#Martin in the corner plotting: how the fuck do I survive until 28 I'm too young and ugly to die

[yellowocaballero]

so your web!jon is amazing but what abt web!martin :0 (or do you have any other idea of that avatar he would fit/would be interesting to write?)

No, see that wouldn’t work, that makes too much sense askdfjasfd

I definitely always play Martin close to the web. One of my central character traits for Martin is ‘manipulative’, and I view him as being very good at reading people. I think there’s also a connection between the Web and theater, and I’m constantly connecting Martin and theater. He definitely did some work for the web in another story I wrote, Feste. So it’s definitely a direction I tend to lean him, and it’s a direction I find really interesting for his character.

The only other time I’ve written Martin with a strong connection to an Entity was my roleswap AU with Slaughter!Martin. It was 100%, entirely because it was funny to make Martin Melanie. Another part of my characterization for Martin is that he’s pretty much five minutes away from going apeshit at any particular time, so Slaughter was really very fun to write for him, and it let me do an exploration into his darker sides and create a really funny Jonmartin, but I wouldn’t have written that in a serious context. Similarly, I have another comedy story where he’s an arsonist, but Martin destroying shit is just funny. 

So I guess both Web and Slaughter makes sense to me, and I could play him both those aways. However, that being said...I wouldn’t write Avatar Martin.

It just has to do with character arcs in the story. Which characters, thematically, are about being people, and which are about being monsters. I think Martin really hates being a person sometimes, and that he hates caring about other people because it never gets him anywhere, and that his self-concept relies heavily on feelings on powerlessness. He’s never really felt human. So being an Avatar just doesn’t work with his story at all - because Martin’s a monster struggling to be a man, and Jon’s a man struggling to be a monster. I could twist it into literalizing that and flipping this over, but I find it more interesting this way. 

Even more than that, and this is more personal to my writing, is also narrative roles. I write Martin as a survivor. That’s another one of my central character tenets for him - that he’s a survivor, who will do whatever it takes to survive, and he survives through manipulation. Martin is impressively good at not dying. But part of acting as that survivor part is always remaining the underdog, and existing in a permanent state of powerlessness. Both in the stories I write, and in the way Martin thinks of himself, he’s the ‘NPC’. He’s the nothing. He’s the background character. I’m most explicit about this in Feste, but if you’ve read Web!Jon then you know what I’m talking about. Narrative role-wise, Jon’s cast as monster and Martin as the human, and the rest of the story erupts from that. 

Martin is that guy who slides into the background, who you don’t really notice, who’s not really that threatening, who you think would be pretty easy to push around...until he sets your Institute on fire lol. This is pretty web of him, but it creates a better sense of narrative tension and investment if this insane shit is just something Martin can do because he’s insane. Like, this is all the most entertaining if he’s Just Some Dude. Martin thinks of himself as Just Some Dude and he will continue thinking of himself as that as he undertakes an apocalyptic murder revenge tour. 

There’s also just the narrative thing? The most interesting romantic relationship dynamics to me are ones where they’re foils. I always write Georgie & Jon as foils (my early characterization for Georgie was as simple as ‘everything Jon is not’) and I always write Martin & Jon as foils too. If I were to make Martin an Avatar, then Jon and Martin would be having the exact same character trajectories and problems, which is dull. Jon’s constant scrabble for power to keep himself safe and Martin weaponizing his lack of power to keep himself safe. Martin working hard to keep the team together and Jon being completely self-obsessed. Jon’s selfishness and Martin’s selflessness. Martin’s refusal to ever ask for help or admit he needs help and the way that Jon is always reaching out a hand. How Martin very purposefully tried to lose his humanity and how Jon was extremely forced into it. How they’re both empathetic, but Martin weaponizes that and Jon pretends that he isn’t until it’s crushing. How in S4 Jon becomes Martin and Martin becomes Jon, I like writing Monster!Jon, so a lot of the stories I have contrast them as a powerful monster out of touch with humanity vs a powerless guy who’s one of the most human guys you’ll ever meet. And as a powerful monster who is painfully human vs a powerless guy who can be as cold and monstrous as the best of them.

jalsdf did that answer your question?? I feel like I did not. I feel like I should have supplied headcanons. But I tend to think of these things as ‘how would they work in the narrative’, so that’s my lens. I never know if I’m answering these right dlkjsf

 I’m pretty aware I write Martin really, really, different than most people do. So I could only give an answer with the Martin I have, which is not most people’s Martin, lol. But...I feel like people prioritize the development of the relationship over the development of the characters...and that people struggle to write romantic relationships where both characters are severely and sincerely flawed people...and really nobody in TMA is a great person and I hate making Martin the exception to that, and I think it’s great when he’s terrible just on his own merits as a dude...and -

jasklfd thanks for the really interesting ask, I enjoyed thinking about Martin in this context! 

#my writing #I struggle with Martin which you can see in my early stuff #he was a character who was just so completely different than me I just couldn't get him #I ended up forcing myself to write a few Martin POVs so I can actually decide on what I wanted to do with his character #Martin is a useful character whose primary motivation is LOVE #but that just gets the story kicked off you know? #once LOVE sets him in motion then the rest of the character arc and the story can start churning #like legally blonde. exactly like legally blonde. #anyway I think the reason you got the answer you did is because I'm writing HR2 #and good GOD Martin in this story is fucking great to write #Sasha: that creepy little psychopath martin with bad taste in men is plotting in the corner again #Martin in the corner plotting: how the fuck do I survive until 28 I'm too young and ugly to die