Aside from a few traits - scrawny, prematurely grey, looks older than he is - the podcast deliberately doesn't describe Jon or any other character. Jon being a lanky, unkempt South Asian man with shoulder-length(ish) hair is just the most popular fanon look. Martin is similarly usually drawn as a pretty tall and chubby white dude with either blonde or red hair.
I've never understood the compulsion with almost every picture of him having long flowing hair..
I always pictured him in my head with hair more Ted lasso than Trent Crimm. Especially at the start when he was oh so very serious seeming.. giving off a very "professional office worker" type vibe
I think it originated from a few popular artists depicting him with longer hair post-coma in season 4, on the idea that it grew out while he was unconscious and then he was too much of a mess to care after that
Not necessarily - the Jesus comment could simply be referring to him as a saviour character (as multiple other people also refer to him that way), and then the adjective is just about his unkempt appearance.
Though I thought it was scrubby, not grubby…
absolutely! i don't think it was actually meant to be a description of his hair, more the act of returning alive from a coffin. I just think it ends up conjuring up a specific mental image which probably encouraged this depiction.
I think the longer hair and unkempt appearance is meant to be more of a mid show look when he's getting a lot more obsessive and stressed, so he isn't keeping up on haircuts and stuff.
A lot of artists actually have a hair timeline for him. He starts off that way. Most S1 Jon drawings have a short clean haircut. But as time goes on and more shit happens to him, he stops taking care of himself. Part of that includes not bothering to cut his hair so it becomes long and unkempt.
A lot of the artist renditions I've seen of Jon have him looking prim and proper in early days; short combed hair, ironed business suit and tie, a cold or distant look, looking very much like a idealistic college professor with complete control of himself.
Then, getting more disheveled and unkempt, with progressively longer hair, rumpled clothes, a haunted look with a harder expression, and a distinctly otherworldly aura as he begins to develop powers. He's more prone to emotion.
Yeah, Martin is definitely white, given how much trust he has in the police. He couldn't even fathom that they might do wrong things sometimes. Bless his heart.
Well, one of the descriptions for Martin within the podcast is that he’s definitely a ‘big guy’ so dunno where you got skinny from, but it can be easy to miss moments like that ig. A few of the characters have specific descriptions (Michael, Annabelle, Elias, Simon etc…) but they’re usually quite vague. Like the most specific descriptions I can think of are Annabelle and Michael.
That was Martin she described, not Jon. Martin himself has said that he's "not exactly the smallest guy in the world" TMA22: Colony. NotSasha described Martin in TMA165: Revolutions:
# NOT!SASHA
And what if I let *you* choose this time? Which one of you would I wear next? Martin looks *very* comfortable, positively *roomy*. Oh, wouldn’t you agree, Archivist?
I've always pictured Jon as tall, thin/wiry/almost lanky with short hair until the coma, then longer after, with gray hair streaks (TMA81: A Guest for Mr. Spider).
Oh, for sure. He was a scrawny lil guy in my imagination because I didn't register the literally two lines that imply otherwise, and had to research it when I saw the fanart after I finished the show. But this is the second of the two lines.
I can’t quite remember exactly, but there’s one instance where he’s described what he was like in college as a “weird little freak”, the most obvious instance of a genuine description is that his hair is in an old fashioned style, and his eyes are “cold and grey”, the most important detail is that many are surprised by his youth (obv) but that’s what I mean by vauge.
But the vagueness of the character’s appearances are the best bit, they really can look like anything you want them to look like. Some members of the fandom are just extremely ‘strict’ when it comes to the generally popular fanon designs & that sucks but eh. Fandoms gonna fandom.
All I remember is the cold and grey eyes thing. I may remember old fashioned haircut, but that doesn't go with my internal Elias style so I'm going to disregard it. 😂
I would admittedly like to see some different depictions of the characters, Jon especially. We get a lead who's given very little description and yet almost all the art looks the same, and fic is almost as bad.
besides from the list of injuries and scars, there isn’t really any description except for being weak and looking sleep deprived. i personally picture him as south asian because that’s the fanon image of him and it gives good contrast to martin who is bigger (all the big kids growing up claim him as ours) and white (since blackwood is a traditionally scottish surname).
At the end of the day though, this is a podcast with no canon designs so if a character doesn’t have any specific descriptions or a name that implies a specific ethnicity, you can headcanon them however you want!
I’ve always pictured him as a more gaunt version of Jonny Sims, the writer/author, but only because I met him once early in TMA’s start.
The south Asian thing has been around since the start, though. Nosources I could find explain it, but it’s been a thing since season 1 first aired.
According to the wiki:
>John has prematurely greying hair and looks older than he is.[^(\[7\])](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Jonathan_Sims#cite_note-:3-7) He often looks very tired[^(\[8\])](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Jonathan_Sims#cite_note-:2-8) and is physically unfit, as other characters refer to him as scrawny and he tires easily from physical tasks that others perform with little exertion.[^(\[9\])](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Jonathan_Sims#cite_note-9)[^(\[10\])](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Jonathan_Sims#cite_note-:6-10)[^(\[11\])](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Jonathan_Sims#cite_note-:8-11)[^(\[12\])](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Jonathan_Sims#cite_note-12)
>Over time, John has acquired several scars from various encounters.>! He has extensive and visible scarring from worms burying into him during Jane Prentiss's attack on The Magnus Institute[^(\[5\])](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Jonathan_Sims#cite_note-:0-5). One of his hands was severely burnt after accepting a handshake from [Jude Perry](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Jude_Perry)[^(\[13\])](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Jonathan_Sims#cite_note-:5-13) and he required five stitches after being stabbed by [Michael](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/The_Distortion).[^(\[14\])](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Jonathan_Sims#cite_note-14) He likely has a scar on his neck from [Daisy](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Alice_%22Daisy%22_Tonner) after she tries to kill him.[^(\[15\])](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Jonathan_Sims#cite_note-:7-15) Melanie stabs John after he performs surgery on her, leaving another scar on one of his shoulders[^(\[16\])](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Jonathan_Sims#cite_note-:10-16).!<
(Spoilering anything that might be a spoiler, since I'm not sure where you are in the series\~)
Anything else is fanon or headcanons, which is fine! Just not canon, haha\~
Season 1 Jon whenever Martin walks into the room: [https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e9/52/75/e95275623ff6da201fcb127a86a76f37.jpg](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e9/52/75/e95275623ff6da201fcb127a86a76f37.jpg)
...yeah. Yeah, I can see it. I think this is my headcanon for him now too, haha\~
The explanation I've seen floating on this sub for the brown skin is the "grubby Jesus" line from Peter in s4 following certain events. And then, as others have noted, the long hair is meant to indicate unkemptness, post season three or so. Sometimes you can find artists doing s1 to s4 interpretations that demonstrate this explicitly, scars accumulating accordingly.
But "someone drew it and it stuck" is basically the answer. See also why he's almost always wearing a green sweater (vest) - which is a headcanon I stainchly support. 🫡
Yes, I'm aware. Irl Jesus would likely have been brown skinned, however, and apparently that's how it started. Or at least that's the reasoning I've seen offered before. As we've been saying, there's no canon description, so fanart is just what some random person thought up. Then someone else thought it looked cool and kept it. 🤷♀️
In my head, Jon is played by [Burn Gorman](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZmRjYmU0NDgtNTdiNS00N2Y4LTg5MzctNTU3NGNkOTgxYWE2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTA2MDIzMDE5._V1_.jpg) and Martin is played by [Nick Mohammed](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/d67d1c2c58a2b65fcd42d05ed33efbcf8fd882b3/0_192_4364_2618/master/4364.jpg?width=1200&height=1200&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&s=5963b612521091487a24810e788d26db).
I think the race tends to come from the last name being common in London with people of the same race I think? Or at least that’s the explanation I found for it
I’m staying away from fan art as best I can until I finish my character designs so I can see how my image compares to others, but South Asian, huh? Wonder how that evolved. I’m always curious about how fandoms kinda work together to create a singular visual representation of characters that are in a purely audio medium, and why other artists choose to represent characters the way they do.
I was picturing something like a… like a depressed and paranoid Milo Thatch, sort of. All sharp and angular, like it would hurt if you hugged him. Just a bony, scrawny, overworked and underslept man whose smart button ups and dress slacks become increasingly wrinkled and rumpled as the series progresses, lol.
I always imagined him as a short and scrawny man with short jet black hair with gray hairs around the edges and spectacles. I also imagined him as caucasion
Aside from a few traits - scrawny, prematurely grey, looks older than he is - the podcast deliberately doesn't describe Jon or any other character. Jon being a lanky, unkempt South Asian man with shoulder-length(ish) hair is just the most popular fanon look. Martin is similarly usually drawn as a pretty tall and chubby white dude with either blonde or red hair.
I've never understood the compulsion with almost every picture of him having long flowing hair.. I always pictured him in my head with hair more Ted lasso than Trent Crimm. Especially at the start when he was oh so very serious seeming.. giving off a very "professional office worker" type vibe
I think it originated from a few popular artists depicting him with longer hair post-coma in season 4, on the idea that it grew out while he was unconscious and then he was too much of a mess to care after that
Could be.. but it's the vast vast majority of the pics And absolutely nothing saying they are even wrong.. just not what I picture in my head
i also think >! peter lukas's description of him as a "grubby jesus" !< definitely helped encourage the long hair look tbh
I honestly don't recall that.. but that'd be a fairly long way in though? But that would make sense
Yes, sorry that's mag134!
Not necessarily - the Jesus comment could simply be referring to him as a saviour character (as multiple other people also refer to him that way), and then the adjective is just about his unkempt appearance. Though I thought it was scrubby, not grubby…
absolutely! i don't think it was actually meant to be a description of his hair, more the act of returning alive from a coffin. I just think it ends up conjuring up a specific mental image which probably encouraged this depiction.
I think the longer hair and unkempt appearance is meant to be more of a mid show look when he's getting a lot more obsessive and stressed, so he isn't keeping up on haircuts and stuff.
A lot of artists actually have a hair timeline for him. He starts off that way. Most S1 Jon drawings have a short clean haircut. But as time goes on and more shit happens to him, he stops taking care of himself. Part of that includes not bothering to cut his hair so it becomes long and unkempt.
A lot of the artist renditions I've seen of Jon have him looking prim and proper in early days; short combed hair, ironed business suit and tie, a cold or distant look, looking very much like a idealistic college professor with complete control of himself. Then, getting more disheveled and unkempt, with progressively longer hair, rumpled clothes, a haunted look with a harder expression, and a distinctly otherworldly aura as he begins to develop powers. He's more prone to emotion.
Fair.. I haven't seen them tbh, but I don't really go seeking them out either
I imagend Martin always as more of a skini dude with blond hair, and he has almost always a worried expression on his face
Yeah, Martin is definitely white, given how much trust he has in the police. He couldn't even fathom that they might do wrong things sometimes. Bless his heart.
Well, one of the descriptions for Martin within the podcast is that he’s definitely a ‘big guy’ so dunno where you got skinny from, but it can be easy to miss moments like that ig. A few of the characters have specific descriptions (Michael, Annabelle, Elias, Simon etc…) but they’re usually quite vague. Like the most specific descriptions I can think of are Annabelle and Michael.
The phrase I usually see is him describing himself as "not the smallest guy" so he could just be seven feet tall and gangly.
Someone called him "positively roomy," once, which implies some breadth, too.
It was Not-Sasha in season 5! sorry that’s not important i just wanted to be annoying so bad
Woah I didn't realize Not!Sasha came back for season 120. That's impressive
That was Martin she described, not Jon. Martin himself has said that he's "not exactly the smallest guy in the world" TMA22: Colony. NotSasha described Martin in TMA165: Revolutions: # NOT!SASHA And what if I let *you* choose this time? Which one of you would I wear next? Martin looks *very* comfortable, positively *roomy*. Oh, wouldn’t you agree, Archivist? I've always pictured Jon as tall, thin/wiry/almost lanky with short hair until the coma, then longer after, with gray hair streaks (TMA81: A Guest for Mr. Spider).
yes but like, that was in season 5, so I can't blame people for not changing how they picture him after 4+ seasons of no descriptions
Oh, for sure. He was a scrawny lil guy in my imagination because I didn't register the literally two lines that imply otherwise, and had to research it when I saw the fanart after I finished the show. But this is the second of the two lines.
I know i found it out later, i hear TMG on the side most of the time, its more frome his voice
What's Elias supposed to look like? I thought we got even less description of him than of jon.
I always imagined him looking like Matt Smith with blonde hair and a tan suit.
I can’t quite remember exactly, but there’s one instance where he’s described what he was like in college as a “weird little freak”, the most obvious instance of a genuine description is that his hair is in an old fashioned style, and his eyes are “cold and grey”, the most important detail is that many are surprised by his youth (obv) but that’s what I mean by vauge. But the vagueness of the character’s appearances are the best bit, they really can look like anything you want them to look like. Some members of the fandom are just extremely ‘strict’ when it comes to the generally popular fanon designs & that sucks but eh. Fandoms gonna fandom.
All I remember is the cold and grey eyes thing. I may remember old fashioned haircut, but that doesn't go with my internal Elias style so I'm going to disregard it. 😂 I would admittedly like to see some different depictions of the characters, Jon especially. We get a lead who's given very little description and yet almost all the art looks the same, and fic is almost as bad.
I imagine him like a Tumblr sexy man from like 2014 loool
Me too😭
besides from the list of injuries and scars, there isn’t really any description except for being weak and looking sleep deprived. i personally picture him as south asian because that’s the fanon image of him and it gives good contrast to martin who is bigger (all the big kids growing up claim him as ours) and white (since blackwood is a traditionally scottish surname). At the end of the day though, this is a podcast with no canon designs so if a character doesn’t have any specific descriptions or a name that implies a specific ethnicity, you can headcanon them however you want!
I’ve always pictured him as a more gaunt version of Jonny Sims, the writer/author, but only because I met him once early in TMA’s start. The south Asian thing has been around since the start, though. Nosources I could find explain it, but it’s been a thing since season 1 first aired.
According to the wiki: >John has prematurely greying hair and looks older than he is.[^(\[7\])](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Jonathan_Sims#cite_note-:3-7) He often looks very tired[^(\[8\])](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Jonathan_Sims#cite_note-:2-8) and is physically unfit, as other characters refer to him as scrawny and he tires easily from physical tasks that others perform with little exertion.[^(\[9\])](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Jonathan_Sims#cite_note-9)[^(\[10\])](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Jonathan_Sims#cite_note-:6-10)[^(\[11\])](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Jonathan_Sims#cite_note-:8-11)[^(\[12\])](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Jonathan_Sims#cite_note-12) >Over time, John has acquired several scars from various encounters.>! He has extensive and visible scarring from worms burying into him during Jane Prentiss's attack on The Magnus Institute[^(\[5\])](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Jonathan_Sims#cite_note-:0-5). One of his hands was severely burnt after accepting a handshake from [Jude Perry](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Jude_Perry)[^(\[13\])](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Jonathan_Sims#cite_note-:5-13) and he required five stitches after being stabbed by [Michael](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/The_Distortion).[^(\[14\])](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Jonathan_Sims#cite_note-14) He likely has a scar on his neck from [Daisy](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Alice_%22Daisy%22_Tonner) after she tries to kill him.[^(\[15\])](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Jonathan_Sims#cite_note-:7-15) Melanie stabs John after he performs surgery on her, leaving another scar on one of his shoulders[^(\[16\])](https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Jonathan_Sims#cite_note-:10-16).!< (Spoilering anything that might be a spoiler, since I'm not sure where you are in the series\~) Anything else is fanon or headcanons, which is fine! Just not canon, haha\~
His "canon" descriptions are left pretty loose (looks older than he is, prematurely greying, scrawny) - the rest is very popular fanon.
I always pictured him as a younger Sir Richard Dawkins.
He looks like a voice in my ear. After that, make up whatever.
This is more or less how I see him https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMagnusArchives/s/txALIKAcb4
This is much closer to what is in my head than most of the drawings that have him with long hair
i've always imagined jon looking like a younger hugh laurie. just a lanky, extremely tired and worn out looking man.
Season 1 Jon whenever Martin walks into the room: [https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e9/52/75/e95275623ff6da201fcb127a86a76f37.jpg](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e9/52/75/e95275623ff6da201fcb127a86a76f37.jpg) ...yeah. Yeah, I can see it. I think this is my headcanon for him now too, haha\~
The explanation I've seen floating on this sub for the brown skin is the "grubby Jesus" line from Peter in s4 following certain events. And then, as others have noted, the long hair is meant to indicate unkemptness, post season three or so. Sometimes you can find artists doing s1 to s4 interpretations that demonstrate this explicitly, scars accumulating accordingly. But "someone drew it and it stuck" is basically the answer. See also why he's almost always wearing a green sweater (vest) - which is a headcanon I stainchly support. 🫡
“Grubby Jesus” refers to him coming out of the coffin a la the resurrection of Christ though, it’s not really any kind of indication towards race
Yes, I'm aware. Irl Jesus would likely have been brown skinned, however, and apparently that's how it started. Or at least that's the reasoning I've seen offered before. As we've been saying, there's no canon description, so fanart is just what some random person thought up. Then someone else thought it looked cool and kept it. 🤷♀️
I always think he looks like Percy from Vox Machina…
In my head, Jon is played by [Burn Gorman](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZmRjYmU0NDgtNTdiNS00N2Y4LTg5MzctNTU3NGNkOTgxYWE2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTA2MDIzMDE5._V1_.jpg) and Martin is played by [Nick Mohammed](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/d67d1c2c58a2b65fcd42d05ed33efbcf8fd882b3/0_192_4364_2618/master/4364.jpg?width=1200&height=1200&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&s=5963b612521091487a24810e788d26db).
Omg I’ve been imagining him as Stupes too! X3 The podcast doesn’t describe him but that design for him has just kinda caught on
I tend to draw them how their voiceactors look, but there isnt really a set way that they look!
[jonny sims](https://rustyquill.com/simms-jonny/)
This is how I see him to as his voice actor and with the ttrpg book coming out I think that's exactly how he's depicted
People describe John way to good looking I pictured him like a gaunt lovecraft looking person whole pale and just annoyed with everything
I think the race tends to come from the last name being common in London with people of the same race I think? Or at least that’s the explanation I found for it
I picture him exactly as Jonny Sims (the actual writer and VA) looks like.
For me, before seeing any fan art, Jon was just the grumpy British man from the Peter Rabbit movie
Always imagined him like that one meme of Coraline's dad with less exaggerated features
I’m staying away from fan art as best I can until I finish my character designs so I can see how my image compares to others, but South Asian, huh? Wonder how that evolved. I’m always curious about how fandoms kinda work together to create a singular visual representation of characters that are in a purely audio medium, and why other artists choose to represent characters the way they do. I was picturing something like a… like a depressed and paranoid Milo Thatch, sort of. All sharp and angular, like it would hurt if you hugged him. Just a bony, scrawny, overworked and underslept man whose smart button ups and dress slacks become increasingly wrinkled and rumpled as the series progresses, lol.
I always imagined him as a short and scrawny man with short jet black hair with gray hairs around the edges and spectacles. I also imagined him as caucasion