Something I've noticed about the tma fandom when it comes to Jmart is that they want them to be perfect for each other but really, they're not. That or they try to say that one of them is a victim and the other is terrible. And that's just not true.
Jon and Martin are almost never on the same page emotionally throughout pretty much all of tma. Season one, Martin has a crush on Jon (which probably actually stems from his deep-seated mommy issues but that's a whole other can of worms that I am not getting into right now), while Jon practically hates the guy. Season two, Jon's paranoia is added to the bullshit cocktail as well.
Season three, people are telling Martin that Jon killed someone and Jon becomes more cutthroat and determined. And then he up and dies. And Martin becomes very depressed in his grief and gets involved with Peter Lukas and The Lonely.
Then, Season four, Jon just, comes back. But Martin has already grieved and accepted he wasn't coming back. And now Jon is not the same, he's more monstrous than before, having to feed off people and destroying lives in order to sustain himself, and he scares most of the archives, with most of the archive staff's feelings of him ranging from slight unease to outright despise. To remedy this, he becomes less cutthroat and more meek in an attempt to de-claw himself. Meanwhile, Martin is preparing to save the world (again) and so he's becoming more cutthroat. Both moving in exact opposite directions in terms of tactic and determination.
Jon saves Martin at the end of season 4 and love blooms (already had?), but it's tainted. Martin is basically the only person who Jon had left who didn't hate him, so the desperate cling at the end, while not completely ingenuine, was tainted.
In season 5, we get to see up-close just how different they are from seasons one and two. Martin has gone full "kill bill" and Jon has so much power in his hands he feels overwhelmed and out of control. Jon and Martin have to stay together. Martin will die if they don't and when they find Salesa's paradise, they can't stay because of Jon. So they're forced to trek through the hellscape together (aw...?..)
It also does not get better at all when they save the world end season 5, they have an entire conversation about how basically the only reason they're together was because they bonded over the world almost ending a couple times and the apocalypse and if that's not true love I don't know what is man. And, to top it all off, in the last few episodes, they're trying to figure out how to get the world back to normal and Jon is being self-sacrificing and Martin is being a bit selfish (rightfully so). They, as a group, agree to a plan and then Jon goes off and tries to do it his way and sacrifice himself anyway. Martin tries to stop him, they blip out, returning the world to normal yada, yada, you know how it goes.
I've seen many people paint Martin as bad for going "kill bill" and saying that in season 5, he's whiny, and he's selfish, and he's callous, and he's unsympathetic to Jon's situation and actively makes his moral dilemmas worse by urging him to go around killing avatars.
I've also seen people paint Jon as bad for the way he acted in the archives towards Martin as well as just in general, and for the fact that he doesn't want to kill the people torturing others all across the world, and because of his need for self-sacrifice messing up the plans to save the world.
Both of these arguments have merit and I, for the most part, agree with them. And for that reason I don't agree with any of the "____ deserved better" because they're both not good for the other, they're both flawed and again, are never on the same page emotionally ever. This podcast is about flawed people making tough decisions with insanely high stakes and when a relationship comes out of that, it will not be perfect and I feel like a lot of people aren't seeing that.
Wow, okay, this is really long and rambly sorry if it didn't make sense but I just wanted to get it off my chest bc it's been bouncing around my head for a bit. Btw this is no hate to any jmart shippers, I am one of you but I just feel like the ship is more complex than some make it out to be and wanted to talk about it.
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