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a meme
I am annoyed by absolutely everything today. Therefore, I meme. Grabbed from around, slightly modified.
Give me a character and I'll tell you some things:
1. How I feel about this character
2. All the people I ship romantically and/or sexually with this character
3. Favorite gen relationship(s) for this character
4. My unpopular opinion about this character
5. One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.
6. Random pet theory about this character that you won't convince me is not true.
7. A song or piece of music I associate with this character.
Any characters in any fandoms I know are fair game. But a lot of my fannish thoughts currently are about The Magnus Archives, Rusty Quill Gaming, and Stellar Firma.
Give me a character and I'll tell you some things:
1. How I feel about this character
2. All the people I ship romantically and/or sexually with this character
3. Favorite gen relationship(s) for this character
4. My unpopular opinion about this character
5. One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.
6. Random pet theory about this character that you won't convince me is not true.
7. A song or piece of music I associate with this character.
Any characters in any fandoms I know are fair game. But a lot of my fannish thoughts currently are about The Magnus Archives, Rusty Quill Gaming, and Stellar Firma.
Jon Sims (The Magnus Archives; caution SPOILERS)
1. How I feel about this character
I have too many feelings about Jon, so it's hard to put them clearly into words. He's a hugely complex character, and we've spent a lot of time with him, so there are facets and facets and facets. He's a selfish jerk who is learning to be kind; he's emotionally inept and distant and lonely and people are Hard for him but he tries and fails and tries again; he's full of frustrated ambitions and wounded vanity that make him all too susceptible to believe he's a Chosen One; he's not as smart as he thinks he is, but much, much more capable of love. I adore him even when I want to slap him a lot.
2. All the people I ship romantically and/or sexually with this character
Martin, as a romantic pairing. [ETA: And a sexual one. I very much want to believe that Martin and Jon were able, during their Scottish honeymoon, to negotiate the sexual aspect of their relationship in a way that works, even if not perfectly, for them both.] I never thought it would happen, right up until it did, and sometimes I still can only half believe it, because canons never give me what I want. Jon and Martin are right for each other, but not because they started out that way; they're right for each other because they've been working hard at all the ways that they're wrong for each other.
Sexually but not romantically. . . okay, this is going to depend on how I interpret what we have canonically about Jon's asexuality. And . . . we have word of Jonny, who has said very plainly that Jon is asexual. My understanding, though (I don't know much about asexuality, and I would definitely do some research if I were to write a fic in which Jon's asexuality is a factor) is that "asexual" is a broad term.
Anyway, in the actual text, what we have is a second-hand report of a casual remark by Jon's ex-girlfriend, who had barely been in touch with him for years before he turned up at her doorstep, and has sometimes deeply misunderstood what kind of person he is.
So, my own interpretation, until and unless contradicted by text, tends to place Jon more in the gray area of asexuality, or even as demi-sexual. What I'm most comfortable with based on current text, and also based on what I want that aspect of Martin and Jon's relationship to look like, is that (a) Jon does feel desire at least sometimes, on a purely physical level, and (b) he does enjoy sex with the right person, at least sometimes, for both physical and emotional satisfaction.
And that was a lot of preamble for this: Jon could easily have been led into a sexual relationship with Elias, if Elias had tried to manipulate him in that direction. Initially, I think Elias was someone Jon admired and wanted to be like (Jon's archivist voice, in my interpretive reversal of Jonny's and Ben's actual decisions, was based on imitating Elias in order to sound even more posh and important and serious than he already did), and Jon was so hungry for approval from authority figures that Elias could have groomed him for any damn thing and Jon would have been delighted, at least at first. That changes as Jon gets to know more about what he's dealing with (both in the Institute and in Elias), and of course we learn at the end of S4 that the stakes were far too high for Elias to have risked ruining Jon's development for the sake of a little nasty fun.
Ultimately a Jon/Elias relationship would have been terrible for Jon. He would have enjoyed it at first (do any of us doubt that Elias can be really good in bed if he cares to try? not to mention good company?), and gone a long time not noticing Elias's complete inability to love or care, and then trying to rationalize it once he did notice. Jon would've ended up as a tight knot of shame and self-loathing. (And the world would have been safe, because that's how the show rolls.)
On a non-abusive note, I think Jon and Gerry Keay could have loved each other, if they'd been able to meet while they were both alive. (There is, undoubtedly, a really dark fic somewhere in which Jon doesn't burn Gerry's book, but keeps him around because he likes the company, and never acknowledges to himself that Gerry is a prisoner. No matter how many times Gerry tells him so. But that brings us back to abusive and awful.)
3. Favorite gen relationship(s) for this character
All of them, but I especially really liked the mutual understanding that was there, briefly, between Jon and Daisy in S4.
4. My unpopular opinion about this character
Martin is smarter than Jon. Jon is vastly better educated and has a broader set of intellectual skills, but Martin is more perceptive, and not just about people. And this is not an insult to Jon, who's certainly very bright. But if we could somehow separate out pure capability from the various other factors of education, information access, self-confidence, etc., Martin would have the edge.
5. One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.
Completely implausible: Jon and Martin save the world at a tolerable cost to themselves and live happily ever after.
Realistically: They die together, or reasonably close to it, and die knowing or at least believing that what they've done will help. I will accept this, given the context, as a happy ending.
6. Random pet theory about this character that you won't convince me is not true.
Jon comes from a working class background and deliberately changed his original accent.
Also, Jon really wanted to be an academic, but he was rejected by the Ph.D. program(s) he applied to. This is how he ends up at the Institute and why he keeps telling himself, for the first couple of seasons, that it's an academic job.
7. A song or piece of music I associate with this character
Um . . . I have one for Martin? (It's "I'll Be Your Girl," by the Decemberists.) Jon is harder, especially now that I've listened to the most recent Patreon Q&A in which Jonny said that Jon doesn't listen to a lot of music. Not that characters would necessarily listen to the songs I associate with them--Martin doesn't listen to the Decemberists, although he would like them if he did--but that does make it harder.
For S1-S2 Jon, maybe something from the Smiths; I think they best capture that mix of "I hate you all" and "I'm so misunderstood, someone please love me." Perhaps "How Soon Is Now" which also works in a different way for later, "I'm afraid I'm becoming a monster" Jon.
. . . whew, that was looooong.
tl;dr
You might like:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/18751258
It's a very sweet and hot (and impeccably in-character) take on them figuring out sexual activity which they're both getting something out of, even if it's not exactly the same thing. And one that's very aware of the possible failure modes -- that Jon would ignore all his own boundaries to try to make Martin happy, or that Jon's lack of desire would leave Martin feeling unseen/unwanted -- even as they navigate it and get it right. And it's imperfect and human and lovely.
(I also enjoy Martin recognizing that he is about to be wrecked and accepting his fate manfully.)
Absolutely not the only good one out there, by a long way, just one I'm fond of.
I don't know much about asexuality, and I would definitely do some research if I were to write a fic in which Jon's asexuality is a factor
Fortunately, the fandom has a delightfully huge number of ace porn writers, so lots of people posting info about asexuality and discussing possible takes (and lots of potential people to hit up if you wanted a consultant).
There have been a couple of bouts of Discourse where someone tried to say that it was evil and disgusting to write anything nsfw about Jon because he's ace, and a tonne of people stood up to say EXCUSE YOU I AM ACE AND HERE'S HOW I RELATE TO THE CANON AND WHY I AM ABSOLUTELY WRITING ALL THE PORN ABOUT JON.
E.g. (don't read if you would prefer not to even know of the Discourse, but yeah, strong ace porn-writing contingent):
https://wildehacked.tumblr.com/post/188221656215/im-tired-of-people-giving-fans-shit-for-writing
https://sazandorable.tumblr.com/post/615458881527824384/stopitjon-dirtdweller-jon-sims-from-tma-is-a
https://backofthebookshelf.tumblr.com/post/615477885176774656/ive-done-this-before-but-to-be-fair-that-was-a#notes
Also this post is charming:
https://backofthebookshelf.tumblr.com/post/183938195531/ace-jon-sims-scenarios-this-fandom-has-been
So, my own interpretation, until and unless contradicted by text, tends to place Jon more in the gray area of asexuality, or even as demi-sexual.
Yeah, those are options, asexuality being a spectrum.
(Context note: I would undoubtedly fit the criteria for being somewhere in the area of demi and/or grey-asexual. I have apparently not quite reached being able to say "I am on the asexual spectrum" as an identity thing, but that's my issues. Anyway.)
And I think it's very plausible to say that, wherever on that spectrum he is, how he engaged with sex in a relationship at university (almost certainly his first ever relationship) is not necessarily going to be how he relates to it now.
Like, I can absolutely imagine Jon-at-university, with no vocabulary for his sexuality and all the social pressure that “of course” if you love someone romantically you should want to have sex with them (and for bonus points, in a male-female relationship, which comes in our society very very specific expectations about the exact kind of thing that counts as "sex" and what you're supposed to want to do), reacting by NOPE-ing out of the whole subject and getting ever more avoidant when it comes to talking about it let alone doing anything.
And then with Martin, I'm fairly sure he'll feel the need to out himself fairly early on (if Martin doesn't already know via Melanie) -- but having set that boundary and feeling safe with it (and knowing that Martin will absolutely respect any of his boundaries, and also being in a situation where any hope of "normal" vanished long ago, which weirdly removes some pressures), that opens up space to potentially go "... actually I might kind of wanna try this specific thing ...?" Or not, as the case may be.
The one thing that makes me mildly homicidal -- and I have seen this a few times - is when authors go "well he just didn't love Georgie that much so he wasn't interested in sex with her". Which just takes us back to old-school slash demonizing of canon female love interests (with bonus bi erasure), and is just as unnecessary. Umpteen reasons why things might be different with Martin, without having to throw that in.
(Not meaning to imply for a moment that you might do that; I'm just rambling here and it's just one of the few really obnoxious ways of handling it I've seen.)
I personally like fics where Jon and Martin have to navigate differences in sexuality and work out what intimacy means to them because it can push stories to such interesting places (also, Relevant To My Interests). And in S5 they are doing so well at negotiating their different needs and being so careful and gentle with each other's boundaries, and I love that so much about them.
Re: tl;dr
The one thing that makes me mildly homicidal -- and I have seen this a few times - is when authors go "well he just didn't love Georgie that much so he wasn't interested in sex with her"
Ugh, yes. I mean, Jon/Georgie is a relationship that ended, so I think we can assume that there were problems. But for (some people in) fandom to translate that into Georgie-bashing is icky. Especially since, in any of Jon's adult relationships--romantic or friendships--I'd bet that a good 70% of the problem was always Jon.
that Jon's lack of desire would leave Martin feeling unseen/unwanted
This issue is one that I think a lot of fics with asexual characters in romantic relationships with non-asexual characters tend to gloss over. (I don't mean in TMA, where I've read practically nothing, but in general.) There seem to be a lot of fics that go like this:
A: I love you!
B: I love you too! But I'm asexual. We can never have sex of any kind.
A: Oh, okay! I am not asexual but this is absolutely not an issue for me, so we'll just snuggle!
It ignores so much--everything from the emotional importance (for many people) of sex in a romantic relationship to the toll that feeling undesired by a partner can take on someone's self-esteem. (And in the TMA context specifically, this sort of thing makes me feel super protective of Martin, who definitely has a tendency towards "I will sacrifice all my feelings and needs on the altar of my love for Jon." He's gotten much better, during and after S4, at setting boundaries and giving importance to his own well-being, and I really really don't want to see him put back into a self-abnegating position.)
To be clear, I wouldn't want to see Jon making himself miserable to please Martin, either. But Jon doesn't have the same pattern of sacrificing himself to be loved that Martin does.
Re: tl;dr
*nodnod* That seems very wise, then. Good to be aware of one's own limits.
I mean, Jon/Georgie is a relationship that ended, so I think we can assume that there were problems.
Oh yeah, but there's no reason to think that "they didn't really love each other at the time" was one of them. And it's so unnecessary to throw that in as a way of boosting Martin's significance or explaining why the relationship with him might be different.
There seem to be a lot of fics that go like this:
A: I love you!
B: I love you too! But I'm asexual. We can never have sex of any kind.
A: Oh, okay! I am not asexual but this is absolutely not an issue for me, so we'll just snuggle!
Which has validity as a fantasy, I think -- it's not any more unrealistic that any other fics where people's sexual and romantic needs magically turn out to be completely compatible with no negotiation or complicated conversations required ("I am into this highly-specific kink!" "Fortuitously, I am also into this exact same kink in a complementary way!").
Sometimes fic's all about the fantasy, and frequently I have to go "okay, this is not my fantasy or what I was looking for here, but it's obviously what someone needs".
And I do hate the idea that being in a relationship with an asexual person inherently and inevitably has to be a terrible sacrifice for an allosexual person.
But yeah, personally I wanna see them have to do some figuring out to get to a place where both of them are getting their needs (emotional and otherwise) met. I want to see the workings!
... apparently my narrative kink is Awkward Negotiations.
and I really really don't want to see him put back into a self-abnegating position.
Fervently agreed. Also new confident-with-boundaries Martin is such a good look on him.
Martin deserves to be loved and cherished and have all the orgasms.
But Jon doesn't have the same pattern of sacrificing himself to be loved that Martin does.
On the other hand, he has a different pattern of sacrificing himself for others because he thinks he's monstrous/inhuman/responsible for everything bad that's ever happened, etc.. and also has no sense of self-protection at all. And I'm fairly sure that however he thinks of his sexuality, he's got it filed as part of why he is Bad At Relationships. So they both have the potential to be disasters here.
On the third hand, they've also reached a point where -- as we're seeing in S5 -- they can be really good for each other, and they're navigating really well around having different needs and boundaries (e.g. Jon's need to "vent" versus Martin's need to not have all the horrors of the fearscape poured into his brain).
I love them so much.