#so you get really mean martin and melanie and georgie and s4's stuff feels compounded instead of worked past

[inklingofadream]

I think a big part of the reaction to their reaction is also like.

They don't necessarily extrapolate the results of asking Jon to not eat IRL trauma. And they’re not consistent with Jon and other people. Especially Basira.

Like she doesn't seem to SUPER mind him eating Floyd's statement on the way to deal with Manuela! Because then Jon'll be juiced up to go when they have to face down a threat! Technically, Basira knows before anyone that Jon's taken statements outside the archives since his coma, she just doesn't put it high on her priority list until after she finds out that it didn't all happen under her supervision.

It gets exaggerated in some circles, but part of the "is this helpful" equation is also "is this consistent?" imo. And at least for Basira it... isn't, really. Especially when you add in her support of Daisy and her speculative ability to starve out the Hunt and be normal vs her skepticism of Jon's attempts to do the same. And since Melanie's avoiding Jon, we get more of Basira, who in general is HORRIBLY inconsistent in her moral judgements, not just with Jon. So her threatening to kill him for taking statements feels more like an overreaction because we KNOW that if Daisy slipped up with the Hunt she would not be "one strike you're out" about it.

Like I think if you take it in isolation, Melanie's response is pretty OK? She doesn't seek Jon out to pester or antagonize or confirm her judgement of him (cough, Georgie, cough), she just says "Hey, I Can't deal with you, please stay away from me." And she sticks to that. Probably helps that she's in therapy.

And when they are interacting it's often because Jon has Done Something (either taking statements or performing nonconsensual surgery on her) and she has a right to be mad, then! The only situation in S4 where she's really unfair to Jon in a specific-to-her sense (bc it's unfair that he has like 3 ppl to interact with and as one of those she hates him, but more in a universe being unfair to him than Melanie doing anything) is her reaction to the surgery. Because she’s not as mad at Basira as she is Jon, even though Basira was definitely equally involved in the whole thing (and iirc the one who SAID they should do it without letting Melanie know!). And she has a non-Archives support system in Georgie, so she theoretically could be mad at Basira without also totally isolating herself (which is more flat math than actual relationships tend to be, but you can tally those numbers and have Melanie come out on the losing side without making great leaps in logic, is my point)

And I think that S5 casts this all in a worse light, particularly for Melanie. Because the answer to “do we grant it to everyone equally?” tends to be “yeah, more or less, unless they’re Jon”

And it feels more like a betrayal that Melanie is so hostile in S5, because when we last saw her in S4 it was “we could try being friends, as long as anything supernatural is far away from me.” And instead of a continuation of that feeling, where she’d be rightly kinda miffed at him (Melanie isn’t the best at “he did it but it wasn’t his fault” but she can at least kind of get it!) but also willing to work with him on the more important goal of fixing things without being super hostile, and knowing/acknowledging that the reason she’s in a position to do that is bc he told her how to quit, it feels more like a continuation of pre-blinding Melanie’s reactions.

Anyway I don’t know that this makes sense/goes anywhere, but in short i feel robbed of awkward trying-very-hard-even-if-they-don’t-succeed Jon and Melanie S5 friendship and I think that a lot of her and Basira’s stuff (and to a lesser extent Martin) makes more sense if you’re more willing to really examine what their situation between seasons 3 and 4 would’ve looked like, with Jon,Tim, and Daisy gone and the Institute under attack and Peter’s influence. And they kind of seem to be carrying that dynamic forward without accommodating it for Jon’s conscious presence instead of as coma boy. And so they never really treat him/look at him as part of the “in-group”

Thinking about the idea of Jon being bullied for no reason or whatever like. The three people he sees in season four for at least a year had hell visions of him watching their worst trauma like. Not only were they friends with him sometimes but the reaction of “you’re putting other people through that hell on PURPOSE now? That thing you did to me? Fuck you! Knock it off or there will be consequences.” Isn’t like. Wildly rude and out of character. Maybe a over reaction, but it’s totally justified

Yeah I honestly think that that is a big part of it but none of the characters ever actually address the fact that they were dream tortured with Jon watching for a year and... the fandom is bad at extrapolating when it comes to certain characters, I guess. Of course, people can extrapolate that Jon is in more pain than he lets on, but their empathy doesn't necessarily extend to side characters with less time to talk about their feelings into a tape recorder.

Is it an overreaction, though?

That's an interesting word. It's a bit of a slippery one, in the sense that what is and what is not overreacting is going to vary wildly based on who gets to decide. And it's kind of a loaded term that gets used for Certain Kinds Of People's reactions more than others.

My personal stance is that no reaction is an overreaction. Reactions are just what they are. Looking at any given emotion and labelling it "overreacting" is 1) inherently subjective and therefore not a useful label and 2) unhelpful in terms of de-escalating conflict.

In Basira's case, Jon has spent weeks telling her to trust him and tell him her plans. He then blames her for not stopping him from taking a live statement. Then she finds out he's been doing this regularly, which has condemned people to a lifetime of psychological torture. Even without having my stance of "no reaction is an overreaction," I think this is still an extreme reaction where she has a good reason to say "if you don't stop, I will kill you."

BUT

While I don't judge, or care if anything is an overreaction, I do think it's important to analyze the reaction in terms of if it's helpful. So I'd recommend putting aside the question of whether Basira or Melanie's response is overreacting and instead ask "is this helpful? Does threatening Jon's life actually help him do better by other people? Is threatening his life necessary to stop him from hurting other people?"

And then, and additional useful question: "Can we reasonably expect someone in a situation with this level of stress to act in the perfect most helpful way? What level of excuse do we give to people on the basis of stress and trauma, and do we grant it to everyone equally?"

And as for the answers to those questions--fuck if I know!