Martin - Tumblr Posts
no but we dont talk enough abt how martin only realized peter was lying bc he kept trying to frame martin as the hero and he was like “oh well thats just plain unrealistic.” his self esteem was so bad that THATS what did it. mass human extinction? plausible! being the chosen one? absolutely fucking not! im obsessed with him
MMMMMMMMM GOOD THINGS ARE BEING SAID.
Martin consistently stutters, consistently allows himself to build up to a point where his frustrations have nowhere to go other than an abrupt spurt of anger that can almost seem out of character to him in the beginning but are, in fact, intrinsically linked to who he is as a person. He sidesteps his own comfort in favour of others' and expresses his feelings in providing for those he cares about. Simple gestures, like a cup of tea. And later (avoiding spoilers) Bigger Gestures.
Martin has convinced himself he does not matter and attempts to make himself small as a result. Be kind, be gentle and offer comfort to those around him in an attempt to convince them to let him stay. Historically he's been an emotional punching bag for others. His mother, then Jon- you can assume later Lukas too (though in a very different manner).
It's not until much later he starts expressing himself in more honest ways (i.e. post Lonely). He admits his faults and asks for things. Allows his anger and frustration to bubble up organically. Isn't as afraid to express these things as now he's confidant he won't be left in the dirt as a result of taking up space. "I am Martin Blackwood and I am not lonely anymore."
English tea is the most inoffensive thing to offer someone as a source of comfort. The smallest and most effective way to provide in a workspace that he has very little idea to what he's doing in thanks to fudging the records to get in in the first place. The mugs may as well have "Please keep me, I'm helping, see?" written on them. So yes. Yes and Thank you.
Praying to Martin K Blackwood to one day have as much audacity as he does
I'm kinda obsessed with the period between the Unknowing and Jon's return and the Martin-Basira-Melanie relationship during it because in my view the sequence of decisions that Martin makes during that space of time are in fact the cruelest things he's ever done in the the podcast. He left them alone not too much long after Jared's attack on the institute to cooperate with someone who as far as they knew was there to intentionally harm them. And it's clear how much this undermined the trust they placed in him, especially because Melanie doesn't even mention him until season 5. And I think this is his character's mortal flaw, not the manipulation as a defense mechanism, he has such a low sense of value and is so incapable of thinking beyond the figure of the plus one that he has internalized for himself that he simply doesn't care about explaining his actions or acknowledging his responsibility for people's pain. He can't see himself as part of the system and someone who actively hurts people because he doesn't believe he has enough power to do it.
pointing emphatically and jumping up and down YEAH. that's exactly it! and like most good fatal flaws, it's double edged and can sometimes work as a positive, ex. he stopped believing peter because he didn't buy that he was uniquely important enough to be the only one who could save the world from the extinction. he doesn't feel like he's capable of, well, being capable, to the point where there are few times jon looks to him and says "you can make this decision and I'll act on it" and martin point blank refuses because he just can't. his complete lack of ego at times can almost twist back around into selfishness, because he can't conceive of anyone being really affected by his actions so he proceeds with the underlying idea that being absent from or cold with them won't mean anything.
I confess, I've never retained much interest in Martin but I think that's mainly because his fanon analogue has always cringed me in a way but during my re-listening to the podcast I realized how fucking complex he is. Dude exploits the underestimation that everyone imposes on him but ends up that he also underestimates his own capacity for harm, like he's not even making an effort to do good just as the fandom believes he's just terribly alone and never had many opportunities to do evil and I think that's a reality for a lot of lonely people out there actually. That's a really interesting concept for a character, I'd love to see more of it.
I don't think it's quite right to say he's not making an effort to try and do good, there are clearly a few points in seasons two and three where he kind of assigns himself the role of the archive den mother and tries to keep everyone from falling apart, but I think his relationship with caring for people is more fraught than a lot of people give him credit for. on the one hand, he has a very pure altruistic motive of wanting everyone to be okay, and he does try to work towards that, but on the other hand that motive can become overly simplistic and make him start operating on a very good guys vs bad guys moral code. there have also been very few times when caring for people has actually been his choice, and that can both make him feel completely inept at acting on his own and, on occasion, explosively angry and resentful at the people/situations he's trying to help.
there's a counter to that "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely" aphorism that goes like "power reveals; if you give a guy the power to do anything he wants then you'll see what the guy always wanted to do," and for martin, the thing he always wanted to do was make everybody safe and happy so he could stop being so constantly terrified. when he realizes there's no way to configure the world so that everyone's happy, he tries to convince himself that hurting the people he hates must be somehow helpful to everyone else, and rejects the idea that he has any power at all.
I’m so obsessed with how Martin Blackwood casts himself as Pylades/Horatio/Samwise Gamgee, deciding early on that his role within the narrative is to Be There for Jon as he descends into tragedy and that he can’t really affect the narrative otherwise. He doesn’t fully consider the consequences of his actions because he’s so confident that he doesn’t matter enough to impact the events around him. He hurts people because he doesn’t think he has the power to hurt people. His fatal flaw is his absolute conviction in his own unimportance. WHAT a character
LEMME HEAR YOUR UNHINGED TMA RANTS! <3
Oooh I think I've already posted a lot of my rants but one of the characters who I haven't really had a whole rant on is Martin K blackwood.
THIS MAN. This man is so wonderfully written. A lot of characterisations of the "nice one" are quite flat and don't really expand much on them being nice apart from maybe giving the person low self esteem. What I love about Martin is how masterfully it uses that sort of prototype of a character and makes it much more gut wrenching and relatable. He starts off as sort of the office dunce from Jon's pov, which early on we also realise is unreliable. He's the bumbling idiot, the sweet fool and I get it. As a fat person, I feel like a lot of us feel pressured to be the comic relief or to put it more precisely, the one to be laughed at. And he's seen the gap in the archives, he's seen that role that needs to be filled and he's easily filled it. When you have the group of Tim and Sasha and then Jon, the only thing that could unite them is mutual awkward laughter towards Martin. And Martin is used to seeing what's there and filling the gaps, man is a people pleaser to a fault, he has had to guess what his mum didn't like about him and change accordingly, getting it wrong every time. He makes himself palatable which is so REAL especially for a fat person and/or traumatised people.
And then we see this more calculating side of him. He LIED to all his colleagues and his BOSS about a qualification to get a job and then kept that lie going for at least a couple of months. Listen, I don't think it's fair to label Martin as completely a manipulative calculating guy who's just put on a mask but it's also not exactly fair to characterise him as just a sweet, tea making guy who wears jumpers. And that's what I love about him. He's so complex. I feel like it delves into the idea of having both a saviour complex as well as an inferiority complex. He's had to make choices that are above his skillset early in his life and frequently, he's been blamed for causing other people's emotions so he naturally thinks he has control over how other people feel. Which gives him that sense of responsibility, like I can save anyone cause I can control their emotions, if I'm nice enough then they won't be mad/ill/sad/they'll love me. But at the same time, these sort of underhand methods of indirect communication don't resonate to him as causing any damage cause he doesn't actually think he's important enough to cause damage or have an impact on other people's lives
I don't think it's of any shock to anyone that my favourite Martin is angry Martin. It's the part that fights against both aspects of this inferiority/saviour complex because it 1. Is a path of direct communication. He has the opportunity to state exactly how he is feeling and the focus is on that rather than how can I get the other person to respond. 2. It recognises that he is important. Anger is in response to perceived injustice, frustration, annoyance and all of those things are in a way, self preserving. Obviously it's not good to do that too much (see: Tim Stoker) but there you go. I'm not saying angry Martin is perfect or anything but I'm saying that it's so satisfying and interesting to see cause it completely goes against the characterisation we've been given so far and it introduces a whole new facet to Martin - that he doesn't want to be ruled by his trauma and past experiences.
It's honestly a joy to see Martin develop into someone who fights more against the role he's been "given" while simultaneously playing into it. His whole Peter Lukas arc is very much a part of that. Essentially he's saying I'm not important enough to contribute the way you are (inferiority) but I'm still going to try and control things behind the scenes (saviour). So when Jon goes to save him it breaks that, he looks him in the eyes and tells him you, Martin K Blackwood are Important, you make an impact and you Mean Something. You don't have to save us all. It's such an important part of his character arc and honestly it blows me away every time I think about it.
Plus obviously the whole isolation thing is just so AGH it's just so built in to his character it makes complete sense that he has a tendency to isolate himself. It fulfills both the inferiority and saviour - he doesn't think he's important enough to be missed but also he feels like it'll push them into missing him. Solving the problem and putting himself down in one fell swoop.
Our final stage of Martin is one that is far from perfect, far from healed but absolutely closer than he was at the beginning. He shows more of himself, in working towards realising he makes an impact on people, telling jokes and just sharing his thoughts to Jon. So what does him stabbing Jon mean for this? Honestly I'm not entirely sure (I'm gonna be honest I did not realise this rant would be so long lol) but I'm thinking along the lines of this is an ultimate show of acceptance of his significance and rejection of his need to save people. He is committing the most direct act of all, he's doing this in the same need to help people but instead of being manipulative about it, he's just directly doing what needs to be done. But also he's not saving Jon, he's doing the complete opposite. He couldn't control Jon's response to the situation, as much as he wanted to, so he did what jon wanted. I might not be explaining this right cause I'm not entirely sure what I mean either but I'm trying to say it's a poetic end. It's separate from everything he was but in a way that's parallel to and pays homage to his struggles. He's still being sort of a saviour and he's still arguably not the most important person in this scenario but the point is that it's in a different way than he's used to. In my opinion, a better way.
Anyway yeah thank you for enabling me, I didn't know how much I needed this rant and I didn't know I had so much to say lol. <3
i will NEVER get over martin blackwood. lied about having a middle name. fell in love with his boss. objectively bad poet. records said bad poetry on company time. self proclaimed “antichrist’s plus one.” unbelievably catty. asked jon to kill oliver banks bc he woke jon up from a coma. realized peter lukas was lying due to his shitass self esteem. truly the character ever
mag 151 sure was rough huh
Can’t believe Martin Blackwood canonically writes aggressively mediocre poetry. Like wow. Fuck yes he absolutely does. I love him so goddamn much.
Annabelle: You always managed to get what you wanted through smiles and shrugs and stammerings that weren’t nearly as awkward as they seemed.
Martin:
Stopped drawing a lot of Jon only to draw lots of Martin... I will never be free
I’ll be going about my day and then I’ll think about Martin’s s4 storyline and I
THIS SEXY SON OF A BITCH IS GONNA MURDER SOME SUPER HOT ENTITIES, AND BASICALLY, YOU DONT STAND A FUCKING CHANCE. HOW? JUST LISTEN TO THIS FREE PODCAST>
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I’m sure this discussion happened before I even listened to TMA, but Martin 100% threw out “my feelings for Jon” as an attempt to lead Elias away from talking about his mother, right
Martin Blackwood really was cut out to be an avatar of the Lonely huh. He was SO good at feeding it the loneliness he caused.
martin's issues when you start listening to tma: his boss hates him (funny)
martin's issues by s4: he has spent his whole life pouring love and kindness into people who repay him with mistreatment and contempt. nothing about his life experiences has made him believe he is capable of being valued or loved. he wants to die.
you’re telling me Martin didn’t get to commit ANY violent murders… I’m more or less against violent murder but he really wanted to and I think he deserves it as a treat…
Finished the animatic, clawing my eyes out rn