#martin blackwood's mum

[cult-of-the-eye]

Martin had always had many voices in his head. The downside to this was that which one was his, was sometimes unclear. He was getting more used to taking one of those voices by the arm and twisting, wielding it like a knife to an apple. It worked sometimes, but other times the arm wrenched itself out of his grip. This voice in particular mimicked his mother, appearing already in full sentences in his brain. Usually his thoughts formed a cloud, that he picked at, like the nail polish on his fingers (a new tactic to stop his bad habit of nail-biting). So that's why it was particularly hard to reach out his arm to grab it. It was something tangible. Something whispering about how much he still needed her, how weak he is without her, how she hated the colour of his nails. But he didn't hate the colour of his nails. He picked out the colour himself, at a corner shop in Nowhere, Scotland. He turned to Jon, grabbing at his own voice and refusing to let go, and told him he wanted to get it. And he did. He did.

[drawsmaddy]

[ID: A digitally illustrated two panel comic of Martin Blackwood and Jonathan Sims from The Magnus Archives. In the first panel Martin is stood at a counter preparing a cup of tea. He is smiling softly with his eyes closed and a thought bubble next to his head shows a small image of Jon with some hearts around him and text reading "ah... Jon...". The second panel shows Jon sat at his desk with the mug of tea from the first panel in his right hand and papers in his left. He is growing and saying "Martin's such a fucking idiot I hope he dies". End description.]

Stupid season 1 jonmartin dynamic ily forever

[cult-of-the-eye]

Hey can I offer an equally fucked up trans Martin hc, where he was actually the spitting image of his mum to the point where after she passed, his relatives would come up to him and treat him as if he was his mum or just an empty extension of him and he hated it all. After he transitioned, he looked slightly less like her but on bad days, when both the dysphoria and the weight of everything become too much, he stares into the mirror and only sees the person who made his life miserable, his abuser, staring back at him.

Hey fucked up trans Martin thought, before he started transitioning his mom could delude herself into thinking that he looked like her, and was a little better at accepting his help and being around him, but once he started cutting his hair short, inexplicably in the same exact style as his father’s was, she couldn’t deny that he looked just like his father, and then when he started hrt, he even sounded like him. The act of being able to delude herself into thinking he looked like her let her pretend that she was taking care of herself, and then that fantasy crumbled and left behind the face that looked so much like the one that broke her.

[soupdwelling]

@jonmartinweek day 7: caretaking

[hollowmossart]

todays old art redraw… i dont know what the original concept was?? all i know is martin was falling and I drew it around the end of tma? anyway. i COOKED. i love harsh lighting. this new version looks more.. desperate? whereas the old one looks a bit more serene. this is probably about a 3 year difference.

[kgcressie]

my mum is listening to tma for the first time. she just walked into my room and said "oh Martin :(" and walked back out again. context is she's on season 1 and just learned about him sleeping in the archives. I fear I haven't adequately prepared her for the horrors

[tiredlazyfrog]

Credit to @mellon_soup on Pinterest for the pose reference.

This is the first in a series of artworks depicting myself as an avatar of each of the TMA entities. I have also written poems that accompany each work, which will be put under the cut if you are like Jon and dislike poetry not written by Martin.

The Web

I have spent far too long

being pulled and guided

in ways I did not want to go.

The most terrifying thing

is to not be in control.

Having decisions made on

your behalf, without regard

for what you want.

my mother puppets me

into the idea of a perfect daughter 

and I strain against the threads

but her web is far too strong

and I am not able to escape.

if I choose to tear myself free

I leave behind the others snared within.

She tells me that choosing myself

means that I will never see them again.

Manipulation is a powerful thing

and I am just a fly

twisting and turning in vain 

as the web draws tighter and tighter.

[rodent--quinn-queen--posts]

Hey I made this post a month ago this is kind of a sequel

So my mum is cleaning the kitchen

and jar of spiders

she has a jar of spiders

because she doesn't want them to get in the way and accidentally get hurt and yes she will be releasing them back into the house once she is done because they're very useful for eating the other pests and bugs and flying things

(also because the spiders will die outside it is freezing)

while I was taking pictures of the jar of I literally heard her say "I think there's something living in these holes"

sooo fellow Magnus archive fans how concerned should I be

(about the jar of spiders that will be released into the house and the things living in the holes)

(@lostinthevoidandthestars tagging you specifically since you were the first person I went to last time)

There Are Never Enough Spiders In Your Home

Jar of spiders below the cut

You can keep sound off it's just the sounds of radio

also in the first three seconds or so you can hear my mum say "I think there's something living in these holes" other than that sound is useless

[accidental-apocalypse]

pspspspsps Martin kinnies pspsps

[marzling]

Jon really needing to do a statement has the same energy as a kid really needing to pee

Like

Martin: jon do you really need to do it now? You did one not that long ago

Jon (hoping from one foot to another): look martin I really need to do it, it's really bad

[glxthoughts-old]

thinking about ‘teaching jake about the camcorder, jan 97’ but it’s martin rewatching old tapes to convince himself there’s a deeper more traumatic reason his dad left which led to his mum being the way she is so she doesn’t actually treat martin bad on purpose and it’s just like. a trauma response or sm

[cult-of-the-eye]

Thoughts on Martin and his mum:

(tw emotional abuse, body image issues, binge eating, transphobia)

I'm saying this with my desi Martin and trans Martin headcanons in place

So imo Martin is an only child who was forced to care for his mum from around 14

His mum was the type of person to be very stubborn about her illness and insist she needed no help while berating Martin for not helping as well so I feel like he had to walk ok eggshells around her

Martin was raised with the "daughter of a desi household" mentality where he offers everyone tea and cleans up and eats last which reinforced his whole I don't matter complex

She made comments about his body, the usual you should lose weight, you're not eating enough etc etc

I headcanon him as struggling with binge eating, cause he stress eats and then he feels disgusted with himself and hears his mum's voice and then starves himself and then the cycle continues

He also has convinced her that he's just a tomboy rather than a trans guy which she isn't happy about but is still better than if she came out

He fantasises about coming out to her, shouting, screaming and rejecting her just like she's rejected him but in reality knows all he'd want is for her to accept him

This all led him to be an extreme people pleaser, he manipulates in the sense that he guessed what people want to see and does that and creates an image wherein he is the butt of jokes to allow there to be jokes in the first place

He sees himself as an instrument, a placeholder, an empty space for other people to take up and as much as it keeps him "safe" he also resents it and dreams about one day snapping

After she dies, his biggest feeling is relief...he channels all that guilt into his feelings about Jon but he can't shake off the general sense of freedom from the cycle of abuse

In conclusion, the man needs bucket loads of therapy

[flowermoomin]

I understand this take, but idk man - Jon rode a carousel to get over a breakup one time, and Martin sassed an old man-corpse while nearly lighting the institute on fire, as said man-corpse bullied him so

They’re sorta cool actually, I think

Its really important to me that jmart are both fundamentally uncool people

[orchidbreezefc]

ok. years have passed and we've had some distance, so i'm finally gonna take the leap of faith that tma fandom is finally ready to hear me on this. let's talk about tannins.

161 was the first tma episode i heard on early release, and i felt the bit where martin declines wine and cites tannins was pretty obvious in its implications. cool, got it, say no more.

imagine my surprise when i was one of maybe three people i saw read between the lines there, in a fandom famous for red stringing--a fandom that immediately caught the much less obvious thread of ignition sources in the same episode. i'll spell it out: alcohol is an issue for martin.

maybe it just felt obvious because addiction is a pet issue for me--as it is for jonny, who has said everything he writes is filtered through a lens of addiction. i don't know if that's due to his own experience or a loved one's, and i won't speculate; i also don't know if martin personally struggled with drinking or just avoids it for fear he would, but alcohol would fit what we know of his family. his dad walking out and his mum spiralling into bitter wallowing and verbal abuse? i'd bet one or both of them drank, yeah.

on a basic level martin tries to decline alcohol, and that alone should have raised eyebrows given what we know of martin and, again, a fandom that dissects everything. we already knew martin "K" blackwood lied about his personal life and his family in particular, especially pre-canon, which is when this flashback took place. i was shocked that everyone took his flimsy excuse at face value with no further questions.

and the excuse is flimsy. martin turns down wine by--nervously--exclaiming tannins are "a proven headache trigger!" which sounds like trivia from a magazine cover and not the words of someone who actually has headaches--and it hasn't come up before or since. jon, confused, points out that tea, a drink martin consumes to a degree that is memetic both in- and out-of-universe, also contains tannins, and martin squawks a panicked, "what?!"

if tannins are enough of a concern for martin that he knew they're in wine and so avoids it, why didn't he know they're in his drink of choice? why does he still drink tea at the time of canon, and why doesn't he struggle with constant headaches from consuming 'a proven headache trigger' day in and day out? why, indeed, would someone avoid wine and not tea?

when sasha insists martin drink he caves and agrees to 'just a drop'. i imagine him pouring it in a plant, which admittedly he could have done if tannins really were the issue. i will say that i, for one, would be less likely to falsely agree to something that makes me physically ill than to a private issue that i'd rather not be pressed on any further. this scene also establishes martin's birthday was an ice cream party instead of the more traditional visit to a pub.

also, this scene was in the first episode of the final season, as one of three flashbacks that could have been to any pre-canon event in the archives. prime narrative real estate. not really time one would waste on establishing the important character context that martin has... headaches. which never comes up before or after, even regarding the week he spent in spiral town. but you know what is pretty crucial character background...?

it felt like a no-brainer, and yet all i saw was h/c fluff about jon attending to martin's headaches. and i hate feeling bitter about disability representation. i want folks with chronic headaches to feel seen and have fluffy escapist fantasies. i don't want to be mad about people portraying a character with a disability. but, guys? you got the wrong disability. jonny sent a clear message, and it went over fandom's head.

[fricklefracklefloof]

my piece for the @mycupofteafanzine a martin blackwood zine a while back :) was an interesting experience working in cmyk lol

[image description: a yellow and blue-toned drawing of martin blackwood falling in a cloud of mist surrounded by various objects - a cup of tea, a bouquet, worms, a tape recorder, shards of a mirror with his face on it, a folder with papers spilling out of it, and gravestones with “mum” and “tim” engraved on them. jon is seen with an arm outstretched towards him from inside a glowing eye in the sky. jon is depicted as brown and pakistani and martin is depicted as tan-skinned and filipino. end id]

[regainingparadise]

Because I'm desperately waiting for the new episode of Great British Bake Off on Netflix, have my Magnus Archives/Bake Off Headcanon:

Martin goes on the Great British Bake-Off

Probably S1 Martin, because I want S1 Sasha & Tim dynamics, but it would also be delightful to have Mr. "I have personal experience with the supernatural" Blackwood be in the tent trying to act like he didn't almost get eaten by a worm lady.

Martin isn't much for cooking (per his abundance of ready meals and canned peaches) but in this headcanon he does love to bake

I want this to be the older version of Bake Off with Mel & Sue, because I think they'd be so good with him. But Noel would absolutely have a field day with the fact that Martin is doing supernatural research.

About his bakes:

There as at least one Showstopper display that is modeled after a statement

In fact, I think he definitely creates a biscuit version of Naomi Herne's statement in two scenes: A vanilla biscuit-Naomi in a gingerbread cemetery complete with fog made of sugar, and Naomi outside Moorland House

This causes a minor crisis for Elias because the Lukas's are Not Pleased and demand to know why Elias didn't put a stop to this. (The reason is, Elias knew that Martin was on the show, but didn't bother to pay attention to what he was doing)

Several of his bakes are flavors that he particularly knows people in his life are fond of--pastry week he dedicates his signature bake to Jon with Jon's favorite curry blend; chocolate week he dedicates to Sasha who is an absolute chocolate fiend; cake week he makes Tim's absolute favorite cake. He even makes his mother's favorite baked goods for patisserie week, the kind she loved but could never afford.

Bread week is his worst week

Chocolate week is his second worst week--his chocolate just will not set properly in his showstopper

The "about Martin" footage

The producers try to film a bit of background with Martin's mum; Martin asks them not to, but they insist that it'll be fine! She won't be mean in front of cameras! She'll be so proud of him! It can't be that bad! Spoiler alert: It is, and Martin slinks off to cry away from the cameras. They don't use that footage

So instead they film him at work. Tim and Sasha bully Jon into being polite, which means that Martin is extra blushing and awkward around him

They ultimately show a clip of Martin carrying a cup of tea and a home-baked biscuit in to Jon's office, and then bantering with Tim and Sasha over slices of cake in the break room

The hosts definitely tease him about where he works

Martin is definitely at least a finalist, so Tim and Sasha drag Jon to the final picnic; Jon is very awkward but genuinely congratulatory (after all, he has been bribed with increasingly elaborate baked goods for the past 10 weeks, who wouldn't warm up to Martin after that).