Anyway. Last night I was thinking, as I sometimes do, about the month Jon spent at the circus. But this time, not about the nonconsensual lotioning. This time I was thinking about the fact it was a MONTH.
Was it an actual month? As in, near to or exactly 30 days? Four weeks? Or was it just hyperbole? Less than that, but close enough to count? Maybe even longer. Regardless. A twelfth of the year. Gone. Add that to the six months in a coma and Jon has a seven month deficit in his reality. But anyway. On that note. Was he aware of it the whole time? How had he survived? Was there bullshit time dilation? Is that it? He seemed pretty surprised about the length of time, but that doesn’t confirm one way or the other. Though, time dilation bullshit isn’t the Stranger’s m.o. That’s more along the line of the Spiral, right? Still. Can’t really establish HOW Jon exactly experienced that time. He was oddly fine tho. No malnourishment, no obvious degradation in mental and physical faculties that would naturally come from an entire month of being isolated and restrained. Maybe that’s confirmation? He seemed very… unaffected by it. Afterwards. Despite his willingness to die the way he felt he should’ve as a child. Though, would make for bad audio if the main character was unable to converse or react.
I still wonder, though. Why did they want us to not focus too much on the horror of being prepared to be murdered and skinned for a month? Why was it made into a joke? Was it all just to show Jon’s inhumanity? To help emphasize he was already becoming an other? I suppose that would make sense then. No need to dwell when you’re not supposed to empathize. No need to address it when it was just one more mark.
Rest in Piss, Peter FUCKING Lukas. I will be doing ANYTHING but paying respects to you today. I’m glad you’re Jon’s first murder. Gorton’s Fisherman looking ass motherfucker. I hate you.
Got out of therapy a bit ago and thinking about this scene. Not about Georgie saying no, this time, but what Jon says afterwards.
I’m not going to take the commentary in the bracketed stage instructions cause that’s not here or there. But he knew she was gonna say no. And I use the lowercase know here cause it’s important.
She tells him to go to therapy, he asks that she be moral support — possibly even accountability that he follow through — and he is unsurprised when she denies his request. It wasn’t like he was asking her to BE his therapist, or help him find one, or anything more than just be present. And she says no like he thought — expected — she would.
It is so FUN when your preconceived notions are confirmed. It is the best feeling in the world, having your view of a situation be affirmed as right. Especially when that situation is as emotionally sensitive as going to therapy for an ongoing traumatic experience. Cause when you’re right, then you no longer have to alter your thought process. You were right. Ergo. You will continue to be right about the current thought and any related ones.
Georgie telling Jon no — which was her right, cause she is right with whatever decision she made — didn’t just deny her involvement in his life. It told him that his assumption that everyone around him would not help him get better was right. That his assumption that everyone around him thought he was better off dead was right. That he had no real worth to anyone BETTER and that getting worse to end an even worse outcome was preferable than putting in useless effort.
This was all subconscious. It wasn’t like she knew. It wasn’t like he knew. It is just what happens when what are considered cognitive distortions are affirmed.
This fucking sucks, I’m going to (remembers suicide jokes are bad for my mental health) take this world that you used me to create, and I am going to burn it out. It’s the only way. I am going to leave it a barren lifeless void, cold and unafraid and then finally, when everyone’s gone and I am all that’s left I will have the satisfaction of knowing that I’ll be leaving these things that you serve trapped and starving in their own. Private. Hell.
you know, there’s probably room for an interesting analysis post talking about how the text of TMA is pretty convinced that Jon’s biggest flaw is his inability to communicate effectively, but the actual dialogue seems to imply that he is just consistently misunderstood and occasionally outright ignored
Here’s the thing about Tim. Tim doesn’t blame Jon for his employment. He blames him for bringing him down into the Archives. Tim blames him for what Jon became. But, irony of ironies, they both have the same reason for being there. They saw someone they knew (and loved, in Tim’s case) die in a way that couldn’t be explained, drawing them to the Institute and employment there as a way to find answers. Whatever quality that made Jon what he became, good and bad, Tim had as well. He wouldn’t have joined if he hadn’t!And up until Jane, up until the stalking and accusation of murder, Tim didn’t find anything onerous about the place. It was just, exactly like Jon, a means to an end. The only difference was that Tim didn’t continue to dig. He found nothing and accepted it. Jon kept going and Tim saw that as him bringing them all down with him and not giving them any support for what Jon caused. No way out and no way up.
Thinking about how all the other characters’ flaws aren’t seen as defects but as explanations while Jon’s flaws are seen as reasons why he deserved everything he got and more. Which sucks because if he had a single person who ACTUALLY didn’t think of him as a monster, because fuck you Martin was just as if not more disgusted by him, I probably wouldn’t be this adamant about defending him. Because it wouldn’t be a clear cut case of victim-blaming. And I know I’ve said this same shit before but you’ll hear it again and again until I die.
The thing is Jon really didn’t need to go to Jude Perry or Mike Crew. He didn’t need the information. He could have ignored the spoon-fed statements. I’m sure the whole ‘on the run as a murder suspect’ and ‘eventually hunted down to be murdered’ situations would’ve resolved themselves. Not like the information had anything to do with either of those situations. Right? So. Yeah. I’m sure if he’d done neither then everything would have been totally fine. Eventually. Yeah.
I think that Tim Stoker is by far the most compelling character in the Magnus Archives. It’s a shame he didn’t make it to the final season. It was nice having him die taking down the Unknowing, but his character could have gone so many cool places if he had survived.
However, I am still peeved that he pulled the whole “I don’t forgive you” line. It’s one thing to not forgive someone, but you don’t have to make confirming it the last thing both of you will ever hear. You can just… not say anything at all! It isn’t like Jon didn’t know. Have mercy, man.
Why do people try and interpret the only canonical indication of his asexuality as him being not sex-adverse/repulsed as saying that it was gossip and that Melanie, who was the third hand source of it, hated him?
Quickly, explain why someone who hates someone else would gossip that someone doesn’t fuck and why using that as a sign it’s not true isn’t because they AND YOUsee not having sex as something shameful and worthy of ridicule.
ALT
