One of my biggest reasons for why low-empathy autistic Martin is my favorite is how much it demolishes the whole “empathy = morality” and “low empathy = bad, feels other people don’t matter” thing. I have a lot of feelings so am gonna just dump ‘em all here in a disjointed manifesto.
Just look at it: He has a reputation for caring and for doting on people, but relies on tangible, accessible ways to show it. Bring them tea. Tell them to sleep. Listen to their problems. It’s very learned, or self-taught rather, and makes so much sense in the context of how he grew up caring for his mother. He flounders when those scripts are rejected:
Basira: You can’t just stand next to someone with a cup of tea and hope everything’s gonna be all right.
Martin: That’s not fair. You don’t even know me.
Basira: Prove it.
Martin: Oh–h-hi! Hey, hey Melanie, uh– Can I get youuuu… a… cup… of… tea?
Even when the apocalypse happened, he was using those scripts. Jon is in pain, Jon is despairing, time to make him a cup of tea! Martin’s never been in a “tea will solve everything” denial, but it’s a reliable, tangible way he uses to offer comfort and make someone feel supported. He doesn’t have a script for how to respond to “was just mentally tortured by our boss” or “blaming self for ending the world.”
We see him develop a new way to choose to care and be kind as their journey begins: treating the victims they meet as people, even if the victims can’t hear.
Also building off of the “the masking is lower priority in the apocalypse” ideas!! There’s a matter of who he’s around. For most of season 5, it’s just Jon! Jon who has so much faith in him, Jon who he knows loves and accepts him. There’s less of a need to perform and fit in, and the same goes the other way around. This is supported even more by how quickly Martin shifted back when Basira showed up: this is familiar territory again, defusing arguments and being group glue, and it quickly feels like we’re back to “the old Martin.”
I also love this for how it plays out in him and Jon being in a relationship. It’s very likely this is new territory for Martin! He demonstrates his caring by pushing Jon to share his feelings, but rarely shares his own. When he actually hears what those feelings are, they’re often hard for him to process, or he responds in ways that feel overly pragmatic or insensitive. It doesn’t come naturally to him.
There’s a jab Peter keeps returning to during season 4 as he tries to groom Martin for the Lonely: Be honest with yourself, Martin. You don’t really care, Martin. You never really cared, it’s all just habit. It’s so on-the-nose targeted towards someone where caring for others is a choice, not based on empathetic feelings. It’s so in line with how people talk about the idea of “low empathy.” But Martin threw it right back in his face, and it couldn’t be more satisfying.
you know what’s a good feeling? a real good feeling?
when sunbeams do this.
that is all.
I identify as a villain because I'm already queer-coded and don't feel like being the quirky best friend who dies for motivation.
twitch clips of various great voice lines so far
ceaseless watcher, i want that twink obliterated https://www.twitch.tv/macguffinandco/clip/DoubtfulBlushingSoymilkBigBrother?filter=clips&range=7d&sort=time
get out of my archives https://www.twitch.tv/macguffinandco/clip/CrispyClearClintmullinsPogChamp?filter=clips&range=7d&sort=time
the mingus archives https://www.twitch.tv/macguffinandco/clip/UnsightlyGrossSkunkPartyTime?filter=clips&range=7d&sort=time
big boy man, as read by dracula https://www.twitch.tv/macguffinandco/clip/SpicyEnjoyablePizzaEleGiggle?filter=clips&range=7d&sort=time
REBLOG: go to your blog and click the egg to see what hatches
as i have previously mentioned, i have spent some time on tma twitter, gathering knowledge, appreciating art and memes, sighing copiously at replies, choking at tweet threads, and all around having a horrible but no doubt addicting time. like slow car crash addicting. but anyway.
what i have learned is this! people have vastly differing but aligned opinions about one elias bitchard, such that they seem to fall on a slider scale almost. and so here i present them to you as i have encountered them in the wild (none of which reflect my own opinion, save for the first of them):
i hate his bitch ass but mostly ironically/as a joke because it's fun to hate him and he deserves it for being such an evil stupid bastard and hurting x character(s), but that's about it. it's not super deep mostly i just like dunking on him
i unironically fucking hate his guts if i met him irl i'd rip his throat out with my bare hands. what a disgusting wretch of a man, just listening to him speak gives me hives. everything about him is Gross, don't even talk to me about him i'll go feral
angrier, more rigid subset of the previous: i unironically hate elias bouchard and do not understand how any of you freaks can possibly stand this evil, abusive, digusting barely human being and then further still wanna fuck him/ship other characters with him, he's not sexy and never has been shut the fuck up
he's uninteresting and boring to me and i don't see why y'all love to talk about him so much tbh :/ subpar villain bitch at best, i barely like him as a character let alone a person. find someone more interesting to talk about, there's a whole assortment
hypothetical indifferent neutral space that i've yet to encounter in actuality, this mf is polarizing lmao even at ppl's least interested attitudes towards him
actually no i lied true neutral is not giving a shit about jonah magnus and instead stanning and pondering about the life of the original weedman bouchard, whoever he may have been. rip the poor poor man he probably didn't deserve to have his eyeballs scooped like an ice cream cone
elias is is such an interesting and complex character to me and i enjoy writing/drawing/talking about him because alongside his general reprehensible and horribly evil qualities as a person he's such a powerful and cunning character. but at his core he's really just pathetic old man who's scared to die and is searching for the power to dominate and manipulate others and extend his existence by any means necessary before his clock runs out. and i think that's both horrible and fascinating.
i ironically love elias/am stupid horny for him because i think running after this nasty literally evil man with high maintenance bitch energy is hilarious and certain art of him really just hits sometimes man, idk lol being/fucking an evil mf can be fun (also making the rest of the fandom keyboard smash at our memes is a plus)
i 100% unironically love/am horny for elias because evil bastard man is just sexy sometimes what do you want me to say? have you heard his voice? would you begrudge me my horrible taste in men? elias dickchard never did anything good for anyone but himself ever in his entire life and i love him for it, good on him for conquering the world to swerve on death, what an inspiration, i love him and wish him the best
bizarre yet interesting subset of the previous that i have only encountered one (1) time, but it impressed itself so strongly i must share: i don't care what happens to jon or martin. i mean that, honest. i'm happy for elias, marvelous worlding ending bastard he is. i hope he wins. no i am not joking. some of y'all are here only for the admiral? i'm only here for elias. god bless.
pls tag urself i'm 'mostly i just like dunking on him'
tma fans are like “i love them so much asuqjdiqkwkzj” and the character looks like this
hey there, the uk government is trying its hardest to make it practically impossible for trans people to transition, here’s a twitter thread and two carrds that further explain the situation (click on the underlined parts for links)
+ only if you are a british citizen or a uk resident please sign this petition that will help reform the Gender Recognition Act to allow trans people to self id w/out need for a medical diagnosis and to allow nonbinary identities to be legally recognized.
if you are NOT a british citizen/live in the uk DO NOT sign the petition as the goverment will use invalid signatures as an excuse to dismiss the petition and the GRA will not be discussed in parliment.
please spread this post, time for trans people in the uk is very quickly running out