I could write an ESSAY about how incredibly violating that month captivity would be and how painful that attempt to brush it off for the sake of Martin’s guilt is. AN ESSAY.

Meta
Title:	I could write an ESSAY about how incredibly violating that month captivity would be and how painful that attempt to brush it off for the sake of Martin’s guilt is. AN ESSAY.
Creator:	findingfeather
Date(s):	late 2019 or early 2020
Medium:	online
Fandom:	The Magnus Archives
Topic:
External Links:	reference link
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I could write an ESSAY about how incredibly violating that month captivity would be and how painful that attempt to brush it off for the sake of Martin’s guilt is. AN ESSAY. is a meta about The Magnus Archives series protagonist Jonathan Sims's kidnapping in season 3 and its impact on his mental state.

Although findingfeather has written several meta essays for both TMA and other fandoms, this meta is often referred to as "the findingfeather meta" as shorthand.

The original post has been deleted by findingfeather but is still available through the Web Archive.

Excerpts

So here’s Jonathan Sims on the eve of this kidnapping: one semi-supportive human connection (the “semi” nature is not a moral fault, but is a practical assessment), zero other supportive human connections, massive survivor’s guilt, no sense of control over anything in his life, significant shame/guilt/frustration/self-judgement due to the feeling that he SHOULD be able to, significant latent trauma in all these areas, and also given the givens I’m sure also poor sleep patterns.

Oh yes and if he doesn’t figure shit out the world’s going to end.

“control” in this kind of situation can actually come down to very, very small things, but none of them are available to Jon. He doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t know what time of day it is, given where they’re holding him. He doesn’t know what’s going on. He doesn’t know when he’s going to be killed. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen to him from moment to moment.

One of the things that this makes very very clear is that at this point Jon does not think there is any hope that anyone is coming for him. He does not perceive there to be any value whatsoever in waiting any longer in the hopes that someone will rescue him. Letting the Spiral kill him is his better option.

Responses

This is a fantastic meta. A lot of this hit really hard, especially the summary at the end of the others’ contradictory actions and victim-blaming towards Jon. Also, “No choice of his will make that stop. If he went and checked into the best mental health institution in the world and swore to never do … anything you decide is connected to him being an Archivist again he … would die.” I’ve seen a fair amount of discussion along the lines of" Jon should have gotten help or talked to people!“ Nobody would give Jon the time of day except Daisy. And yes maybe he could have gone to therapy but I doubt it would have been very effective due to his lack of options to remove himself from his stressors. Ultimately Jon is responsible for his own actions (giving people PTSD is BAD, Jon) but honestly it’s a miracle that he didn’t go full Monster mode sooner, given that everyone around him treated it as a foregone conclusion.

nerdytshirts

I was reading this amazing meta (which is about trauma, heads up): https://findingfeather.tumblr.com/post/616763211741626368/so-the-tma-season-4-wait-wait-theres-more-jon

and it reminded me of another example...

in-the-widening-gyre