#My tma analysis

[abessive-art]

*Archives your Magnus*

[ceaselesswatchersspecialboy]

I loved the ambiguous ending of the Magnus Archives, but I think if they were going to take that ambiguity, this was the BEST way to do it.

We aren’t simply getting Jon and Martin back — no.

This is a situation where we don’t just get them back, alive and well, rather we are forced to watch — because we can only ever watch — as characters we’ve come to understand so deeply, are stripped away of any semblance are form, in a state between death and life, and an agonising state at that. The buildup in this case to the pure existential dread of these semi-aware people, assuming the case was about the JMJ trio, has genuinely made it one of my favourite cases.

They’re still ambiguous, just not in the same way, and it’s so chilling.

And Jon has certainly not lost the tragedy of dying a mystery, because that’s what he is now: a mystery to be investigated by our new cast. If anything it’s worse that he’s being investigated now, because that’s the exact thing he wanted to avoid in episode 39 of TMA.

[cirrus-grey]

Wait wait wait I'm putting pieces together

From TMA 198, Precipice:

MARTIN Hey, what happened here? Are you both okay? Where is everybody? GEORGIE [Upset] They came for them. Took them away. Like before. ARCHIVIST Oh, god. MARTIN Who’s ‘they’? GEORGIE The… things from the city. You know, the, the ones that serve that big eye.

Georgie and Melanie’s cult (including Celia) were attacked and taken away by the former Archivists who were guarding the Panopticon.

From TMAGP 30, Dead End Job:

ARCHIVIST AT LAST, IT IS MINE!

CELIA …and then the fearless one reached in and grasped me, tore me out, leaving my story to fall away like autumn leaves…

THE ARCHIVIST IS FROM THE TMA WORLD TOO

It came over to this world with Celia when it was kidnapping her from the tunnels. It was locked in the tunnels under the Manchester Institute because it came from the tunnels under the London Institute. It's been trying to find her this whole time because its job was to drag her back to the Fear domains and it failed. It needed her, and the rift, to complete its duty.

That's why the rift was more balanced after it went through with Sam. The Archivist was part of what was unbalancing it! And now the poor thing is lost in a world that no longer has the Eye to guide it, with the wrong victim, and not even a Panopticon to go home to. Poor thing is probably hundreds of years old and just wants to do its job. I hope Georgie and Melanie find it and give it a nice cup of tea.

[thermodynamic-comedian]

i wanna talk about tma characters and the concept of a facade. because i have a lot of thoughts.

so most people understand how ironic it is to characterize martin blackwood as a soft boy that can do no wrong, because one of the most interesting parts of his character is how much of a subversion of that trope he is. he's manipulating people by acting like that. this is addressed in the canon. he wants everyone to like him, and he knows he'll almost always get what he wants if he puts up this facade.

something people talk about a bit less, but is still equally canon, is that gertrude robinson was doing basically the same thing. pretending to be just a boring old woman, when she's actually extremely clever and ruthless. she plays into everyone's pre-existing biases and assumptions masterfully to hide just how competent she really is. she knows exactly what she's doing, and she's willing to sacrifice anything and anyone for the sake of her self-appointed mission. characterizing her as a grandmother figure is the funniest form of irony to me.

but do you know who isn't putting up a facade? do you know who isn't changing their behavior to affect your idea of them?

the older avatars.

peter lukas isn't pretending to be passive-aggressive and overly cheery, he just kind of...is. why would he ever bother putting up a facade? he doesn't want people to like him. his authentic self is this talkative yet asocial man, who specifically aims to be awkward and unlikeable.

people say that simon fairchild's polite and carefree demeanor is an act, but i really don't think that's true either. i guess i might see it differently because i personally resonate the most with the vast out of all the fears, but i really think that a lot of that behavior makes perfect sense for his character. he doesn't think that anything in life matters. his personality reflects the lightness and carefree nature of that mindset. he just doesn't care. he does everything for fun. he's not pretending to be anything he isn't.

this could be me reaching, but honestly, i don't think even jonah magnus is putting up that much of a facade. he's lying, sure. he's manipulating people, obviously. but he's not changing his behavior in order to do that. even in mag 160, there's no big, henry mildmay-esque "dropping of the act" when he has his monologue. if you look at his behavior as elias bouchard, it's exactly the same as the little bits of him that we get to see in s5. the elias whose last words are "good luck" is the exact same elias as the one who always greeted basira with "hello, detective".

humans put up an act. monsters don't bother to.

[cult-of-the-eye]

Jonathan Sims vs Samama Khalid: A Comparison of Horror Protagonists

I want to talk about the differences between these two and for me, the most interesting one was the idea of agency. At first, it seems as though Jon had chosen to work at the Institute, chosen to take the job as the Head Archivist, chosen to record himself speaking the statements. Obviously we later find out that he lacked agency his entire life but we start off believing that he is in complete control of his actions. Sam, on the other hand, is suggested to have been driven by his past experiences, something outside of his control. He's taken this job because he needs it, who would willingly work a night shift with their ex? And most importantly, he's being recording without knowing. What does that mean for the rest of tmagp? It's not a long shot to suggest that tmagp will be an antithesis of tma, i'm guessing it will follow along in a sort of mirror image. Equal and opposite etc etc. So as Jon slowly loses his agency, which is the main focus of the tragedy, Sam could gain agency, gain knowledge, gain power within this universe but inversely, use it for all the wrong reasons. Jon's corruption arc was rife with moral questioning and what he could possibly do to avert his ending but maybe Sam's tragedy will be complete knowledge of what will happen and the inevitability of tragedy, coupled with an innate need to catalyse it.

[cronchy-cryptid]

More TMA Head cannons and thought experiments and season 5 spoilers

(HEADS UP: This talks about toxic relationship dynamics. Specifically feeling isolated by a partner.)

Ok, so recently I've been really thinking hard about the Lonely Eyes ship. Specifically Elias|Jonah Magnus x Peter Lucas.

When I first heard of it, I'll admit, I dismissed it out of hand. "Peter hates people,-" I thought, "No way he willingly decideds to enter a commited relationship with anyone. That goes against his dedication of the lonely :/".

But then it sat with me.

It sat in my mind.

It seeped in to the shallow crevasses of my smooth brain.

It sat with me and now I want to understand.

It sat with me and now I want to make it work in a nuanced way.

Full love to those who ship them for fun or for aesthetic or for any other reason! This is me, full on in my red strings, corkboard, and supplemental era overanalyzing everything as I comb through the series after finishing it once.

ANYWAY! Peter Lucas is the avatar of the lonely, yes? Yes. Peter is a man of solitude. He doesn't want to talk. He doesn't want to get to know you. He doesn't want you around him. He wants to be alone. However, he notes that to feel truly alone, there still needs to be the knowledge of a person or group you are separate from. Without that comparison, being lonely can lose its meaning. It can slip into the Vast's territory. This need for people dispite wanting to be separate from them is why Peter saw the extinction as a real threat.

So he keeps himself at arms length from people, but he still needs them there. No closer and no further. Just enough for him to feel truly alone.

Elias Bouchard is the newest name and face of the body snatcher, Jonah Magnus; the avatar of the eye. (I headcanon that every time Jonah body snatches, a bit of personality is picked up from his victims. Because of this, in this post, I will refer to this incarnation specifically as Elias) Elias loves the eye and is very well attuned to it. He's conniving, quick wited, and very choice with his words. He lives to know. To know you. To know your secrets. To know your failures. To know what keeps you awake at night and to know when it's best to remind you of of all these facts. When he targets someone, he is focused and deliberate. This style of "preying" not only lends itself to feeding the eye as it rattles his victims to thier core, but also allows Elias to blackmail them into collecting MORE information for him as they don't want others to know what Elias knows. It worked on Daisy, Melanie, and (almost) Martin.

But an interesting little side effect of the Eye's power is that it makes you acutely aware of your own presence. You feel singled out by it. It knows everything about you. Intimate things that no random person should know. It watches you. Did something you do give it that knowledge? Who else knows what it knows? Who eles knows and isn't saying anything? Who eles knows and is thinking about you and your worst habits, your dirty secrets, your troubled past that you worked so hard to put behind you? They must know. But they refuse to admit it. You can't trust them. It's you against those who know you and those who will ever know you. And what a truly lonely state to be in.

Jon once said, "The lonely and the eye aren't too far apart are they? Not really.. What goods being alone if you don't know how alone you truly are?"

The eye makes you know how alone you are.

So back to Lonely Eyes (if you read this far, thanks for joining me, I promise I have a point to make). What if they're relationship was super toxic. Like textbook toxic, but they are okay with it because it's the aspects that seem toxic to an average person that they actually value in their relationship.

Imagine, Elias and Peter have an on and off relationship. Elias knows Peter. He knows how to make Peter feel like he's been seen. He knows what games Peter is willing to play and what bets he's willing to make. He hunts Peter. He enjoys the information Peter gives him, yes, but he also enjoys the slight fear that oozes out of Peter whenever they speak.

Peter hates being seen. He doesn't like that Elias "understand's him". That makes him uncomfortable. But he can't help but be drawn back in by this sence of isolation Elias' presence brings. The feeling that he can't reach the outside world when Elias is around. He wouldn't want the world there anyway, whether it's because he never liked socializing or because everytime he talks with Elias, he feels like nobody should know what Elias knows. That this lonely man had a code Elias has secretly hacked into. That Elias could be his undoing if he wanted to be.

Because of this, Peter can't handle Elias for long bouts of time. The uncomfortably becomes far too much for the fimiliar lonelness to soothe over. So Peter eventually leaves to do his own thing ...on his own boat... for his own entity...on his own time.

But, almost like a parting gift, the memory of Elias drifts in and out of his head on those long voyages. Those sparse memories makes it feel like a person is missing. A very important person is out of reach. A person who kept him on his toes and saw him whether he liked it or not, is now gone. No more chats. No more games. No more Elias. And a strong wave of loneliness hits him like a crashing wave. Peter can't help but bask in the weight of it all.

Overtime, those thoughts just don't give the same punch of loneliness. Eventually, he feels relativly average all things considered. He doesn't immediately go back like an addict might, but he will treat himself once in a while... when he finds himself washed up on the ports of London.

Elias may not count on Peter's visits. Once Peter is gone, his fun has been had and it's back to babysitting archivists. However, you would be hard pressed to find Elias focused on his work when he can see Peter walking up the institute's steps, and he knows it's about to start all over again.

[astralsyst3m]

I have Tim Stoker Thoughts.

He is so obviously an older brother.

He cares and he looks out for everyone he can. He tries to help and to warn, yet when they stop listening to him he nods, steps back and watches. He lets them make their own mistakes.

He lives and dies for his brother. He sacrifices his career to learn what happened to his little brother. Then he dies to avenge his little brother.

He puts his younger sibling above all others.

It does not matter if they got along in the end, they are siblings and he would kill to have his brother back.

In the end he thanks Jon for the chance to get back at those who killed his brother.

He thanks Jon because no matter how angry he is at Jon the man helped him avenge Danny's death.

[shadow-the-crow]

Michael never really fit in anywhere. Maybe that's part of why i like him so much. Or maybe i'm just projecting lol – but hear me out.

Michael Shelley maybe really didn't have a purpose in life. Maybe doing research on his trauma was all he had. He was too good, too pure for his human life - a life that probably just wasn't great in general.

Now other people without other purpose in life than supernatural trauma reasearch become happy fulfilled avatars, like Mike Crew. But Mike Crew chose to serve his entity. Michael, on the other hand, was sacrificed to an entity that didn't fit him, that was the opposite of him. He was naive and kind and would never lie to anyone, and the Spiral is the incarnation of gaslighting and lies. Which means the Spiral wasn't good for him, but he also couldn't become a good Spiral avatar vessel. Helen seems to be able to coordinate humanity and inhumanity. Michael wasn't, because Michael Shelley wasn't made for becoming this.

In general - i'm still thinking about how Gertrude stopped the ritual by making Michael the Distortion. Maybe it was just because it disturbed the ritual and it needed to get used to its new identity. Or maybe it was because Michael just wasn't a good distortion. He wasn't strong or talented or spirally enough to complete the ritual. God, i made him tragic.

I gotta say: This seems to contradict what i’ve said before, but i’m only talking about Michael and Michael Shelley as one person to simplify this. What i really mean is the Distortion could never be good at being itself while having Michael’s mind.

Can you imagine? Not only being tied to the embodiment of your failure, but still being your failure. Thinking with a mind that represents the opposite of what you are, that contradicts your very essence. That stops you from living up to your full potential, that stops you from being good at being you.

[vortexily]

There’s something so interesting about how the TMA old men squad (Jonah, Simon, Peter, Maxwell) all serve the most “implicit” Fears, reflecting that they seem to be able to cooperate better with one another. Think Daedalus. Simon doing a favour for Peter. Peter financially supporting the Institute.

I mean that the Eye, Dark, Lonely, and Vast are the least forthcoming/explicit with the way they hurt people. The Slaughter, Hunt, Desolation, Flesh, Corruption all clearly imply physical pain, or at least clear psychological suffering. Their avatars are also volatile, actively going around hurting others. It makes sense that there’s way less cooperation between them.

Avatars of other Fears also show this pattern. If you take this as a spectrum of implicit to explicit cruelty, the End also leans more implicitly, I think, judging by how focused it is on the gradual, psychological fear rather than preying on brutal, violent ends (which would be more Slaughter aligned). See then also how Oliver Banks is someone who Jon even decided to spare because of how he had been willing to help him.

The Spiral is right in the middle of the spectrum, being cooperative on the surface but also willing to dirty its hands. See ep 187. You think they work with you but absolutely don’t.

My point is how cool it is that aspects of the Fears affect the avatars, which then directly impacts the plot. Good worldbuilding. Great, even.

[miyuskye]

Things Jon does in the last episodes of TMA S4:

1. Finds Elias, and he's distantly aware of having being pulled to him. He still asks him and Elias answers, because it's apparently their kink to do this Q&A session even if they're both all-knowledgeable beings.

2. In this push-and-pull game, Jon tries to ask what the Panopticon is, and Elias doesn't answer, so Jon Knows the answer. The audience wonders why they can't get a room like everyone else. Elias asks if he likes it and Jon says yes. Everything's okay.

3. Jon remembers he has a friend in need of saving, that's the reason he's here. He tries to get Elias' approval for going to save Martin, which Elias doesn't give him immediately. They can't be normal for a moment, so Jon has to earn it.

4. Jon finally obtains Elias' approval which is something also Elias craves because in his pet project he needs the pet's agency to be his own. Again, normalcy doesn't suit the two freaks. Also they get off other people's fear but when there aren't other people they have to do with their own fears. Weirdos (lovingly)

5. Jon compels Peter to tell his story. That's good, he needs to eat after entering the Lonely domain. And where does he lose it? When Peter doesn't tell him why he's Elias' prize. Okay, so the man he's been kind of admiring for years (even when he finds out that he's a murderer) has been waging him as a prize. Cool, he manages to stay calm, I wouldn't have honestly.

6. He offs Peter because he won't tell him anything more about Elias. Fair game, he should know by now how his little kinky game with his boss-slash-Eldritch mentor goes.

7. I want to make clear that Jon finishes Peter because he's not answering Jon's question about him being Elias' prize, and if this post is very shipping-based this fact is undoubtedly canon. He doesn't end Peter because he said something bad about his friends, or Martin, he does it because he won't tell him why he's Elias' prize. Be it because he's thirsty for knowledge due to the Beholding or for any other reason, those are facts. He probably would have done it anyway, though seeing how he behaves in S5 I'm not so sure. Anyhow, he's sulking when he doesn't get his answers, fair, and suddenly remembers he's here to save someone.

This has a parallel to another person being trapped and dying in the Lonely domain.

Jonah also had a friend he cared for trapped in the Lonely and did not save him, because he had to Know. Jon saves Martin at the end, but the parallel between them, the indissoluble connection between them strengthening even more.

HOW DO I STOP THINKING ABOUT THEM EVERY WAKING MOMENT??? AAAAA

[anyatomy]

everyones having fun with calling him gerry robinson but we cannot forget our roots. we cannot forget eric delano. i doubt protocol would entirely change his family structure- if gerry and gertrude were actually related, its more likely she'd be his mom given the period eric worked at the archive. even still, i don't think they're actually related. in TMA, they used the grandmother-grandson lie; i think that's just how they explain their relationship to each other. i think how happy gerry is is wonderful but we cannot assume that's because of gertrude, the brief glitching noise we hear at around 21:04 when gertrude is prompting a response from gerry is enough to keep me VERY wary of her intentions. we cannot forget how gertrude continuously lied and used gerry throughout them knowing each other.

i don't really think that's changed all that much in protocol.

[ceaselesswatchersspecialboy]

Jon’s subtle Becoming in season two is possibly one of my favourite aspects of the earlier show in hindsight, and I think it links really nicely with why ends up aligning with the Eye, whereas Gertrude rejected it.

There’s a consistent theme with avatars and finding a sense of protection or comfort in the entity they serve, and being an avatar is never really about what you fear, as much as it is about how you cope with what you fear.

Throughout season two, Jon is actively faced by one of the entities directly — Not!Sasha — and pairing that with Gertrude’s unknown killer, he spirals into distrust and paranoia, always feeling as though he’s being watched or that people are plotting against him. His manner of coping with this worsening state of constant fear and paranoia is by both becoming a causer of it, as well as desperately seeking answers and investigating.

He has to know, and he has to be sure of what he knows. The unknown variables bother him.

He always feels as though he’s being watched, and so, he becomes the watcher. He stalks Not!Sasha, Tim, and Martin, and then digs up as much info on them as he can, alongside Elias. He makes note of their every move, every detail, every slip up, until it becomes obvious to all of t he m.

Note that it’s a stark contrast to his original coping mechanism of ignorance, because that proved it could only work so far. After Jane’s attack, he can’t afford to let his guard down anymore. He can’t afford to trust anyone except himself and what he knows.

He finds a comfort in the Eye before he even knows about it, in a sense, and while this is likely a simplification of season two Jon, I just wanted to gush a little about it, because it’s really clever set up.

He’s the Ceaseless Watcher’s special little boy for a reason!

[cirrus-grey]

No, seriously, what makes Celia so special??? If Darrien and the other "emaciated souls" were each balanced out by someone getting eaten by the Centre then I guess it makes sense, but then why didn't Hill Top just eat someone to balance Celia? Why does two people going in her place balance it out instead of unbalancing it in the other direction?

And what about the other people we know who've crossed over? What balanced Anya Villette? Or Jon and Martin? Or the goddamn Fears???

[bigmilkagenda]

Of the many, many plates of pancakes* that were offered to the listener in magp 1-07, this one may be my favourite

[ID: A screenshot of an unofficial transcript to The Magnus Protocol. CELIA is saying "Yeah. I mean, it's an old system, but it could have been worse. It's not like we're wrestling with tape recorders and manila folders." /end ID]

When we meet TMA-Celia for the second time, she's lost her name. She was Lynne Hammond, and now she's not. She doesn't seem to remember Martin, either, but it's not clear how much of herself and her life from before the change she does remember. She's freaked out by the tape recorders that start showing up, and there's no indication that she associates them with the Institute specifically.

If Celia Ripley is, as we are clearly intended to believe or consider, the same Celia as in TMA, why is she making knowing comments about manila folders and tape recorders? Tape recorders in particular are hardly standard equipment at what seems to be mostly a text data-entry and cataloguing job. She could have said typewriters, or carbon paper. Fax machines, if we're dunking on Freddy specifically.

She says "tape recorders and manila folders." Celia Ripley is referencing The Magnus Institute, particularly the outdated technologies in use in the Archives.

Maybe she learned more from Melanie about what the recorders were and did at the Institute, sometime after MAG 190. Maybe she has those specific memories of giving her statement in MAG 100, and little else. Maybe Martin grew an apocalypse beard and she remembers everything, but just didn't recognise him out of context and in a tunnel and during A Pretty Weird Time Overall.

Maybe she stuck around with Melanie-Georgie-Basira for a while after things returned, and that's how she learned about the particular significance of tape recorders.

Maybe she found some tapes and listened to a couple hundred of them.

Or maybe she's simply an AU Celia, with a knack for oddly specific and kind of clunky comparisons, drawn into this through the powers of metafiction and string theory.

Or maybe someone filled her with spiders and sent her to finish the job of spreading Fear to this particular world.

And the reason this particular plate of textual pancakes** (short stack, butter and nightmare syrup) is one of my favourites from "Give and Take" is because I genuinely have no idea! None of these are theories because there isn't enough evidence to point me in any particular direction. It's a mystery!, Jon voice, etcetera.

If you cornered me and paid me to have an opinion about it I could say which options I thought were more likely, I guess. But the odds are high that I'd be wrong, and I think the boat for me getting paid to interpret texts probably sailed fifteen years ago, besides. I'm in this for the love of the game.***

November is the true spooky season in the northern hemisphere.**** Yeah, October ends with Halloween, but you know what month starts with Halloween? Mmhmm. By November of 2019 TMA had been on my list for a few years, and someone I was getting to know and really liked recommended it to me specifically in the days after 159 aired. The conditions were correct for me to get into something new, is what I'm saying. I still remember listening to "Anglerfish" for the first time, walking home from my office job in the blustery November dark. I got home starry-eyed and red-cheeked and thrilled by the story I'd just heard.

It took a couple of months for me to catch up, and though I loved having so much to listen to there were times when I wished I'd started earlier, to have the experience of seeing things unfold.

And now we're back at a beginning, and get to experience the horrible joys of finding out.

[ID: A screenshot of an unofficial transcript to The Magnus Protocol. LENA is saying "Of a sort. I hope you're as ready for it as you think you are. Consider yourself "in." /end ID]

*Sabrina pancake meme

** the best kind, especially if it's a contest between textual and fluffy pancakes. Keep those spongy bastards away from me, I'll take the kind with a typeface instead

***Being a huge nerd

**** For more of my opinions on November, see https://www.tumblr.com/almostmolly/188799234276

[thermodynamic-comedian]

i think the lonely feeds on exclusion, not absence. i think it feeds not on the fact that no one can help you, but rather that no one cares to even try. if you know someone out there is trying to help you, you won't feel lonely, no matter how far away or unable to actually help that person is.

that's one thing that the statement of barnabas bennett can teach us about how the lonely functions, and how jonah magnus feeds it. he could have helped, but he watched. the indifferent watcher. an amoral gaze that only seeks to know. what's lonelier than being seen, but not helped?

i think the spiral feeds on doubt, not insanity. i think it feeds on your fear of betrayal, your fear of unreality, of being lied to. you belong to the spiral once you don't know what to trust anymore, once everything feels fake.

that's one thing that the statement of michael can teach us about the spiral's existence, and how gertrude robinson feeds it. the facade she puts up around almost everyone hides a ruthless woman, who doesn't care what or who she has to sacrifice to achieve her goals. this is the facade that had michael shelley fooled, and eventually, literally fed to the spiral. that moment of betrayal, of the mask slipping off, of realizing that it was all fake. do you think that that's when he realized that nothing was real?

eye avatars really, really have this tendency to feed other fears.

with that in mind, which one do you think jonathan "on good terms with oliver banks" "goes around ending avatars' existences" "dies at the end" sims has been feeding?

[cult-of-the-eye]

Goodbye, My Danish Sweetheart by Mitski as a jmart song:

"there's nobody better than you/it just took me a while til I knew"

Fuck it's so Jon talking to Martin. He sees Martin as a better person than him, both morally and literally in terms of humanity and it fits his whole S1 ew martin to S4 oh martin arc so well

"but you knew from the start it was us, didn't you/it just took me a while til I knew"

Yep yep yep that's Martin. He loved Jon from the start. Of course Jon's admitting that. And of course he's doing it in such a self deprecating way.

Read more cause this is long

"now I lay as I study a blank wall/would you spare me your voice if I call?"

Ok so we're in Martin's Peter Lukas era right now, Jon is fully pining he's completely checked out and dissociating and he needs Martin to ground him, to be his anchor and he's reaching out in a way that puts the focus on Martin's next move as opposed to him calling which is SO HIM

"Cause you waited and watered my heart 'til it grew/you just grew a little smarter, too"

Fuck he's like you treated me so well, you waited so long for me to like you back but then you realised it was futile and stopped, but obviously you would do that because you're an angel and blameless

"So, I don't blame you/If you want to bury me in your memory/I'm not the girl I ought to be, but/Maybe when you tell your friends/You can tell them what you saw in me/And not how I turned out to be"

Jon's love is just so self deprecating I feel like, he's so acts of service, he's like it's ok that you don't want me, I get it, I'm not loveable but at least I seemed loveable for you to have crushed on me for that long

And and cause Martin's separated from jon, the only thing he has left is his memory of him, the one that lives in his head

"There's some kind of burning inside me/It's kept me from falling apart"

Oh yeah this is so them like Jon's had this drive within him, this incessant need to keep going, to keep finding things out, to keep burrowing deeper into the problem and it's kept him alive cause it's kept him ambitious and it's kept him from being stagnant but it's also been destroying him from the inside cause he can't stop

"And I'm sure that you've seen what it's done to my heart/But it's kept me from falling apart"

But Martin sees this, Martin knows who Jon is and it's almost a plea to try and accept that what's driving him isn't a good thing

"Now here I lay as I wonder about you/would you just tell me what I'm meant to do?"

Jon's like how do I get Martin to come back, how do I get him to be near me, ive tried everything, just tell me and I'll do it

"Cause I've waited and watered my heart 'til it grew/you can see how it's blossomed for you"

Its like a look, you waited for me, now I'll wait for you, I'll take care of myself in your absence to show you how much I care about what you've done for me, I do love you, finally, thank you for waiting all this time

"And I don't mean to make your heart blue/But could we be what we're meant to be?/I'm just about to beg you, please"

God I'm so feral for this last bit

Jon's like I know me begging you to come back is hurting you but I'm finally giving into what you want, you need to come back so we can be together like we're meant to, he's at the end of his tether, he's pleading while threatening to plead

"And then, when you tell your friends/You can tell them what you saw in me/And not the way I used to be"

I'll be better for you, I promise vibes.