begging to know your thoughts on epiphany
Ehh. It was alright. I actually liked it on my first listen - a nice little break from the horror. Besides, Martin never quite stood out for me back then so I didn’t really care that much. It was ok.
The ep was mainly Martin being an awkward softie as usual, except we got to learn a bit about his hobbies or whatever. He’s a clumsy shy guy with a big fat crush on his boss. Alright. Predictable. Also his poetry is awful. Not a bad thing necessarily, just unpleasant to listen to.
His behaviour is very much like a highschooler’s. First Big Feeling. Could’ve been cute if the cast had remained in an office setting. But trying to have a cute romance side plot in an apocalypse was just bound to fail.
Also this fandom tends to forget that Martin had a crush on Jon, which is by definition shallow. A lot of people say stuff like “Martin loved Jon since the very beginning” and I get what they’re trying to get across; but there’s a major difference between having feelings for somebody and genuinely loving that person. It was not that serious. Martin’s infatuation was not that deep. He had no real foundation for his feelings and that is very visible in season 5. But like many other things, it’s forgotten in favour of “good cows” and an “eye-spy” joke. How adorable.
i’m VERY upset that daisy is getting rescued from the coffin.
i was so happy when she was presumed dead bc i fucking hate her so much
like we get it you love police brutality shut up
very excited for her to actually die
No I get it. Honestly she was awful at first
Still, i have a soft spot for her. Unlike the other characters, she actually reflected upon her actions and realized that they were bad. The rest of the cast made the conscious choice to stay oblivious and put themselves aside, away from all the monstrous happenings - they detached themselves from the Fears and refused to acknowledge that they, too, were partially responsible and not just Jon!
At least Daisy gained self-awareness. At least Jon had somebody who actually understood him.
just listened to 146 rn and oh my GOD i cannot STAND how they’re treating jon
HE DIDN’T ASK FOR ANY OF THIS! HE DOES NOT ENJOY THIS! HE IS ACTIVELY SUFFERING!
bassira needs to shut up bc she doesn’t know what she’s talking abt AT ALL
like has it not been established that he feeds on statements? he doesn’t just do it for funsies he NEEDS THEM TO SURVIVE
i’m not even the biggest fan of jon but oh my god they act like he’s some sadistic schemer or some shit
like yes it causes harm to innocent people but the alternative is him starving to death!
and he only actively fed off ppl when he didn’t have easy access to statements! it’s not like he goes out on the town every night looking for his next victim
jon deserves a year long vacation and a nap oh my fucking god
So true I cannot BEAR to listen to any of the s4 episodes because Jon is getting borderline abused in practically all of them
Everyone’s hypocrisy is pissing me the hell off, even if I can understand where they’re coming from. Basira shames and berates Jon while excusing Daisy’s behaviour in the same breath, despite both of them being the same! Melanie says it’s Jon’s fault that she’s trapped in the Institute, despite the fact she came here on her own accord and Jon wasn’t even present when she accepted the offer from Elias! Ughh it’s so irritating!!
I get it, people are not perfect and everyone in this show makes mistakes. Hell, nearly everything was caused by Jon acting irrationally cause he was so paranoid. But in the end, the podcast paints those hypocritical characters as good and rational!! They never had to suffer the consequences of their actions like Jon had to!! They just got to live semi-happily, no burdens for them to carry except some minor inconveniences maybe!
Also from what I’ve gathered the fandom doesn’t even allow people to criticise those characters. The survivors. You’re not allowed to whisper a word of criticism in their direction. Jon always gets shamed (even playfully) for being rude in the early seasons. People looove to jokingly insult him “oh he’s such an incompetent idiot!! Haha paranoid dumbass! He’s so mean ughh so annoying >:(” but when hes being hit from all directions by the only people left in his life no one even bats an eye, because then they’re such queens of boundaries of course! Cutting off the awful monster to preserve their own wellbeing! Rational and cruel at the same time.
I had to listen to Jon being treated like shit for an entire season just for s5 to offer him half-baked, retracted apologies that didn’t actually mean anything. None of this conflict was ever resolved. He didn’t become friends with all of them by the end. They didn’t accept him as an avatar. Not even his boyfriend did.
Only Jon ever suffers because of his own actions, and on top of that he’s treated like everyone’s punching bag! No one bothered to even try sympathizing with him. He was so utterly alone.
how were gcses?
-not martin
No clue I’m not from the uk
I think that the biggest proof that most Martin fans don't understand Martin is that they never write him really being jealous or bitter. Not like he is in the show. They just make him sad and self-sacrificing and skim over his obvious dislike and disregard for most other people. He's rude to people who don't get along with Jon, with people who get along with Jon too well, and also Jon himself. The first time we hear him, he spends a bunch of time passive-aggressively guilting Jon for Martin getting trapped by Prentiss. Melanie and Basira joke about how rude Martin is to them because of their relationships with Jon. Martin effectively burned his friendship with Tim by acting like a mediator while showing obvious bias. He's such a dick, which I find really funny and apparently no one else does.
“He’s rude to people who don’t get along with Jon, to people who get along with Jon too well, and also to Jon himself” dear GOD you’re so right. It’s like he’s simultaneously insecure and egocentric.
From what I’ve gathered, this is caused by most fans seeing themselves in Martin. Most of their time is spent piling their own personality traits onto the man, instead of trying to understand him as he is.
The fact people prefer the popularized fanon version also adds to this. In fanon he’s a loving, caring, protective sweetheart. His biggest flaws are that he hates himself and loves too much; both perfectly harmless and relatable. There’s nothing that might make him seem unredeemable, his every trait is perfectly innocent and excusable. Sweet gay tormented blorbo.
Martin isn’t the only one who fell victim to the fandom oversimplification to be honest. Jon’s either the mean stubborn idiot or a soft and helpless gayboy who needs his boyfriend to care for him. Tim is the comic relief funny guy who’s only there to goof, and Sasha is the smart one who’s also secretly a prankster. Daisy is the Bad Cop violent butch and Basira is the Good Cop cool-and-collected hijabi. Elias is the flamboyant evil boss and Peter Lukas is his bitter sugar daddy do you see it do you see what I mean. That’s the fandom making them more digestible and versatile so that they can fit them into fanfiction tropes. This is a common occurence in every fandom but it’s sooo prominent here and dear god I hate it. Downsides of a fandom peaking in 2021
the doing back flips in mid air while I fall of a cliff anon here I am also doorway anon
i LOVED tma fandom and still kinda do but it's complicated there are so many shitty things in it why are people scared of drawing characters WITH NO CANON DESCRIPTION differently than canon
"thats not my (insert character name!" THERE IS NO (INSERT CHARACTER NAME)!!! THERE IS NO CANON LOOK FOR THEM!!! "oh but the fandom already decided!!! THEY SHOULD DRAW THE CHARACTER THE WAY WE EXPECT IT!!!" the artist is not drawing FOR YOU. SHUT IT. unless you commission them to draw a character with no canon description a certain harmless way you have no say in it
the fandom is a prison
Oh my god so TRUE!! It’s genuinely awful.
I get it, those are characters with no canon appearances so you can assign whatever traits you want to them, but don’t get mad when others don’t adhere to YOUR headcanons! A majority of fandom having the same opinion doesn’t make it the only valid option. It’s still just a headcanon. It’s only canon in your head brother
TMA fandom is all for assigning headcanons to a character until they don’t align with fanon. “That’s not my blorbo” babydoll your blorbo is an MP3 file. Have some imagination.
any strong opinions on jonelias or mr magnus in general
Jonelias could’ve been absolutely delicious. Such a shame that the fandom peaked in 2020-21 and the ship was brushed off as bad because “it’s toxic”.
As for Elias/Jonah, he was one of the only characters that I actually liked, mostly because he had an intriguing and pleasant manner of speaking. Charming. And he was a really interesting guy - since we, as the audience, saw him from Jon’s perspective he was painted as a villain, but he was really just doing what everyone else in his situation would’ve done and he was aware of it. He wasn’t really evil, at least not in that cartoony sense like everyone likes to portray him, but god was he curious. And a control freak.
Him and Jon would complete eachother in the most gruesome of ways. The creator and his creation. Jon both dehumanized and worshipped. Him hating Elias yet desiring his approval. We really could’ve had it all. But no, he was killed in one single swipe and Jon got to be badass for like three minutes despite it going against the very nature of his relationship with Elias as was previously shown and instead we got two bland gays Somewhere Else™. How tragic