I was thinking about Gerry earlier (like you do) and especially about the scenes where we see him interacting with Leitners. He's pretty unique among TMA characters in that - while he spends more time around these books than almost anyone else - we rarely see him get affected by them in any meaningful way. You could argue that he's just careful and knows how to handle them, but...
GERRY: Can I use your wastepaper bin?
GERTRUDE: Yes, it’s just– Wait. Surely you didn’t bring it here!
GERRY: Well, yeah, I, uh –
GERTRUDE: Gerard, we’ve talked about this. Bringing unvetted artefacts or books into the Archive is incredibly dangerous.
GERRY: It’s locked away!
...Gertrude, at least, would argue that he's not really very careful at all.
But he is one other thing, that basically no one else is when it comes to Leitners:
I finally caved and started listening to tma and this is the man yall are horny about? this british smartass of a librarian??? the one who is so dismissive of every single story that he would certainly die first in a horror movie???? what. I was promised a office romance and got the most fucked up stories read by a bored man with a organisation kink who hates all his coworkers
[ID: a screenshot of the “sweetie I’m so sorry meme” that has been edited to read “Mr. Jon Sims sweetie. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry that a ugly ass bitch like me would even say that, oh my god.” END ID]
Alex put it in as placeholder name, expecting me to change it. I said it was a great name and we should keep it. Neither of us blinked. Very much one of those games of chicken where you just crash into each other head on and die instantly.
Jon is 100% the type of guy where Martin says something normal and chill and he just responds so sincerely that it takes Martin aback like 5 times daily. Martin will say something like "I'll be in the other room if you need me" and Jon will look him dead in the eye and say "I always need you" with 100% earnestness and sincerity and Martin is down for he count
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.
#in 181 he is also a bit judgy when salesa is daydrinking
this observation really got me thinking! between this and martin's reactions to jon's eldritch dependency, i think it's likely that martin, as someone who does not drink, adopted a judgmental attitude toward folks who partake in substance use.
this attitude extends to his boyfriend, who is addicted to something much worse than alcohol, and that's the context where we most see it in action. martin refuses to be around jon as he sates his cravings, leaving the vicinity when jon needs a statement. jon repeatedly says not to go far and, if memory serves, tells him he doesnt have to leave at all, which is a bid martin dismisses.
the frequency of martin's complaints about jon needing to stop and have a statement always struck me as unreasonable considering martin was fully aware of the circumstances. it puzzled me that he was so unsympathetic when he knew jon needed to do it, as a literal chemical (spiritual? magical?) dependency.
that attitude starts to make more sense when you consider the evidence that martin avoids addictive substances, and the possibility that he's taken a disapproving stance toward people who do engage in them.
it's just another one of martin's judgmental attitudes in s5 that he means to direct toward others but unintentionally catch jon in the crossfire. he says all avatars are irredeemable monsters without considering what that implies about jon. he's averse to addicts having their fix, so when jon seeks assurance and says martin can stick around for this thing he's going through, martin instead abandons him to do it alone.
it's hard to judge martin too harshly when real life substance use is a strong trigger for me. i don't want to be around while someone gets their fix either, and those don't even involve eating people's trauma! i think it's just another way martin and jon are tragically out of sync in s5, and their relationship suffers from the disconnect.
t4t jmart is an especially funny flavor to me because I think if Martin discovered his boss was trans he would think it was really cool that he has something in common on a deeply personal level with the guy he wants to be respected by and if Jon found out his coworker was trans he would think that this is just another attempt of Martin trying to Show Him Up, personally
sam's subplot: hey guys any news on the magnus institute? :D
alice's subplot: just ignore it just ignore it just ignore it just ignore it just ignore it just ignore it just ignore it just ignore it
celia's subplot:
