re-listened to 92 again yesterday and still wild that he did that. gun to his face surrounded by two police officers being interrogated whether he committed two murders or not and he takes a moment to let jon know that he’s kind of aroused by the compulsion that even gertrude never did it to him, mhm thank you jon it’s my first time 🥰 like. what was all that for
I have a lot of thoughts and opinions on jonelias and I was encouraged to share them, so here some things about how I see them/what I want from them in fics/how I write them in order of most to least important
elias being aroused by the compulsion is so, like, the implications. the archivist’s compulsion is meant to be a violation of the highest degree, it’s an act of domination over another being and results in complete loss of autonomy for the victim, because statement feeding (and avatarhood as a whole) is also consumption (“he looked at me like he had just eaten a perfectly cooked steak”, 142 // “i’ve always thought a man’s eating habits were his own private business”, elias in 148), jon was eating them so his god wouldn’t eat him, just as his first encounter with the powers was a story about being devoured by a monster. so. why would elias like this, why is he excited by it. because he’s two hundred years old and has spent most of those years hiding his true self as jonah magnus while serving the fear of being known/found out—that alone makes him an excellent source of fear for the eye to passively feed on. but he also describes jon’s compulsion as “tingly, but sort of freeing” in 92, as if the prospect of having his entire self finally, forcibly revealed under the eye of their god after all this time will be a moment of ecstatic release, because he takes so much gloating pleasure in revealing his secrets to jon in 160, because he wants to be Known, the only thing he objects to is the revelation coming at a wrong time because that would ruin his plans. and, of course, the whole loop of jon extracting a statement <–> elias being compelled, which in turn is feeding the beholding, works as a great metaphor for sex. the gratification the beholding rewards them with for the act can only be experienced by the two of them, because nobody else will gladly feed jon their fear and only his archivist can compel jonah. like. all im saying is there was no need to make [PLEASURED EXHALATION] a thing and then never bring it up again. because whats all this then.
i understand why they only speak once in season four but to circumvent that impossibility of a face to face meeting because jon would pry his secrets out of him, elias really should’ve sent jon statements as a means of communication in season four (i mean. he’s done it before). season four jon has been abandoned by his maker after he made him (which is both beholding and elias, because elias is the only one that understands what’s happening to him and the only one who will tell him to not kill himself about it). contrast it with season three where elias is at least somewhat of a guiding presence, season four jon is frustratingly out of his depth once again. even the beholding won’t let him Know anything useful because after stopping the unknowing jon’s interests no longer align with elias’s (I am the avatar of awful knowledge and revealed secrets, so what does it not want me to know? - MAG 154). and most crucial detail of all, he’s so very lonely. they should’ve done something with this! not that elias has ever been a repository of particularly helpful advice but he would’ve managed to say something that would simultaneously reassure jon (no you can’t stop, this is what you’re meant to do) and fuck him up enormously (this is good! this is a promising development, i’m proud of you) because is this what he’s doing he’s seeking absolution from elias of all people. that’s how i would write it. establish a pattern with two or three statements masquerading as conversational letters, and then break jon’s (and in turn, the audience’s) trust with the 160 statement. so like. where’s the episode of jon learning he’s gotten a note from elias in prison and it begins like this
