2025-03-22 16:26:40 ¶ ●

@flamingphoenix916 I had SO MUCH to say about jmart that I had to do it in a separate post. This way I can also include screenshots from the unofficial transcripts.

First of all, Jon and Martin aren’t really compatible. They don’t even know eachother outside of the Archive. Martin’s stuck on his “precious image of Jon”, as Elias stated, and Jon is way too busy Seeing everything to focus on improving their relationship.

Martin frequently cuts Jon off when he’s talking about the Fears, because he’s uncomfortable hearing it. He outright refuses to be of any help in regards to Jon’s new feeding habits - understandable, logical even, but not even attempting to help doesn’t make him a very good partner. Martin will actively isolate himself from everything that upsets him, and so I wouldn’t say it’s a good thing for him to be with a guy who’s essentially the filter for all the world’s fear and suffering. Jon’s like the liver of the Fear-infested world.

He fails to empathize with Jon on several occasions. When Jon refuses to kill Simon Fairchild (or was it Oliver Banks?) he tries to give an explanation for it, but Martin once again cuts him off and expresses annoyance, because “well they’re monsters! They deserve to die!”

This is because Martin thinks in black and white. He always looks for the simplest explanation, and gets upset when such a thing isn’t available. His morals shift to accomodate that. “The Avatars hurt people for their Patrons, so they’re Bad and deserve to die. When I revenge myself upon those monsters, it’s Good and Correct.”

He also has trouble accepting Jon as an avatar. He’s disgusted, or at least inconvenienced by Jon’s new needs and behaviours, and separates Jon into two categories: the Human Jon whom he fell in love with, and the Monster Jon who’s compelled by the Powers to hurt people.

He laughs at Jon when he’s vulnerable while they’re at Salesa’s. He slaps Jon in MAG 172 becase he didn’t feel like waiting for the man to finish his second statement. Also, I’m not a fan of the “human-monster” divide between the two of them. Martin should’ve become a full-fledged avatar instead of just toeing the line.

Here are some things i said about them in my previous posts:

“ There is no real build-up to them getting together. It’s just… one moment they’re in the Lonely, desperate to find one another, and a moment later they’re saying "I love you” and kissing eachother. When did that happen? I get the whole “grasping at eachother for balance” thing, but was there really a need to make them a couple so soon?

The build-up felt more like it would lead to a friendship, not outright romance - which is why their relationship felt so surface-level in the following season. The writers put together two people that only knew eachother as coworkers, and tossed them into the apocalypse right after that. Jon and Martin do love eachother, but they don’t know eachother besides their surface-level bickering. This relationship could’ve been salvaged in any other circumstances except the goddamn apocalypse, where both of them are constantly on edge. They can’t really sit down and talk about their feelings, when the primary feeling they’re experiencing is fear.

What I’m saying is jmart feels… kinda undercooked? It could’ve had a nice dynamic if it got actually developed. They’re just two friendly delusional coworkers. “

” I mainly have a problem not with the ship itself as the canon presents it, but with the fanon characterization - veeery often they’re watered down to “big fluffy protective boyfiend” and “dangerous but soft monster”. It’s bland, it’s shallow, and worst of all it is completely out of character. And since jmart takes up a large part of canon (they had an entire season!) and is most people’s favourite part of the podcast (back then they used to binge it just to get to season 5), there’s a TON of content of them and nearly ALL of it is blatant mischaracterization. But there’s nothing to be done about that. “

Honestly, if not for the widespread fanon version, maybe I could even be a fan of this ship! But the canon doesnt really give us much, and the fanon is absolutely attrocious.