damn i knew Sasha was brilliant but i didn't realize she basically had it all figured out! that must be the reason Elias/Magnus didn't have her be the Archivist. She would've figured everything out really fast and just become another Gertrude who refuses to follow his plans.
ohhhh they both knew about Martin and kept it under the radar- they are so great
I MISS TEAM TIM AND SASHA MAN they did NOT deserve all that
"i'm unforgettable" TOO SOON AAAAAH
...
"the eye wishes for it to be my chrysalis"
so is this whole monologue Jon himself or the revelations of the Eye speaking through him? and WHAT THE FUCK?????
ohhhh so it was a compulsion from his eye powers becoming greater and allat
"we can't fight the world, Martin"
"says you" RAHHH I LOVE HIM,, Martin is SO fucking ready to be out of the isolation and apathy he wants to KICK ASS YEAHHHH
My boy has come so far :')
I wonder if Jonah Magnus will this that this state of the world is the End Goal, but the Eye itself doesn't think so. I think the eye will continue to shape and change Jon to guide him on whatever journey ensues CONTRARY to what Jonah wants/thinks the eye wants. But that's just a theory. An Archives theory.
When I was listening to s2 a long long time ago for almost 30 episodes I thought OG!Sasha would come back bc somebody on the internet was talking about how sweet Sasha's conversation with Tim in ep 162
Yes everyone felt the crushing devastation when they first listened to 162
But imagine the terrible realization that I had at that moment
I had a heartbroken meltdown today thinking about my 'the cabin was Jon's fear domain as a victim' theory because that packs so much hurt in its implications regarding Jon's greatest fears and general deterioration throughout the seasons.
As a victim, your domain is what you fear most. Let's go back to what the description of this domain was according to Jon's statement (which was said in second person for the very specific reason that the statement subject of the domain was Jon himself).
"There is a place, deep in the heart of fear, where you trap yourself and claim that it is safety."
Jon has always been desparate to find his safety, a place he can feel sheltered from all the evil he had to experience. He never really had that since season 2, from being stalked and kidnapped while at Georgie's home and throughout his travels and then living in the archives after he woke up. Never having true safety until those three weeks in the cabin where he finally felt safe. But from here we can see that reaching safety for him came with a price. A price of being afraid that what he calls safe is actually a trap, a place that buries you within it with no ability to escape. A bad place you convince yourself is the right place to be because every other place is worse. The fear of ending up like that came with him from his life in the archives to the three weeks in the cabin before the Change.
But here's the most heartbreaking part.
"The one you love is always near, so close that refuge sometimes feels a prison. And yet your voice does not echo when you call to them. And they find they sometimes cannot hear it."
His biggest fear is not only the prospect of trapping himself in a bad place because it seems safer, but his loved ones as well. Martin had to be there stuck with him because that's what he fears most of all. He is so scared that creating a home with those he loves and trusts will eventually become a trap for them, forcing them to stay with him for lack of a better option. He is so scared of harming them by proximity and being alienated by them that he tries to push them away every time. Georgie, Tim, Melanie, Basira. They were all kept at arm's length emotionally so they won't be hurt by him more than they already were and he won't be hurt by their reactions. But that didn't help. He kept watching them get hurt because of the archives and blamed himself for their suffering while they grew further away. This fear just got more potent through these experiences, it's a miracle he allowed Martin to get close at all. And now Martin is trapped here with him because of him and he's terrified it'll drive them apart.
"You sit in your meager comfort and belief of security with nothing to do, nothing to distract your mind from the agonies that lie just beyond your window. And those diversions you do find will offer no relief – but simply numb the mind into mournful nostalgia for a time when the world you inhabited seemed to make sense... Hold each other, it croons. Be happy. But know always that this happiness is a lie, built on the squirming bones of those whose suffering you have caused."
No diversion from the bad, not for him nor for the one he loves. And this aspect of the fear developed from his years in the archives as well. So scared of the world that stopped making sense over the past few years, of it becoming so because of him. That it is all his fault. An awful fear that was slowly realized way before the Change and manifested into reality completely and in the worst way possible afterwards.
The cabin turned itself around. Took what Jon loved about it, what Jon thought could help his fears go away, and trapped him with all that was opposite of it.
"whisper words of reassurance, but the place knows this comfort to be a lie, and laces upon it instead the awful fear of losing what you have."
He is scared of the betrayal of reassurance, exactly what the cabin did after he chose to trust it. Scared of realizing that behind all of the comfort is a lie and that he has nothing. Of people he cares about being trapped, harmed and supressed merely by staying in his presence. Of driving the one he loves away because of it all, thus losing everything.
