May i just say that I respect you so much for your work? You do what others (like me) aren't brave enough to do.
I, too, am chronically a hater. I can barely join a fandom without finding a popular character that I will start absolutely despising.
When I first listened to TMA I was just neutral towards M, but the longer the podcast went on the more annoyed I got whenever he showed up. I mainly ship Jon eith Gerry now and although you may be an aro!Jon truther, we are still united in our hatred of Martin. And I think that is beautiful.
i do like the random censoring of martin’s name here. also appreciate how many jongerry fans are in my audience. i don’t know if im actually an aro!jon truther i think he’s something more sinister ((completely distanced from relationships because of his parents)) but that’s just my little headcannon. shout out to jongerry fans tho - he’s my sister’s fav because they’re both goth and she’s the one that got me into tma so like u can thank her as a concept for this entire blog 😋😋
You answered an anon about jongerrymartin some time ago, and it made me think about the ship for a moment.
First of all, i absolutely CANNOT picture them getting together. With jongerry it kind of makes sense? - you have jon meeting book-gerry and they seem to kinda get on, and you can muster up something based on that encounter like AUs itd. I mean, as scarce as their interactions are, you have a pretty solid foundation and you can just make up the rest as you go. But i can't imagine where martin would fit in that. I cannot imagine him just... stumbling upon gerry.
But let's put their imaginary first meeting aside for a moment. Both gerry and martin had a complicated and frankly unhealthy relationship with their mothers, and i've seen a lot of people (shippers) making their bond revolve around that. Which is nice! Woohoo parallels!
And yet the ship between jon, gerry and martin just does not make sense from a canon viewpoint. And by that i mean the characters' personalities makes it impossible to work out. Or, to be honest, just martin's personality. That man is insanely jealous of everyone that dares to be near jon, and i dont mean it in a "silly quirky" way.
If they ever were to become a throuple (like in a completely detached from the canon setting) i feel like they would get on fairly well at first, but if they were to start displaying affection to eachother in a different way than simply friendly, martin would immediately become jealous and then just take apart their relationship with gerry piece by piece until only him and jon are in the equation.
(Honestly that's more about season 5 martin. If it were the earlier seasons martin, he would probably do the opposite thing and slowly remove himself from the relationship, because "they don't need him anyway" and "he's just happy to br around and help" and "he wouldn't want to get in the way of jon's happiness" etc.)
This got kinda long and im sorry. My main point is, as usual, that i am upset by the mischaracterization/misunderstanding of martin that's so popularized by fanon. I honestly feel like i could like him! Maybe even relate to him in a way! But because of the way he's presented by fandom, upon hearing the name martin every tma fan goes "aw hes the cute gay one! The guy thats a big softie but has an unexpected dangerous side! Yess king stand up for yourself!! Don't let them treat you like shit!!" And dear lord it's so shallow. He's more than that. His actions have reasons, and they are not always "good" reasons either!! Like jon smashing the fucking table and freeing the notThem - nobody's saying that it was a smart move!! Let him make mistakes i beg of you!
As im typing this I realized that most people who do that are the same people who relate to him, and it struck me that perhaps they reduce and compress martin's character to just make him into the traits they see themselves as, (i mean: shy, people pleaser, bad-relationship-with-mother, likes tea, big crush on someone who doesn't notice him - you know, those traits that could apply to basically anybody and ESPECIALLY to insecure teenagers - the main demographic) and then they fill the rest with their own personality traits.
Imo in order to properly judge a character it's important to step aside for a moment and consider them from another POV.
I feel like ive done way too many "overly-long-rant-regarding-fanon-martin" asks and that im starting to repeat myself like a scratched CD. Im gonna have to cook up something about jon as well. AND his relationship with georgie.
people do seem to pick and choose what qualities they want to even think about when writing/observing martin in any way. obviously this is natural and makes sense with any character because people are going to focus most on what they’re biased towards for a myriad of reasons, but it’s CRAZY w martin fans ive noticed. which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but also likeeee it does make for a less diverse experience, especially when most of the fans seem to focus on the same kinda things so some qualities get severely overlooked and this lowkey makes for a far less interesting character.
my point is that this is extra prevalent in shipping, especially with more like weird ships like this that are particularly unsupported in canon, and it’s lead to somewhat of a weird like mass delusion almost ((obviously a hyperbole)) in terms of his character, where people are - as you said - pretty much just turning him almost into a self-insert. ive probably got more to say but not rn sorry im gonna go check if my waffles r done cooking