ruining things that deserve death.
That isn’t to say that they aren’t. That it isn’t fucked how they get no respite any more after telling him. That isn’t to say that what he did was at all okay. But when you’re touting the idea that Melanie blaming him for trapping her there and perpetuating a cycle of torment was justified. When you’re saying that Basira had every right to see Jon as a monster who needed to be on a leash, considering her hypocrisy regarding Daisy AND her own nightmares she brushed off to Daisy’s face. When you’re believing that Georgie’s boundaries were more important because he hurt her feelings by not wanting to tell her everything under the wrong impression that it would protect her. The text, no matter how it doesn’t question these views and doesn’t let Jon’s actions be forgiven, doesn’t do enough to show that he deserved it.
This isn’t me infantilizing Jon. This isn’t me saying ‘oh those mean women beating down the poor man 😢’. This is me pointing out that it isn’t entirely a wrong read to look at the way they treated him before season 3, during season 3, and through season 4, and think MAYBE they didn’t have much of a leg to stand on. And should’ve MAYBE been a bit kinder than ‘I don’t think you really ruined my life but I’m going to hate you forever regardless’, ‘I will take some blame for the apocalypse but I’m not going to apologize for saying I’ll kill you at the slightest provocation’, ‘me not being around you was the right thing to do but I’m sorry that meant you were left alone’. Like. When Daisy is the only one to realize MAYBE he’s not at fault for everything that happened… you MAYBE need to reprioritize yourself.
Y’know. I’m sure I didn’t hate Georgie and Basira and Melanie until the fandom decided to make Jon into some kind of unrepentant monster. I’m sure if I ever end up distancing myself far enough from the fandom that I’ll be a lot more kind about them and less forgiving of Jon’s actions. But my god. This fandom y’all. Some of y’all just. Really fucking annoy me.
I’m gonna be honest. I am, to an extent, okay with the fact people were awful to Jon. I’m not entirely unaware that the shit he did doesn’t exactly inspire sympathy or empathy and shouldn’t. That’s, y’know, a complete sentence.
What I will not and cannot be okay with is just how hypocritical they and the fandom act about it.
If you can excuse Melanie for wanting to succumb to the Slaughter, you can excuse Jon’s own descent into the Eye. If you can excuse Georgie cutting Jon out of her life again, you can excuse Jon keeping everyone else at a distance. If you can excuse Basira’s ‘us vs them’ mentality, you can excuse Jon’s paranoia. Because at the end of they day they’re not just narrative foils. They’re mirrors.
*whispers* Martin didn’t ‘set himself on fire to keep others warm’, because he didn’t contribute anything to any of his relationships (romantic or otherwise) except for judgement and criticism <3
reblogging with tags cause please understand I genuinely hate every TMA character that isn’t Jon not just the girls I am not joking
If you make a joke about ‘Elias Bouchard’ and Peter Lukas being ex-husbands or what the fuck ever, I automatically will dismiss every thing you have to say about The Magnus Archives. Period. It’s a stupid and tired joke. Same with the fucking kayak jokes. Die.
Adding the ‘Jon had a band in university that was the Mechanisms’ to the list of annoyingly pervasive and idiotic fanon in-jokes that make me want to rip my hair out from the root until I’m BALD.
Did you stop to think maybe it’s NOT tragic or horrifying that these people are uncharitable towards and dehumanize him? Did you stop to think maybe it’s just super fucking boring and annoying?
I still need to write up why Tim’s emotions towards Jon, at least in regards to thinking of Jon as an untouchable monster, were completely wrong after Jon’s month of being non-consensually moisturized by the same entity that killed Tim’s brother.
Or at least the idea that Tim was so hurt by Jon’s actions because Tim thought of Jon as a brother.
Spooky scary Shelley-tons!! Ok Michael Distortion fans, this one is for you.
Drawn in Storyboard Pro 20.1 with custom brushes from Rozlyn Waltz. The Magnus Archives is a podcast written by Jonathan Sims, Directed by Alexander J Newall, and distributed by Rusty Quill! This clip features voice acting by Jonathan Sims and Luke Booys!
Had a lot of fun figuring out how Michael moves! Now that I’ve drawn his grand entrance, maybe someday I’ll draw the scene where he…uh…leaves.
you know when people were drawing their fave characters as the raid blast image going around, well i had this lined up in my drafts like 2 months ago so i thought i’d better finally post it
sorry i let my mind wander for a second and i started thinking about jonathan magnus archives sims again. sorry.
…
but have you ever thought about how he says that daisy taking him to the forest to kill him was the most powerless he’s ever felt and yet he throws himself into a coffin to rescue her and yet he talks to her and yet they go for drinks together and yet he calls her for help and yet they were almost friends by the end. and yes, jon acts in self-destructive ways but have you ever thought about the amount of compassion and empathy he must have to do that
and do you ever think about daisy and how she thought jon was a monster and a killer and she was planning to kill him after the unknowing and she changes the way she sees him and when he rescues her from the coffin they both think themselves monsters and they each feel that the other is the only one in the world, or at least the only one near them, who could ever understand
I love how. after wandering the eyepocalypse for god knows how long and being unable to Know anything about Georgie, her safety, or her whereabouts, one of the first questions Jon asks her when they reunite is where her cat is
Y’all remember how the first and only time Jon reassured a live statement giver that he believed them that said live statement giver was eaten immediately after he did so? Just like his childhood bully? :)
I think there was a missed opportunity at some critically needed character growth for Melanie with the scene in the tunnels where she beats Jon not five minutes after offering to help because his panic attack overwhelmed her. Instead of landing on a comedy note of tiny woman hitting a grown man and him just taking it on the chin, Jon had every reason to break further down into another “don’t touch me!” moment like he did in his final confrontation against Helen. I wanted to see Melanie challenged with the direct consequences of actions she can’t deflect because her harm has the aptitude to be tangible and deeply felt beyond her capacity to fix with an apology. She kind of starts to round that corner during the final 199 discussion when she admits the apocalypse is all their faults, but justifying her treatment of jon is such a key throughline of her damaged self image that ignoring her worst actions means likewise curtailing her most meaningful development. She doesn’t have to become the president of Jon’s fanclub, but she does have to be confronted with the ramifications of her worst moments for her journey to be a journey.
No but like it’s so infuriating how Jon is revealed to have been a literal puppet for the Web since he was eight and he doesn’t get to deal with that. All his actions were his own but were they? We’re they really? Or was he just molded into the type of person who would blindly help cause the end of the world while trying to save it? Was he actually someone who willingly watched his bully get eaten by the thing that would’ve eaten him or was he just a fucking eight year old. Was he actually power hungry or was he just scared of being powerless. Who would he have been and what choices would he have made without being coerced or traumatized. We won’t ever know and that drives me insane. Because even with all he did do, so much of what we saw was him trying desperately to do good. And he gets demonized by everyone and everything around him for things he can’t control and for things he can but won’t. I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever get over just how pathetic and sad Jon is and how he died for someone who didn’t even have the courtesy to pretend like he thought he was still himself. Until he gave in. Because that was Jon. Giving in because the alternative was pain.
Thinking about ‘Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out’ by Richard Siken, as one does, in a JonMartin context, is absolutely devastating.
“I can tell already you think I’m the dragon, that would be so like me, but I’m not. I’m not the dragon. I’m not the princess either. […] For a while I thought I was the dragon. I guess I can tell you that now. And, for a while, I thought I was the princess, […] but the princess looks into her mirror and only sees the princess, while I’m out here, slogging through the mud, breathing fire, and getting stabbed to death. Okay, so I’m the dragon. Big deal. You still get to be the hero. […] What more do you want?”
I’m too tired to explain my thought process but fuck. FUCK. I am just. So sad.
Y’know. It’s funny how people wanna talk about how Basira was right to not trust that Jon was human when at the exact same time she was following Jonah Magnus’s orders. It’s all fine and well to point out that Jon was in fact being monstrous but… Jonah gets a free pass from her cause… idk??? Like. She knew Jonah was just as much a monster as Jon. Why the FUCK would she do anything he says at all? With or without verifying his shit? He did fuck all in regards to the Unknowing, how does it logic out that anything he says behind bars is in any way useful. I’m so tired of the double standards. And I get how y’all love to say that it just shows how she’s equally at fault blah blah blah BUT Y’ALL STILL LOVE TO SAY THAT JON DESERVED HER HATE :D!!! Anyway. I’m done. I’m fucking done with y’all.
Call me toxic but if you were to tell me that the only reason you were in a relationship with me was because of shared trauma and that without said trauma (that ended the world, natch) you wouldn’t be with me and that you also don’t want that trauma bonding to be meaningless… I wouldn’t say it was sweet of you to say that. In fact I’d probably dump you right then and there. Because what the fuck, Martin :|
But nah it’s fine Jon doesn’t deserve to have a few minutes of pretend with the person he loves. He has to be reminded that he’s an awful human being who caused the end of the world and that Martin only loves him because he has no other options.
So like. Is anyone gonna explain why Jon gets criticized for acting like everything is on him to fix or deal with on his own and feeling like he can’t accept or trust anyones help… yet Georgie is praised and acknowledged as being in the right for “”setting boundaries“” by completely cutting him out of her life? Or how about how Jon gets criticized for being rude and off putting towards people he seemingly has no reason to… yet Melanie gets understanding and acceptance for holding a grudge and hatred towards Jon from the moment they met.
Losing my mind thinking about the difference in how Marc literally and metaphorically placing his heart in Steven’s hand saves them and the world versus how Jon telling Martin to kill him, which is usually depicted as backstabbing, only condemns them and countless others to more pain.
One was able to confront and deal with their trauma while the other was only ever silenced and blamed for it. And I know you know which was which.
You can imagine my rage at the second transcript. The unbridled irritation I feel at the entirety of it. Not just the fact that the writers didn’t care about keeping canon straight, we already know they don’t give a fuck about that — example: Michael Shelly. No, I mean the re-contextualization of the entire meta plot.
Seasons 3&4 were all about Jon losing his humanity. About the loss of it and any and all connections he had due to forces beyond his understanding and choices he made. About his struggles with falling deeper into it and how it encompassed his life.
But no. Season 5 reveals that wasn’t real. That wasn’t actually a thing. It was just affluent idiots being affluent idiots seeking power and not understanding anything.
No. See. As it turned out, every ‘avatar’ could’ve just NOT been one! They could’ve just refused it at any point in the process, no matter how far into it they were! They were just weak. All they had to do was be better people! Because all people are capable of it! So NOT doing it should be just as easy as DOING it!
When it’s put like that, I guess I can see where the idea that Jon ended the world comes from. Just from existing he may as well have wrote the words Jonah forced from his mouth. There were countless others that could’ve had the same fate as he did. He was the only one that was selfish and egotistical enough to make it happen.
Anyway. It’s 3am and I’m seeing the color of the universe so I should probably sleep.
