ok i will be honest and keep in mind i often do hold the haters spirit as pretentious as i am but i do not care for jonmartin myself as it presents in canon, which is to say i do not think it is compelling. i dont think they ever built up the structure *in the story itself* for their relationship, and instead relied too heavily on the preconceptions of the fan base at the time. like, by banking off the fact that people already shipped them, they failed to add substance themselves within the story to support the idea that these two characters would be romantically involved. because, ultimately, by the time the relationship is suddenly established — it’s just like. oh okay. well. you didn’t build up to this essentially at all and these characters, independently and within the pure context of the story, have no real chemistry. like ok we got martin crushing on jon. but it was never really reciprocated. and then suddenly, they’re boyfriends…! like ok. well i simply do not care. you didn’t make me care. you relied on the idea that i already cared. which is not a strong writing choice toooo be honest like as the writer it is your job to convince me to care by adding elements to your story that preclude and support a given development. which makes season 5 so so so so uninteresting imo. boyfriends with no chemistry trot through the fear-wasteland. and then the individual plots of the episodes aren’t even as interesting as the prior seasons. sigh.
this is also what bothers me with fan portrayals of jonmartin, have it be in fanfiction, fanart, or analysis…. like the way they are characterized and discussed by fans is often so radically divorced from their in-podcast interactions and characterization that it’s nearly incomprehensible as the same thing. they’re not all cutesy and loving. martin strikes jon in-show and is wholly intolerant of his avatarhood, a major aspect of his self, because he sees it as fully contradictory to jon’s humanity. YET he regularly uses jon as an attack dog, or at the least goads him towards the role — taking advantage of his status as an avatar. like, if you enjoy jonmartin, why ignore this? these are interesting scraps of development that the two have, and some of the only development the two have. low keyyyyyy. and these pieces were NOT even acknowledged to their full extent in-show, which is another reason i find the canon of them uninteresting. it was as if there was no confidence in the writing room for these elements to be explored, despite their existence and explicitness. they had no consequence, or were exempt from consequence.
i also don’t like how wishy-washy the team was when commenting on jon and martins relationship and jon’s sexuality in their talk episode. like girl we can telllll you weren’t committed to it even without you saying it’s ’up to interpretation’ or whatever. just a bit cowardly imo. either have a romance between the two, or don’t. you can also really tell here (in s5) that they didn’t like the characters they were playing. which sucks!
but ultimately, the canon of jonmartin is one thing (underdeveloped) and the fanon is another (detached, disappointing in its own right). and it sucks because it could have been good if handled appropriately and with better characterization and dynamics, and better…. writing? relevancy? jon and martin being boyfriends could be excluded from the plot and not only would there be no major overall impact, it would be better overall as far as cohesiveness of character and plot direction goes. sighs. like, even if they wanted to keep the romance element in their horror podcast, something which they originally didn’t even want to have iirc, they could have set up ANYONE ELSE. grabs you. why jon and martin? and don’t answer with fanon interpretation. realistically the more logical and thematically interesting choice would have been jon & jonah/elias but i digress. rips my eyes outttttt
anyway to dispel anyone who might just box this as overt no-nuance haterism, i think it should be said that i am so deeply critical of tma because i loveeeeeee it its my favorite podcast. i love to rip apart my shows. im like a dachshund with their favorite toy. i believe in all of the things i said though do not get it twisted. i am a hater. i loathe my show. but i love my show. ok? duality and nuance? ok. 🌈☮️🌻
okay actually jm is boring because, unlike what they tell you in the posts, m*rtin is NOT a monsterf*cker/lover. he wants jon to be human unless he wants jon to clock an avatar he personally doesn’t like and has no patience for any weird thing that jon does even if that weird thing is for jon’s survival, he just REJECTS jon’s monster qualities until they suit his needs/wants. whereas the tma world is full of so many REAL monsterf*ckers/lovers/friends, because it DEMANDS a comfort within a certain monstrous morality (never an acceptance of bad as good but an understanding of what people, human or not, will do to survive)…….. m*rtin just comes off as a class-a boring-ass nag who can’t come out of his tiny boring office world to appreciate a glorious monster bf even when said glorious monster bf is BEGGING for acceptance. if you can’t appreciate the monstrous qualities of your monster bf then you don’t deserve him. thank you for coming to my tedtalk, this was the intro and it continues for another 4.8 hours and it has 93 powerpoint slides
I think the hardest thing/my favourite thing about daisy tonners death in the Magnus archives is that she is NOT herself anymore. There’s no moment of clarity, or humanity, or compassion. She has become a monster. She wants Basira to join her in that monster-hood. Like, a lot of times when there’s a death like that, writers will give the character a moment of pleading, or humanity. But like that’s the thing!! She is gone!! There is nothing left to feel that way!!
And then Jon’s moment of wishing she’d recognized him, because they were friends etc etc, but the thing is I don’t think daisy and Basira were ever “friends.” What daisy Felt for Basira, though soft in a sense, was tied to the violence of the hunt. To me that’s why she was able to recognize Basira, not because of any sentiment between them.
as an elias/jonah enjoyer why are we still lonelyeyes divorce remarriage posting. it doesn’t further either of their goals. instead please consider peter tiktok baiting about his “loving, long term gay marriage.” peter posting about “all the things i do to make my husband feel appreciated while im away at sea” just to see how many young queer people he can get to feel devastatingly single
On one hand, I understand why Elias would choose to completely cease contact with Jon in s4. He doesn’t need Jon willing, just marked and now he doesn’t need to feed Jon breadcrumbs to get him to face the powers, Jon does it himself perfectly well. And of course he doesn’t want to see Jon because there is a risk of telling too much. On the other hand, mag 92 Nothing Beside Remains exist. Elias encourages Jon to care less, to treat others as disposable, to take what he needs. And it’s something s4 Jon explicitly wants to hear. You also have Elias talking directly to Jon because the tape is running, which is something they could have focused on in s4 (Elias is in prison but can Jon really escape him etc etc). So much could have been done to continue developing their relationship while simultaneously showing all the ways Jon differs from Elias and why, despite being so similar, is a better person. But they just didn’t want to invest into their relationship 😔
