Jonathan Sims/Martin Blackwood
| Pairing | |
|---|---|
| Pairing: | Jonathan Sims/Martin Blackwood |
| Alternative name(s): | jonmartin, the dinghy, jmart |
| Gender category: | slash, m/m |
| Fandom: | The Magnus Archives |
| Canonical?: | Yes |
| Prevalence: | Popular |
| Archives: | |
| Other: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
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Jonathan Sims/Martin Blackwood is the pairing of Archivist Jon Sims and his assistant Martin Blackwood, from the podcast fandom The Magnus Archives. Previously a small pairing, it has become by far the most popular pairing in the fandom, and one of the most popular in general.
Canon
In season 1, Jon is frequently annoyed with Martin and is quite hostile towards him, going so far as to insult him on tape multiple times. However, in season 2 they become closer, and they start going out for lunch together. In episode 82, Daisy says that Martin was the person who was closest to Jon, which makes Martin quite flustered.
In episode 102, Jon and Martin’s relationship starts to solidify, as they finally talk for the first time since Jon went on the run. Martin continues to worry about Jon while Jon’s travelling around the world, and Basira and Melanie speculate on the nature of Jon and Martin’s relationship in episode 106. In episode 117, Jon comments on this, and stutters, however this might be because he’s trying to convince himself that they aren’t out to get him.
In season 4, Jon and Martin’s feelings towards each other are focused on even more. Martin isolates himself because he’s working with Peter Lukas and The Lonely, and Jon tries multiple times to reach out to him with a plea to their past friendship, including a notable moment in episode 154 where he tries to get Martin to gouge his eyes out and quit the institute with him, that Jonny Sims later refers to as the scene where Jon asks Martin to gouge his eyes out and make out with Jon. This concludes with Jon rescuing Martin from The Lonely, and then running away to Daisy’s safehouse in Scotland together. This is seen by many as when their romantic relationship became canon, however Jon only says “I love you” in episode 161, and Martin is only stated to
Fandom
This ship was originally referred to as "the dinghy", because so few people shipped it in the early seasons.
In seasons 1 and 2, the main fanbase for TMA was in it for the horror, and weren’t shipping anything (it’s a horror podcast, come on, you really expect there to be romance in it? Lol). The ones that were shipping, were shipping jonmichael, since at that point no one knew who Michael was and he seemed likely to become more of a major character.There were only a handful of people shipping jonmartin, and the joke was there weren’t enough to justify full sized ship, so you could fit everyone into a single dinghy. Literally no one thought it was actually going to become canon in those days.
It started gaining more traction in season 3, and by the time I joined in jonmartin was the fandom’s primary ship (still didn’t think it would be canon, mind you). “The dinghy” was still hanging around on a few people’s blogs as their ship tag, though, and “jonmartin” hadn’t become a popular tag yet, so even though it wasn’t really that small of a ship anymore the name stuck around![1]
However as time went on it became the fandom's most popular pairing. According to Tumblr Fandometrics' Year in Review 2020, jonmartin was number 14 on the top 100 ships on Tumblr in 2020.
Common Tropes & Storylines
- The Scottish Safehouse: Set within episodes 159-160, when Jon and Martin escape to Daisy Tonner's safehouse in Scotland.
- Hurt/Comfort: Hurt Jon, and Martin providing the comfort seems to be slightly more popular, but it is not uncommon to find the reverse
- Post canon: The Magnus Archives ended with an ambiguous ending, as it is unknown if Jon and Martin survived the finale and were sent to another universe, known as "somewhere else" both in canon and in the fandom, or if they died. This has lead to many fanworks taking place post canon in Somewhere Else.
Example Fanworks
Fanfiction
- Yesterday is Here by CirrusGrey
- Fate, or Something by HermaeusMora
- It Serenely Disdains to Destroy Us by trill_gutterbug
Fanart
- yes, martin, you are my reason, Archived version by jxnxai
- Martin is polish/half polish and the fact that Jon can canonically understand any language, Archived version by ruby-cloud
- what if we were on the run in our colleague’s safehouse in scotland and we kissed, Archived version by t4tjmart
Archives & Fannish Links
References
- ^ Tumblr user cirrus-grey responds to annonymous ask, Dec 10 2020.