I think what really cements the tragedy of The Magnus Archives to me is that I genuinely believe with all my heart that if Jon had gone through with the Web’s plan at the end and everything went according to plan and everything was roses and he wouldn’t have been hunted down for his involvement in the Magnus Institute that the others would place every ounce of guilt they felt for their choices on him and still blame him for the decision they made and the consequences of it all in spite of him being the only dissenting opinion because none of them would handle the responsibility.
Martin seems to only be “on Jon’s side” out of spite. Martin defended Jon to Tim because Tim was taking the entire situation of that season out on Martin. Martin automatically assumed Jon killed Leitner, only to backtrack when faced with Daisy accusing Jon for it and counting Martin as an accomplice. That conversation with Georgie was simply because Martin didn’t like Georgie and Martin was going to be contrary to ANYTHING Georgie said, proved by when Jon goes to Martin with a way out of the Institute and Martin spouts the exact same things Georgie did. Martin calls Jon the fucking Antichrist WITHOUT PROMPTING and this is never brought up.
Worsties. That’s not being on someone’s side. That’s just deflection.
Thinking about individualism. Thinking about community. Thinking about isolation. Thinking about mob mentality. Thinking about the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few. Thinking about competing access needs. Thinking about society as a whole.
Man. Jurgen doesn’t deserve all the hate y’all give him if I’m being honest cause like. Dude doesn’t deserve to be thought about. At all. The books themselves? Sure! They were already out in the world, though. It wasn’t like he made them. He was just some loser. That’s all.
Also. What gets me about the whole ✨ooh the entities are all the same they can’t be classified ooh whatever control they have over people is unknowable ooh avatars aren’t real ooh✨ is like. Then why bring a classification system up? Why even have that episode with Gerry? Why delineate human and nonhuman? What was the end goal?
HEY. JON. YOU WERE EIGHT. AND YOU WEREN’T ALONE WHEN YOU WERE SUFFERING AT THE INSTITUTE. WHAT MADE THEM MORE INNOCENT? KNOWLEDGE? CAUSE ONLY MARTIN WAS UNAWARE THAT THESE THINGS WERE REAL UNTIL JANE. SO WHAT IS YOUR METRIC, BUD. WHY ARE YOU SO MUCH MORE GUILTY.
So, like, is anyone gonna comment on the fact that Jon’s whole “I don’t want to be another goddamn mystery” thing might have actually had to do with the fact that the person that he saw die in front of him when he was eight died without anyone knowing what actually happened to him or believing that that’s what actually happened to him?
My interpretation of Jon regarding the Not! Sasha situation is that, on some level, he knew the entire time something had happened, but he purposefully looked away from it because didn’t want to face the truth.
While it’s said in canon that Jon trusts Sasha more than Tim and Martin and that’s why he’s willing to give her more passes, it’s also worth noting that Jon’s bar of trust is in hell. He says that he can’t trust anyone multiple times, and the quote “I may not entirely trust my assistants but I won’t lose them,” comes from a time frame where Jon is under the impression that Sasha is alive. By his own admission he doesn’t entirely trust her, and yet he’s willing to overlook things he’d try to exorcise Tim and Martin for.
And I don’t think that’s because Jon just randomly swings between being overly trusting and overly paranoid. Rather, I think he knew something had happened when Sasha came back without the tape recorder. Because think about it: Jon’s character could be summed up by his thirst for knowledge. Yet, when Sasha tells him that information about Prentiss’s attack was lost…he just accepts it. He doesn’t question it. He doesn’t look for the lost tapes. He doesn’t even keep an eye on her.
Overall it seems like he acts really out of character, and I think that’s because he is. For the first time in the series he doesn’t WANT to see something. He doesn’t want to know if something happened to Sasha in the evidence room, because if it did, it means he might have lost one of his assistants. And it’s as Jon says himself: He won’t lose them. Even if that means turning a blind eye.
So, yeah, I think Jon’s attitude in Season 2 of “Sasha threw a knife at me today. I’m sure it’s just because she’s practicing her aim” was out of subconscious denial of the truth instead of blind trust. Especially because it would be consistent with one other knowledge Jon turns away from…which is Gerry’s page. He burns it because he cares for the people around him more than knowledge itself when push comes to shove. And unfortunately in his case that’s a great motivator of ignoring a monster.
If there’s one thing about me my 24(?) followers need to know it’s that I’m totally normal about turtles of the mutant variety, the moon, and archival practices. Definitely not at all weird about any of those things.
This is a genuine question for anyone who can help.
SPOILERS FOR SEASON FIVE OF THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES
So… in what way does the Web’s plan actually make any sense? Like. It’s probably that I barely listened to any of season 5 and also only read through some episodes once but I’m currently under the impression that this was the Web’s logic.
realize any successful ritual would lead to starvation of the entities
create a ritual that would succeed (???)
center that ritual around a dimensional gateway to other worlds to feast on
ignore that any ritual would’ve failed anyway without interference
???
PROFIT!
Like. I had to have missed something, right? Some very important detail just passed me by. Cause I’m losing my mind trying to accept how any of season five or the Web being the puppeteer behind it all makes sense.
END SPOILERS
This is genuine confusion and wanting answers by the way. I’m almost positive I just completely blanked out and I’d like someone smarter to explain this, lol
No one ever helped me make sense of this so I’m reblogging it cause I’m still so confused about how the Webs plan was in any way logical.
guys ill be real i dont think jon would wear any sort of pride related badges or pins or whatever else signaling his identity. this is a man to whom revealing his favourite colour is a harrowing experience. martin picks up on his favourite tea flavour and jon remains mortified for three weeks straight. he checks the mirror compulsively to make sure no hint at his personality got through to his appearance. jarchivist sims isn’t out here telling the world he’s bi and ace. the world has no need for that kind of information. its not like hes getting any so whats the point
listening to the magnus archives as someone who works in a real life archive is so funny like rip to those guys but I’m different. you put me in the magnus institute and I’m doing MPLP. I’m not reading those statements I’m just foldering them and putting them in ArchivesSpace. I’m only a few episodes in so idk but I think all of the horrors to come could be avoided by doing description at the series level and processing 1 linear foot per hour. mr. head archivist wdym you’re worried about The Eye you should be worried about The Backlog
i still don’t get what tim’s fucking problem is in season 2 and 3 of the magnus archives. like it’s not unreasonable for him to be upset about shit, but i don’t understand how he continually makes this all jon’s fault, especially once everyone knows that jon was right to be suspicious of everyone in season 2. gertrude WAS murdered by someone there! sasha was replaced by a creature! all sorts of fucking plotting was going on! if he wants to be mad about this shit, fine, but i don’t understand how any of it is really jon’s fault, especially to the point that tim can’t even die without making sure jon knows he’s still mad first. jon offering tim an archival assistant job without knowing about any of the shit going on does not make every damn thing in the world his fault.
I think making the choices Jon and Martin made regarding the end of the end of the world out to be just about the other is extremely reductive.
Martin didn’t go with the Webs plan because it would ‘keep Jon with him.’ He went with the Webs plan cause it would cause the least amount of suffering. The ‘cosmic scale’ of human suffering he would have to ‘live with’ was HYPOTHETICAL. It wasn’t real. Not to him or the others. Saying that him wanting to stop the suffering of the people who, to him, ACTUALLY exist, was a byproduct of him wanting to ‘keep Jon with him’ is ignoring that even if Martin doesn’t care about others he still will do what he thinks to save them. Or buy enough time for someone else to. Why the FUCK are you making me DEFEND HIM. I fucking hate you.
On Jon’s end. Why do you think, if any of the others had gone up to stop him, that he wouldn’t do the exact same thing for them? Especially Georgie. I can understand not considering them cause they would leave his ass the moment the Panopticon went up, but let’s present a hypothetical. Say Georgie decided to stay or whatever. Convince him to try and release the fears. Whatever. Do you really think he would be fine and watch her burn with him? He was killing the world for hypotheticals. Would that not change when seeing the reality of it in front of him? With even some random person off the street? We can’t know the answer, but if you think he wouldn’t, you don’t know Jon at all.
Anyway. Convictions are for people not being tortured.
Placing all the weight of their choices when it comes to the suffering around them onto the other is reducing them to that relationship, ignoring their autonomy, and I hate you for it.
I keep getting posts recommended to me all “Jon would not survive Malevolent bc he wouldn’t make it through [thing that happened to Jon in TMA like five times].” Like are we forgetting that the entire plot of TM revolves around Jon being a Horrors Punchcard.
I was so caught in the euphoria of the possibility of the others being guilt ridden after being played by the Web and not actually saving anything and potentially being seen as accessories to the end of the world, that I forgot the possibility of them being seen as saviors by the world due to their fucking cultist followers evangelizing about them and being some of the few people to know about the fears that weren’t considered Avatars.
I think a lot of the supposed inconsistencies in Martin’s morals regarding Jon during season 5 can be boiled down to the writers not knowing how to write characters that aren’t disgusted by or dehumanize Jon for things they told him to do, things they were okay with him doing, things they themselves have done, and things they were okay with others doing. Which they then shoehorn reasons for them to be right about why their hypocrisy towards him was correct, even though they were contradictory to prior actions he had taken.
But also I think characters in the Magnus Archives aren’t supposed to be seen as morally correct unless they’re actively disgusted by or dehumanize Jon and Martin is supposed to be the ‘human’ one of them so of course he had to be.
just thinking about how jon literally decided to kill the world to starve the fears because he was so thoroughly dehumanized and reviled by everyone around him because of what they made him into that even the possibility of someone else becoming as hated and guilty as him for the same reasons was UNCONSCIONABLE. was worse than planetary extinction. he would rather take all that guilt and hatred for ending humanity than PASS IT ON TO ANYONE ELSE and have it on his conscious. it would’ve killed him. he could handle anything but knowing he caused someone to be tortured and destroyed like him.
they can never make me see you as a power hungry monster, jon.
So I’m still putzing around with this fic. Figured I’d go ahead and post the soundtrack to it! Anyone wanna ask questions about some of the song choices?
Context and list under read more…
So this fic is an AU where Martin stops Jon right before he makes the finishing blow to Jonah and the aftermath of that, a domino effect of events causing him to end up raising his very young second cousin back in Bournemouth while working at a cafe. Alone.
My goal was to fully write and post it this year but too much pressure on top of school and life made me nearly toss it so now I’m just. Working on it as I feel like. Made it feel way too serious when it’s a fanfic…..
You can love a character and still admit when they’re wrong. I love Jon Sims but i acknowledge his flaws (he has none) and i can hold him accountable for his wrongdoings (he has never done anything wrong in his life) and call him out on his actions (which are always right)
What if we hated each other but one of us was trapped burried under everything and the other one of us is so desperate for any form of connection that they crawl down there so we can be together and then we were both trapped but now we at least both have someone. What then.
“jon and martin aren’t boring” this. “jon and martin are toxic” that. “jon and martin are sooooo fucked up for-”
*extremely loud buzzer*
ANYWAY lets talk about jon and daisy
what if you tried to kill me because i violated your autonomy and gave you endless nightmares. what if i was terrified of you as we were forced to work together. what if i was terrified of myself. what if i became what you tried to kill. what if the relief i felt at your death was overshadowed by the relief i felt knowing you weren’t dead and could give someone who also wanted me dead the gift of your survival. what if i thought saving you would ensure my death, whether by your hands or not. what if you decided i was someone you could become better with because you decided you were wrong. what if you were wrong about being wrong. what if, even after my faults were revealed, you still tried to do better and help me be better. what if this meant you lost yourself. what if you tried to kill me again but this time it didn’t matter. what if i wanted you to recognize me as anything other than prey because you were the only one who TRULY SAW ME.
…or…
what if i tried to kill you because most of my life i got away with extra-judiciously killing people i deemed monsters. what if i didn’t get away with it. what if i planned on still killing you but instead i was stuck with the weight of everything i did and found myself lacking. what if you came in to save me because you hoped i would kill you. what if i forgot why i thought you deserved to die in the first place. what if we tried to be better together but there was no real trust between us because a part of you still expected to die by my hands and a part of me still wanted you dead. what if you were weak and failed and i didn’t care because i knew what i did was no better. what if I couldn’t find it in myself to blame you. what if i still tried despite your failure. what if, in the end, you helped show me what really needed saving and protection AND IT WASN’T MYSELF.
anyway, your honor, in conclusion, i plead insanity
Anyway. If you dislike Jon from season one and thought he got less selfish and abrasive as the series progressed and saw that as positive character development, you hate autistic people <3
Chapters:
1/1
Fandom:
The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Rating:
Mature
Warnings:
Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Characters:
Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist
Additional Tags:
Post-Episode: e200 Last Words (The Magnus Archives), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hurt No Comfort, Suicidal Thoughts, Short One Shot
Summary:
ALT
