‘I’m made of plastic, silly!’ elicits a very specific image to a modern audience. One of shiny, brightly coloured modernism. Perhaps of cheap animal figures, and barbie dolls; harmless childhood toys.
But bear in mind this is said by a creature of the past. Have you ever held an antique baby doll? a weakly cast action figure? Even the case of an old typewriter? You can feel the brittle plastic, cold and rough; it feels as if it would snap under your fingers and its deceptive strength leaves your hands unsure of the density and your mind trying to figure it out.
Have you ever seen an old automaton? I read a book about them once, it was the first time I ever felt truly afraid of a puppet. Not the brash, fluffy, celebratory animal things of America, but the original European circus pieces.
One of the primary reasons a circus succeeds is spectacle: the creation of something so entirely awestriking that audiences have no choice but to gawp, and pay their fees. There’s something so terrifying about not being able to look away. Sometimes not being able to see really is a good thing.
To see something that isn’t a person move and talk like a person is horribly unnerving. It’s far too common in this modern age, but can you imagine the terror of seeing these things firsthand for the first time, in a world where technology is scarce beyond an idea?
That fear is enough to power a thing for years to come. Enough to give it more power than a thing like that should ever have.
Yknow one of the first signs that Martin’s a badass is that he actually felt safe on the northern line after meeting prentiss… For those of you who haven’t been subjected to its horrors, here’s a few things you should know:
-it is fucking LOUD. Tube trains are loud, but northern line is the loudest. Like, permanent ear damage loud if you travel on it regularly.
-it shakes you about a LOT! Okay all the underground trains do, but on the northern line its more random and jarring.
-it is CONFUSING. There’s several different branches/routes that take you to entirely different places, and if you find yourself on the wrong one you have to change trains at Camden Town! A notoriously busy station!
-in reputation, it’s in competition for the worst line on the underground! Its main rivals are the central line and bakerloo line, but a large percentage of Londoners (myself included) consider it the worst one.
So in essence, Martin, pursued by worms, found comfort in a place that activates my fight or flight response on the best of days! That half an hour of being deafened and shaken about in a tiny tube underground calmed him down, and that’s absolutely tougher than surviving an apocalypse.
Can you imagine how weird it’d feel to have a bone taken by Jared Hopworth? Jon says to remove “something I wont miss”, but truth be told we’re all a bit more aware of our skeletons than we’d like to think.
Putting your hands on your hips, smoothing out your shirt, laying down, bending over- all of these things change at the loss of two ribs.
Can you imagine the feeling of tight, suspended flesh where bone used to be? Running your fingers over the gap like you might poke at where a missing tooth used to be.
That’s the thing; Jon didn’t just go through pain to save Daisy, he sacrificed a part of who he was, tore up his form, dragging himself ever further away from what he was when he was human.
Every action Jon took to save somebody took a piece of him, and every person he saved reprimanded him for sacrificing his humanity. Little do they know he tore it apart to protect theirs. Becoming less than human isn’t something you can really do without help.
It’s often seen with dementia patients that when they’re taken from a place where they have memory hooks their condition deteriorates faster; similarly, when the body that housed your soul becomes unrecognisable, it makes sense that your humanity would deteriorate along with it.
Jon suffered greatly in falling away from his humanity, and the punishment he received for it pushed him down further.
One episode of TMA that I will NEVER be able to shut up about is 170 (Recollection). The first episode that made me properly cry! Not only is it a beautiful exploration of Martin as a character, but humanity in general.
The light, innocent, childish small talk that Martin offers to the tape recorder. He tries so hard to keep it comforted, welcome in his home, looked after. It’d be wrong of course, to ignore it, even in his despair; others should always be put first.
Through tangled, rambling sentences, Martin manages to always explain away his own emotions, actions… To be visibly uncomfortable, unwelcoming, is wrong. He offers up his life, details of his existence, but talks them into offhanded mentions.
The subtle embarrassment he has for himself; a hallmark of much of English society. Everyone must be a self contained functioning person, lest they risk being ‘odd’, 'troubled’, perhaps even 'disruptive’.
And as Martin’s inhibitions fade, as his memories of everything grow dim, his instinctual desperation shows so painfully through. Desperately reaching for answers, as a child desperately holds their hand out for an absent parent.
Martin never had a safe person to reach for, someone always there for him. His father gone before he really knew who he was, his mother infinitely distainful… This abandonment mirrored by Jon’s absence that floats into his mind in phases.
And even to be denied the pain, to forget what you were crying about, there’s something terrible about it. Feeling the lump in your throat, the tears on your cheeks, but never really being sure why they were there, if they even are.
And the chairs. To be denied the simple comfort of a soft place to rest.
Martin’s eventual return to his duties, caring for his mother, the subtle falsified joy he finds in it, and his decline into self hatred, blame. How easy it is for him to find his way back to a place of insecurity even when he has nothing to grasp onto.
And how strong he stays. How ready he is to shoulder the blame, to carry on, to be there for anyone who might need him, anything. It’s all outside, and when he falls deeper into the fog his internal, pressed down emotions spill out.
All of Martin’s fears come from a place of worrying he isn’t enough, and this domain reduces him to a state where he is nothing; and yet, he prevails.
