I think about Jon telling Martin he imagines what it would have been like to meet and fall in love without the Institute and Martin saying that never would have worked out so much. Because Martin’s right, Jon was an absolute asshole to him for the first few seasons, and it did take years of trauma to make them compatible. Except the mannerisms that made Jon so cruel and critical of Martin in the first place are themselves trauma responses caused by the Fears. If Jon hadn’t been Chosen, traumatized, and manipulated through his entire life to become exactly what the Web wanted him to be, he could be an entirely different person. He may not have had that omnipotent fear that followed him everywhere and colored all of his interactions with everyone. He wouldn’t have dismissed everyone else’s trauma because acknowledging the truth of it would mean he has to acknowledge the truth of his own. He may not have felt like he had to always work himself to the point of harming himself to find answers, and hate anyone else who he thinks doesn’t have to work as hard as he does to survive. He may not have cultivated a cruel, uncaring persona because he was scared of getting too close to people and having them either hurt him or get hurt because of him. He could have been someone who was kind, who was empathetic, who was forgiving- both to himself and the people around him. But that wouldn’t have been the kind of person who would bring about the apocalypse, so he never got to be that person. And maybe it wasn’t the web, maybe he would have been exactly the same person with exactly the same faults, but he’ll never know. He can see everything but he can’t see who he could have been of the evil eldritch horrors hadn’t decided to destroy his life as a way to destroy everyone’s life. But he can imagine it. He can fantasize about being a better person and being someone who could have fallen in love with Martin in a normal life, and be loved in return. But Martin can’t understand that, because he can’t imagine a world where Jon isn’t what he was made into.