If you like martin the first time you listened, when did you start hating his character? Did the fandom mischaracterization have an impact? I personally like Martin, but I’m curious about your interpretation of his character. I’ve scrolled through some of your blog and you frequently respond to asks, but I haven’t seen what your own analysis of his character.

honestly no the fandom wasn’t really my biggest gripe with him or any kinda tipping point or whatever. i just sorta found a couple anti martin posts (at the time there were like 5 but there were still some bangers 🔥🔥) and i was like wait a sec like this makes sense…. mainly tho i think i just didn’t like him after growing up from being the kinda person who kins him because like he just reminded me of myself at like my lowest and most annoying. but anyway yes so grateful to the martin haters who came before me and im glad i could further the idea a little 🐗🐗

and then like i relistened to (one of?) the episode (s?) where he hits john and like it felt like i had some like legitimate reason and evidence towards him being a character that i dislike, but ill be the first to admit i was already biased against him at that point

Martin isnt a cute uwu baby martin isnt an overprotective murderous righteous vigilante martin isnt a master manipulator who manipulated both everyone in the show and the audience. He's just mean as hell. And dumb (worst combo ever?)

I had to listen to him being a hypocrite AND an asshole for a season straight. Pleease if i wanted to hear something like that i would just talk to my dad

literally omg like it feels like people want to give his character the most like insane liberties and really twist canon in order to defend him and it’s like ?? he’s not real? like why are we making things up here to defend this fictional man

personally, i would kill martin myself if it meant i could read the missing part of trevor's statement. vampire killer is my all time favorite ep and i absolutely adore trevor and julia i would kill for a scrap of content from them

yknow what good for you like i pretty much completely forgot about those guys but like hell yeah glad to see some love for the rando characters. i was genuinely so confused throughout s3 (i don’t think i realised he’d even left the institute at any point) so i missed a lot and also I’d accidentally skipped julia’s s1 statement on my first listen so i didn’t even have that context but so happy for you having more obscure favs 🙏

wait what is your opinion on jon x tim. do you mind them in any way shape or form

i mean i don’t really like shipping in the podcast and especially not with john (not that i think aro!john or anything i just don’t like him in relationships) and im not sure how shipping became such an incredibly prevalent part of this horror podcast but like i mean it’s not as bad as jmart at least 🙏

A lot of people in tma fandom purposely exclude the female characters in favour of the (gay) men and this is obviously a bad thing. However that also means there are takes like "if you dislike georgie/melanie/basira youre misogynistic" and they are infuriating. No i actually think the surviving trio sucked ass.

Maybe melanie and basira were bearable cause while their awful behaviour is annoying i can see where theyre coming from. But i cannot bring myself to like georgie i dont know what yall see in her. Not even in that "georgie is jons horrible ex" way i really dgaf about their relationship. But why did she come to him afterwards just to talk about how great her relationship with melanie is while simultaneously rubbing it in his face about how unworthy of care he is. I dont think shes boundary queen i think she is a bit rude at times

adding onto this like it was so incredibly awful seeing john coming out of a coma and having the worst time of his life ever and having every single character be incredibly unnecessarily rude to him omg. like i don’t even think that john’s like the best person or incredible to be in any (platonic/romantic) relationship with but like there was just such an insane lack of empathy for him by any of the other characters that it was like just so depressing at times i swear. like obviously they’re all going through their own stuff and they’re all like flawed characters deliberately but that doesn’t mean i have to like them and like someone give my guy john a break for once in his life. everyone treated him so awfully like it’s no wonder he just accepted the way martin acted towards him by the end. i completely understand jonelias shippers because like even if i don’t like shipping personally and i don’t like shipping john with anyone like at least their dynamic is interesting and jonah at least has like some degree of (even kinda potentially fake) understanding or empathy for him. like if i was john i’d be jumping at that chance so he’s a stronger man than me ((shout out my jonelias mutuals/fans y'all are my biggest allies out here))

What do you think of Gertrude Robinson? Just curious.

rip diva gone to soon at least she knew how to get shit done. makes me sad to think abt all she did and all the sacrifices (michael) just for it to be completely futile because obviously the rituals would never have worked anyway. but still she had no real way of knowing that and even if she did i reckon she wouldn’t have wanted to put that theory to the test so can’t truly fault her. shout out to her still tho. she would’ve made a great ex-goth for gerry to steal clothes from tho.

I’m confused you’re chill with Gertrude dismembering and sacrificing people, Jon preforming unconsentual surgery, and all this other stuff but MARTIN is going too far?? I mean weird hill to die on imo 🤷😭

like everyone else gets the “well it’s a horror show they can be a bit messed up as a treat” treatment and Martin is held to the standard of like a real person?
eh you do you but that’s a bit silly

also saying 172 wasn’t a stressful situation when it’s literally the apocalypse is wildddd

Martin’s so fucking boring is the problem and all his fans are the most annoying people in the world is the other problem.

like gertrude made decisions and stuck to them and some of them were very difficult decisions and some are ones that we can recognise as an audience that she shouldn’t have done, but that’s what makes her a more interesting character and also like i just think she’s cool because yeah she IS cool. and i mean yeah jon’s little surgery on melanie was probably a low point and i agree that she should’ve had more control in that situation but he’s still got completely understandable motives to his flaws and that’s understood by the fandom and he’s interesting enough and i just like him and also like literally everyone hates him at that point in his life if i made a hate account for him id just be piling on to that poor man and he’s been through enough tbh.

which is to say that, no, while im not particularly on the side of the individual actions listed there, like i appreciate their characters and the larger picture and the reason they may have acted the way they did. with martin, however, it’s just his character to the core that pisses me off and the weird just like everything he does and especially how he’s been somehow projected onto enough by the fandom that they’ve managed to competely turn him into something entirely different just so they can kin him more comfortably.

and my point about 172 was that it wasn’t a stressful enough situation or environment to justify his actions because he was in absolutely no need to rush anything (no concept of time because apocalypse!) and therefore he very clearly was not panicked and was instead acting rationally and in a way that he justified to himself when he hit john, meaning that it was an action that i don’t consider redeemable in what’s supposed to be a portrayal of a semi-healthy relationship (as in it’s meant to be like “good/positive relationship between the individuals despite the situation” kinda thing rather than directly a portrayal of a more toxic relationship between john and martin directly). like yes, the apocalypse is stressful, (tho martin has it better than lowkey anyone else in the world rn), but by this point he’s had time to be thinking rationally when he was physically hitting his boyfriend, and there was nothing in the situation that would indicate higher stress than normal or would really justify his actions to me (yes, i appreciate the whole Web thing but what im saying is he had time to think, and he thought, and he still hit jon when there was no real reason to).

i just don’t see this as the absurd take you’re making it out to be when i can’t see martin as likable enough for this glazing in the first place - like he’s mean to everybody, especially jon by the end, and he just doesn’t come across as likable to anyone except the people that want to relate to him (because they’ve got like issues with their mother and like get lonely sometimes or whatever) or people that think him being needlessly mean is a like crazy character change to be all like badass and cool or whatever. like he’s literally just mean when there’s no reason to be, and just because he’s in a bad situation doesn’t mean i have to like him, because we never really see him as anything except whiney or mean

Whats on the left half of your banner there's some guy here that got cropped out

full image ((i put in far less effort when i realised i couldn’t even see the end two))

Who is Martin Blackwood and why do you hate him?

with all the love in my heart what are you doing here and how did you get here

Who is Martin Blackwood and why do you hate him?

antigyro:

martinblackwoodhater:

with all the love in my heart what are you doing here and how did you get here

I DONT KNOW THATS THE POINT OF THE QUESTION.

hes a fake character from a podcast and i don’t like him because he’s annoying and he hits his boyfriend a couple times (but like not in a way that’s written to be toxic or interesting he’s really boring and infuriating about it) but how did you find this martin-centered blog if you don’t know martin and why

I just saw someone like, imply compare Martin to Carlos from wtnv and absolutely the fuck not. Carlos is 1000 the man Martin ever will be because he's not a bitch and boring. Carlos is an actually caring husband and father, something Martin could never be.

(This became way more about Carlos but I needed to share this with someone)

it’s so funny just how much fans have to like mutilate martins character just to make him like actually likeable omg carlos would NEVER do any of the shit martin does free that poor man ✊

I started following as a bit cuz I had no opinion on Martin (was low-key surprised that the fandom was so obsessed with JonMartin cuz it didn’t really seem like a big thing when I listened to it) but like yeah, compelling arguments, I’ll board the Martin hate train

many such cases

I like martin blackwood actually

fear me

why would i do that sorry

If I murder martin can I get infinite michael shelleys to sacrifice to stop a ritual that wouldn't work anyway in order to make the michael fans go through the 5 stages of grief again when the events of episode 101 unfold once more with each new michael who trusts gertrude and ventures into the distortion only to become it again, forcing an identity upon a door

erm sorry not really in my control

What if martin blackwood was made of pudding

wow….. food for thought…….

What if martin blackwood had an iphone

i bet he does actually. not me tho y'all stay safe 🙏

What if martin blackwood wore comically large shoes

average clown behaviour from him. it’s a warning.

What if martin blackwood was strawberry blonde

what if martin blackwood was exploded with my brain

What if martin blackwood sold spell jars on etsy

i wishm…. jane prentiss come back to me

What if martin blackwood had an emotional support discord server

i see it tbh. he’d like vent to teenagers on there.

((typical fandom level mischaracterisation. i do not actually believe canon martin would do that. i am lying.))

What if martin blackwood was into crypto

what if he invented a new type and he called it martcoin what would you do

if Martin became web-aligned instead of lonely, do you think narratively his character would’ve been more interesting/bearable?

not really. i don’t like to work in hypotheticals tho because it so depends on how it’s treated by the writing and in part the fandom. like if disliking martin wasn’t forced into being such a like radical take then i wouldn’t put so much into this blog and i probably wouldn’t have it at all, and that could’ve happened if martin was written with his manipulation at more of the forefront of the writing and treated that way by the fandom, something that could’ve happened with him being more web aligned.

also Lonely fans piss me off so bad and it’s very clearly the worst fear so tbh maybe yeah anything other than the lonely could improve him a little.

ultimately, i don’t think it could truly make me hate him more as a character, and it does have the potential to improve things a little, but there’s just so many other aspects at play that i just don’t like these hypotheticals.

You know how funny I've curated my Tumblr for you page? I'll scroll and right underneath some fluff teaholding post will be your account dissecting how Martin is a terrible character/terribly written and I find this occurance in my life fascinating.

brutal mischaracterisation in one of those two posts and it probably isn’t mine.

what did you mean when you said the Lonely is the worst fear? like... worst characters/avatars? worst written? least scary? i'd love some elaboration on that

least scary + most boring + like just most the interpretations of the lonely that are at least semi interesting or scary could be covered by another fear so it just feels so irrelevant. it just feels like a filler fear to me how did this one get more popular over the actually cool fears of like Vast or Extinction or something 💔

it just doesn’t pull it’s weight i feel

I agree with everything you say so completely, I still stan Martin tho. He's a selfish bitch, no lie, he's just my favourite selfish bitch. What are you thoughts on this angle? (im curious)

possibly my least favourite type of people. every comment said like this is like another small 9/11 to me

If you had to pick one thing you actually like about Martin Blackwood what would it be. Is there anything there for you at all

why would i ever have to do that

I agree with everything you say so completely, I still stan Martin tho. He's a selfish bitch, no lie, he's just my favourite selfish bitch. What are you thoughts on this angle? (im curious)

thefredestfred:

martinblackwoodhater:

possibly my least favourite type of people. every comment said like this is like another small 9/11 to me

BRO HE’S SO HUGGABLE!!!!

1: that’s not true he would hate you

2: im suspicious you’re only saying that because everyone thinks he’s fat

3: what are you doing here on the martin blackwood hate account how did you expect me to react here

what did you mean when you said the Lonely is the worst fear? like... worst characters/avatars? worst written? least scary? i'd love some elaboration on that

thefredestfred:

martinblackwoodhater:

least scary + most boring + like just most the interpretations of the lonely that are at least semi interesting or scary could be covered by another fear so it just feels so irrelevant. it just feels like a filler fear to me how did this one get more popular over the actually cool fears of like Vast or Extinction or something 💔

it just doesn’t pull it’s weight i feel

THE VAST AND EXTINCTION FELT SUPER BLAND TO ME!!!! (the lonely and flesh are my favorite ones, specifically flesh) The flesh statements are always so well-written…

it’s like you’re going out of your way to have the worst takes how is this possible we’re like evil opposites. i feel like vast and extinction have a uniqueness to them that like the Lonely could just never manage though. like with the extinction there’s that unique sense of humanity and guilt that you don’t truly get with any other fear, and that’s why i like it as like most of the other avatars are dehumanised by their Fear whereas the Extinction has humanity’s flaws so deeply integral to it that like i don’t see how this dehumanisation could happen for an avatar and therefore it has more potential to be interesting and unique to me. and ya the Flesh is cool and i like it’s relationship with Extinction as being both like somewhat opposites (least human + most human fear <- oversimplification but basically). the lonely doesn’t have anything like that going for it tho bro stop glazing

i keep going back to that one ask you got its so funny. "youre chill with gertrude KILLING and DISMEMBERING and MANIPULATING people and jons surgery on melanie but you draw the line at MARTIN" fuck. FUCKKKK it's so funny. yes girl at least gertrude's wrongs were interesting and what she thought was the best option same for jon, what does martin do. he isn't a badass that orders explosives with institute funds.

literallyyyy like im sorry but martin isn’t a badass old woman who’s flaws are human sacrifice to do what she believes is saving the world he’s an awful blonde twink boyfriend who’s flaws are being boring as hell

I am someone who likes Martin, but ever since discovering your blog I've realized it's not really Canon Martin I like. It's Reworked Martin, where he gets proper development and gets to be imperfect and web-like manipulative because it was those initial things along the lines of "not just the 'sweetheart' he pretends to be" that I like originally (Like the brief moments showing him tricking/manipulating characters like Elias or Peter who shouldn't be all that easy to fool).

Martin seemed to be on a good path of a more complex moral code in s4 that when s5 came around, it really did feel jarring how that all halted and came to a swap around.

I really wish the writers went more into the potential of Web Martin as the way Lonely Martin was written felt so obviously more like him being a victim rather than him being a potential avatar of the Lonely. The way that Lonely Martin was portrayed felt just. Really bad? He wasn't an avatar who had control over a domain, he was a victim trapped in the fog and his isolation and roughly-written depression was used to make him feel worse and imprisoned. I feel it would've made more sense for Martin to be shown as a victim of the Lonely and have Peter have no real understanding of how to properly make someone outside of the Lukas family an avatar without them just getting trapped instead.

Basically, i think Web Martin would've made for a better developed character than how Canon Martin came out. It won't stop me from making my own rewrites/headcanons about him because he feels like he has so much potential that could be worked with.

Anyway I find your character analysis' fascinating and you have fully turned me around to looking more critically at the type of writing TMA/some parts of the fan base fall short in. It's a lot of fun to do proper studies on characters, their Canon portrayals, and how they could've been improved on.

it’s always a little funny to me how much people have to like oc-ify and change martins character just to make him tolerable to cope and at times (not targeted at anon) like just to fit with the fanon idea of him being this cutesy little sweetheart because it’s so clearly just not written into canon at all to have him portrayed like that? im actually baffled by the mass delusion of fans at times. i think they just see a character portrayed as blonde and kinda fat and have to fit him into the like bubbly sunshine trope and it kinda pisses me off

As a genuine question, why don’t you like Martin? Like. Which choices within the series didn’t you like?

my most justified reason is that he hits his boyfriend and i also think he’s boring but you can find a real answer pretty easily by just searching on my blog

As a genuine question, why don’t you like Martin? Like. Which choices within the series didn’t you like?

martinblackwoodhater:

my most justified reason is that he hits his boyfriend and i also think he’s boring but you can find a real answer pretty easily by just searching on my blog

https://www.tumblr.com/martinblackwoodhater/773055587506438144/can-we-talk-about-this-scene-for-a-moment-because?source=share (my first one mentioning it)

https://www.tumblr.com/martinblackwoodhater/784358734403174400/why-u-hate-mahtin-just-curious-bc-everyone-has?source=share (sort of talks about other things too but has more detail about 172 anyway)

https://www.tumblr.com/martinblackwoodhater/785277096749629440/im-confused-youre-chill-with-gertrude?source=share (also not exactly 172 centric but maybe elaborates on some things if you want that)

I feel like the main difference between “Jon and Basira drug Melanie and cut the slaughter bullet out of her” and “Martin hits Jon” is that cutting an evil ghost bullet out of someone is par for the course in horror media while hitting your partner is never ok real life or fiction

yeah like no-ones actually ever had a mood-altering ghost bullet unconsentually cut out of their leg, but unfortunately people are actually hit by their partners in real life. also i think a major problem of mine more lies in the different levels of severity that each act is given in the writing, and wether it’s actually portrayed to be bad or not

"The K in Martin K Blackwood actually stands for Kill Bill" just take me out back and shoot me at this point

one of the most overdone jokes in this fandom that only has about 5 jokes that are all overdone combined with a reference to one of martins worst lines. sigh.

Hi, stumbled across this blog and I absolutely get why somebody would dislike Martin and certain framing (or lack thereof) of his actions but the take on the lonely as a filler/boring fear is a bit confusing to me. And I can’t really tell if you’re being serious or doing it for the bit

This might just be me tho because of my own (unhealthy) coping mechanism and how i have seen isolation and being disconnected from your peers affect others and myself but I understand it as a much more layered fear than it is often characterized

You were talking about how the extinction has a certain inherent humanity to it and I think the lonely does aswell but in a much more social regard. As humans we consistently navigate social settings and also require emotional connections and relationships, now imagine these being taken away or, what is often worse, never developing them in the first place. It’s not necessarily the being alone in a room that is terrifying but much more the social isolation and the from that resulting disconnect from your own emotions and the unbreachable wall that is build by repeated rejection and social missteps.

You said that things about the lonely can often be attributed to other fears, I disagree but I would really be interested in what exactly you mean by that and your further thoughts on the lonely as a fear

im sort of exaggerating for the bit but most of my takes on the lonely are at least semi-serious

i sort of don’t care about the reason you project onto The Lonely as i can kind of assume its because you were lonely at some point. that’s typically the reason.

i think that yeah most of the fears are rooted in humanity, (with the exception of the flesh/the hunt which is what makes them interesting) so i don’t see that as a reason necessarily for it to be an especially interesting fear. i also think the being disconnected from people is kind of well-covered area within the fears (as a very core part of the stranger and the spiral maybe and really most of them to some extent if you twist it right) which is my main problem with it. it sort of just does one thing and it’s not a niche enough thing to be interesting and is also something that could be covered by other fears.

Just a couple examples off the top of my head:

Loneliness due to existentialism and there being loads of people out there making it easy to be lost in a crowd = the Vast

Loneliness due to feeling disconnected from others and feeling alienated or like you’re intrinsically different = the Stranger

Loneliness through grief or loss = the End

Loneliness through bad relationships = typically the Web or potentially the Stranger again / another fear depending on the situation

(there are probably more but i can’t think of them right now). Therefore I just feel like it is kinda the weakest fear, and wouldn’t be such an important part of the podcast if it wasn’t turning so relationship-centered and needed the conflict created from The Lonely to act as a catalyst and conflict for this

I remember the first time I heard MAG 169 Fire Escape was the first time I really stopped and thought "wow Martin is kind of a dick". And then I began to notice all the other things about him - the controlling behaviour, the black and white mentality, the selfishness, the way he's clearly using Jon's power to get what he (and only he) wants out of this eyepocalypse. The list goes on.

Anyway, my point was that I didn't realize just how toxic the jmart relationship was until Jon offered Martin the choice in 169 - to go into the burning building after Jude Perry, or not. Until that point, Martin, a character who has repeatedly made the choice to be passive in their decisions, throws a tantrum about going in the building. And Jon offers him the choice not to, and agrees to abide by his decision. The moment Jon shows Martin that respect, Martin throws it away. "That's not a fair decision to put on me."

Bitch please, YOU were the one throwing the tantrum! And when Jon responds by respecting your wishes, you're going to actively reject that!

It gets even worse in MAG 173 Night Night. Martin throws another tantrum.

Jon: I don’t know what you want me to do.
Martin: I want you to use your power. I want you to help them; I want you to make things better!
Jon: There is no better anymore.
Martin: (increasing in volume, emotion) You keep – saying that, and I hate it!
Jon: (also giving in to the argument) I keep saying it because it keeps being true; you know that!
Martin: What I know, is that leaving children here is – (struggles for words) i-it’s inexcusable; it’s monstrous!
Jon: (overlapping, firm) Martin. Tell me what you want me to do, and I will do it!

yikes. just yikes.

sorry this isn't really an ask, more of a vent. but you seem like the kind of person I could vent anti-martin sentiments at.

ugh i knowww, and like admittedly im not sure id be MUCH better in an apocalypse so like ill give him some degree of grace but it just really stands out to make him more unlikable when none of the other characters are that whiney.

i think it’s a combination of the fact that he clearly just can’t accept the situation and, and therefore complains about everything, and also the fact that he’s unable to actually do anything whatsoever, that just makes him so irritating this season. he just so clearly doesnt actually know what he wants. and, like, to be fair, it’s not entirely his fault because he’s in an impossible situation where all he can do is walk for ages and witness all this suffering, but him just yabbering on and complaining while doing nothing about any of the problems he’s talking about (because he can’t) just serves to make him sound incredibly whiney. Like if he’s meant to be a “suffering in silence” Lonely avatar then why won’t he shut the hell up for once

“But it’s the fans/fandom who mischaracterizes Martin”

No. Martin mischaracterized himself! Did we listen to the same S5?!

literally like that guy does NOT know who he is

Season 5 Martim should've died actually. Its the only solution to making him likeable that doesn't involve rewriting him completely.

That man is living in a delicate isolated bubble of his own creatuon and gets verbally violent any time you try to give him a taste of reality. Listening to his conversations with Jon was painful. He has a terribly limited understanding of the world around him, and he reminds me of a particularly spoiled child. I know he had a hard childhood yadda yadda but that is an explanation. Not an excuse. And nothing can excuse him being a huge CUNT!

i love all of this except for the first part tbh. i think there is nothing redeeming or likeable about the act of dying in and of itself and also that would make all the kinnies about 30x more insufferable. although if he just kinda pissed off and disappeared and no-one bought it up again I’d be pretty chuffed about that