MaHtIn?!

My entry for @stageturn ‘s dtiys!! (Drawing Without text under the cut/just the lineart cus I like it)

honestly one hell of an episode. alice making a joke about protection, sam immediately registering it as innuendo while celia just whips out a knife in the middle of the workplace. the fucking 'who are you?/an archivist' thing like oh! okay! normal about that. the oiar/dphw thing not having a section for archivist is insane - like not even as an occupation? 'we set it loose' yeah we're so fucked. theres four episodes left. girl. celia saying the archivist isn't acting the way she expected??? thats really interesting... i dont know where to begin with helen. tragically tory. celia being uncomfortable the Whole Time because helen distortion tried to eat her. 'She laughs. It’s very reminiscent of The Distortion. Celia is unsettled. Sam laughs nervously.' absolutely normal and fine thing to say. hidden in the transcript btw if ur confused. SAM WITH THE BABY!!!!!!!!!! i cant believe samcelia had sex at the end there. a fade to black sex scene? in my magpod???? somehow likelier than we ever thought????

I’m a little nervous talking about this, but I’ve had these thoughts for a while and want to get them down somewhere, so here we are!

There’s a common discussion within TMA of the Idea of human vs monster, and where the line between that is drawn, and this discussion especially applies to the avatar’s and their feeding habits, their desires to hurt others — their hunger. But, I think, that mentality can often lead to the real question being ignored, and that’s the question or choice.

It’s a common theme within TMA, and is prominent within the Becoming of avatars, and what they do after.

A good way of understanding Jon’s feeding in s4 isn’t through the lens of how human is he, rather it’s through the lens of how similar he and Melanie are. He and Melanie act as foils to each other during s4, their actions and choices emphasising their opposing paths.

The gist of it is both wanted to hurt people. It felt good. Both admit to this fact.

And the reason they chose it, is because they’re hurting. Melanie admits to this outright. She’s been angry so long, with little else for her, lashing out and desperate to survive, and suddenly, she has this thing etched into her bones, telling her that this anger is righteous, that hurting herself and hurting others is good. Both are aware that this isn’t good, of course, but it’s so hard to let go of that little, reassuring voice, because doing so means confronting yourself, and your struggles.

I speak as someone with C-PTSD, but this is a very realistic depiction of how it feels, at least to me personally. When you’ve been so powerless for a long period of time, and suddenly, something or someone tells that it’s okay to lash out, to hurt, it’s easy to fall into the destructive cycle, because hurting other people, taking away their power, it gives you a sense of control back, a sense of power.

It isn’t right, of course it isn’t, but it just feels so good.

This is again shown by Melanie and Jon’s separate paths.

Melanie ends up choosing to recover after the bullet is removed, when she could have just as easily found a new, self-destructive path to go down, and it’s not just because the bullet was removed. Taking away her agency here takes away from her arc. She chooses to accept help and she really does work on bettering herself. She doesn’t want to hurt people anymore. Jon doesn’t do that. He feels he can’t. He’s had his power taken from him more times than he can count, been at the mercy of people and monsters, and finally, finally he has power again. He’s put in the position of the tormentor and it feels good. He finds satisfaction in it. And, as with Melanie, there’s a little voice in the back of his head telling him this is right, no matter how guilty he feels afterwards.

He makes excuses to himself, tries to rationalise his own actions as a way of coping, finding a reason to do it again because it’s all he has. It’s a comfort. Is there a supernatural element present? Absolutely! The relationship between Entity and Avatar is one that can just as much parasitic as it is symbiotic, but I think more of Jon’s character is lost by dismissing his darker choices. If anything, the darker choices emphasise his compassionate choices, and vice versa.

Jon can be a victim and still hurt other people; that’s an important thing to acknowledge. Avatars are not just their fears, there is far more to their hunger than that, and they are who they are because of their choices and wants.

Basically, Jon and Melanie are wonderfully written characters and I really love the themes of choice in TMA, can you tell?

I really love Melanie as a foil for Jon, because their histories are actually super similar. Investigate spooky things. Both have a paranoia induced mental break after something happens to them. Both dated Georgie (lol). They have so much in common and so much self hatred, they struggle to ever get along because they don't like seeing themselves in the mirror.

Also, it is not lost on me that out of the two of them, the one that survives is the one who sought outside help and tried to heal (outside help is super important. None of the TMA cast was in a place to help each other much, not in the way an outside professional could.)

Makes me think if Jon got therapy he might have lived, and it's crushing to think about.

this frame appears for 0.5 seconds im so sad

rubs hands. its all coming together

every single instance of martin saying jon’s name across all 200 episodes of the magnus archives

moorland

in theory i could do it but do i Want to

ok but its so fucked up/funny/fucked up funny that the tape recorder has teeth????? like ERROR is just walking their dog

i cant draw but heres what i mean

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

jon starts getting weird cracks on his skin every time he does his whole “ceaseless watcher” thing. it’s fine. it’s probably fine.