Glencola Reef Application

[lonelynotforsaken]

OOC INFO
Name/Handle: Terri
Pronouns: she/her
Contact: switalia
Reserve?: No

IC INFO
Name: Martin Blackwood
Journal: lonelynotforsaken
Canon: The Magnus Archives
Age: 30
Species: Human

Canon Point: Episode 200
Condition: Healthy, covered in his boyfriend's blood

History: Wiki Link

cw: TMA is a horror canon and involves psychological manipulation, mind-control, gaslighting, general reality warping, body horror, extreme violence, police brutality, a variety of phobias (e.g., claustrophobia, scopophobia, arachnophobia, tryptophobia), major character death, themes of supernatural addiction and depression, existential dread, and cosmic horror/eldritch abominations. Martin's personal history includes extreme isolation, emotional abuse, abandonment, manipulation, flesh-eating insects, PTSD, mundane and supernatural depression, and suicidal ideations.

Martin Blackwood was once a perfectly ordinary (if sad and lonely) man. His father left him with his sick mother when he was a young child, and Martin has spent most of his life since then as her caretaker. Trying to make ends meet and pay for her care, Martin struggled in school and dropped out of university, opting to work whatever jobs he could find. He wasn't particularly scrupulous about his resume and lied to obtain jobs he wasn't qualified for. Thanks to his lack of skills, he tended to get shoveled out the door again pretty quickly. He finally found a stable job as a librarian at the Magnus Institute, one of the 'premiere research organizations for the paranormal and esoteric in London,' and thought he was doing pretty okay at it.

He spent a few years as a librarian before being transferred to the Archives. There, he became an assistant to Head Archivist Jonathan Sims. Martin went on several research missions, visiting homes and tracking down information to try to help and impress Jon, who was a demanding and unforgiving taskmaster who seemed to hate Martin, in particular, for his incompetence. Unfortunately, one of these missions led Martin to a true supernatural terror: Jane Prentiss. Jane was the avatar of a fear entity called the Corruption. As the gang would discover, 14 eldritch fear entities were responsible for all supernatural occurrences in their world. These were the source of the monsters and strange phenomenon, and they were here to feed on the terror of all living things on Earth. Martin spent weeks holed up in his own home, besieged by Jane and her army of parasitic worms who dearly wanted to turn Martin into another one of their flesh hive hosts. He managed to survive the incident and was more than a little touched when Jon, worried for Martin's safety, offered to let Martin stay in the Archives, instead of returning to his apartment. Martin was in a particularly vulnerable moment as Jane had stolen his phone and lied to his coworkers, pretending Martin was just out sick while he was under siege. No one had come for Martin or even seemed to care that he was gone while he was missing. His crush on Jonathan Sims began to grow from there as he saw a caring and scared man beneath Jon's harsh and angry exterior.

Over the course of the next few years, Martin found himself thrown into one horrific situation after another. Jane Prentiss' attack on the Institute, encounters with a reality-warping creature of madness (the Distortion), a murder in the Archives and Jon being framed for it, a near-death experience with a monster pretending to be one of his coworkers (the Not-Sasha and more broadly the Not-Them), an attempted apocalypse ritual to thwart (the Unknowing), and learning that his boss, Elias Bouchard, was actually an avatar for the Eye and a centuries-old monster with supernatural abilities designed to control and emotionally shatter his employees. Martin weathered all of these trials, slowly growing a backbone and proving himself to be a clever strategist and competent ally to the others in the Archives. His maneuvering resulted in Elias being arrested and incarcerated for many months, but the victory turned out to be a Pyrrhic one. Another avatar, this one for the Lonely, took over the Institute, Tim (one of his oldest coworkers) was dead, Jon was in a coma, Daisy (another ally) was missing and presumed dead, and Melanie (a newer colleague) was suffering the effects of a ghost bullet in her leg, slowly driving her to violent madness.

In the middle of all of this, Martin's mother died, and he was left completely unmoored. He had no friends outside of work, his only true work friends (Tim and Sasha) were dead, his other colleagues (Basira and Melanie) were emotionally absent and traumatized, and his crush (Jon) was trapped in an impossible coma that he might never wake from. Add on top of that, Martin soon found himself tangling with Peter Lukas, the new head of the Institute.

Peter took advantage of Martin's emotional state to coax him into becoming his assistant and walking the path of the Lonely. Peter pitched it as needing Martin's help to save the world from a new and growing threat: the emergence of a 15th fear entity (the Extinction). While Martin didn't actually believe him, he didn't feel like he could do much else and it was a chance to bargain for keeping people in the Archives safe from Peter's direct influence. He accepted the offer and began isolating himself, severing what few remaining social and emotional ties he had. He told himself it was a way to gain information on what Peter really wanted and to protect people in the Institute from being disappeared by the monster, but ultimately, Martin was depressed and heavily suicidal. He also took it because it seemed like it "might also just be a good way to get [him]self killed."

Martin became a colder man working under Peter. Aloof and emotionally distant, he tried to keep everyone at arm's length, even Jon, when he awoke from his coma. He was desperate to protect the Archivist from Peter and his machinations, as well as try to get what information he could to assist in stopping whatever Peter's real plans were. This culminated in Martin discovering his efforts and potential to become an avatar for the Lonely were only ever a bet between Peter and Elias. Peter thought he could turn Martin and have the man help him unseat Elias fully from the Institute. Martin refused to be a party to the bet and rejected the Lonely at the last moment, though, confounding Peter who'd thought he had Martin fully in his clutches.

With this revelation, Martin found himself pitched into the Forsaken, a pocket realm of empty loneliness where his emotions and everything else were suppressed. He became a shade of himself, focused inward on his misery and the idea that no one had ever or would ever love him, so what was even the point of trying? Jonathan Sims wasn't having that, though. He rescued Martin from the Lonely, killed Peter, and led them both out of that terrible place, a feat that no one else had ever managed. Martin and Jon escaped the Institute, running away to an idyllic holiday in the Scottish countryside for a few weeks.

And then Jon caused the apocalypse. More accurately, Elias Bouchard puppeted Jon into completing an apocalypse ritual that brought all of the fear entities into the show's reality with the Eye as the dominant aspect of the fears, ruling over all of the others. The world became an apocalyptic hellscape, arranged into fear domains with the entirety of the world population sorted neatly into personal torture boxes to be tormented in perpetuity.

Martin spent the apocalypse walking through these different, horrific domains with his new boyfriend, the Eye's chosen one, Jon Sims. Untouched, but ever watching. He alternately encouraged Jon to exact revenge on other avatars who had hurt people they knew or Jon himself, and for Jon to retain his vestiges of humanity. The ultimate goal in Martin's mind was always to defeat Elias and turn back the apocalypse. He pressed himself doggedly onward toward that, sometimes dragging Jon reluctantly in his wake when he had to. Martin's response to the trauma around them and the experiences with the Lonely left him a harder man than he once was.

Eventually, Martin found himself briefly separated from Jon, working with an avatar of the Web to learn more about what was going on and try to find a way to end the apocalypse. She provided a solution, but it wasn't one anyone wanted: unleash the entities onto another reality. Pass the virus along to some other innocent universe and purge this one of their influence. Agonizing over the moral choice, Martin soon found himself having to enact a part of the plan he'd never thought he'd be a part of. Jon murdered Elias, the center of the Eye's power and took that force into himself before the others could get their plan into motion. With Jon's encouragement, Martin was forced to stab the man he loved, releasing the entities and sending them away from the world. It's at the point of stabbing Jon and everything blinking out to white that I'll be pulling Martin. Canon provides no definitive answer about where the boys ended up after that... so it's going to be here for one of them.

Personality:

Pros:
Nice - Martin is ultimately a polite, nervous, and fairly kind man. He remembers birthdays, he earnestly listens to people regardless of whether he's actually interested in what they're saying, he helps others without needing something for himself, and he dedicates his life to taking care of others, even the ones who hate him. His first encounter with Jon Sims involved him looking for a stray dog he'd accidentally let into the Archive when he'd stopped to pet it and make sure it was okay. He makes every effort to visit and assist his ailing mother in spite of her not loving him and being emotionally and verbally abusive toward him. Even during the apocalypse, he can't help but want to help some of the people suffering in the fear domains they pass through, offering apologies to some of them when they can't... even after Jon tells him the people can't hear him and aren't aware of his presence. While this sometimes has him acting like a bit of a doormat for His People, Martin has developed enough of a spine that he'll stand up to people he thinks are being unfair if he doesn't really know them. He can also be cutting, but he tends to go for a firm disapproval.

Loyal - Martin does not make real friends easily. He's very good at acquaintances, but he doesn't trust well enough for people to actually get close to him. For those who do, he is a fiercely loyal person. Martin throws himself on the sword, suffering Elias Bouchard's wrath and mental torture to help his friends and coworkers enact their plan for the Unknowing and getting Elias arrested. He throws himself on the sword, again, when Peter Lukas takes over, offering himself up to work with the man with a bargain that Peter won't hurt others in the Archive and limit hurting people in the Institute as a whole.

Practical - Martin is a practical man and a survivor who has the ability to adapt himself to even the harshest and most alien situations. He weathered a lifetime of emotional and verbal abuse from his mother by just letting her hate him and saying nothing, kept himself alive and whole under siege from Jane Prentiss and her worms by rationing his food stores and keeping constant vigilance, survived Peter Lukas' attempts to turn him to the Lonely by pretending to go along with what Peter wanted, and dragged Jonathan Sims through the apocalypse with all of the essentials in his backpack. He'd been ready to leave their cottage weeks before Jon had been, and made contingency plans for as many things as he could think of.

Romantic - Martin is an absolute romantic, both in the sense of falling in love and in his more general view of the world. He is a (mediocre) poet who writes out his feelings to help himself cope. In the middle of a murder investigation about Jon Sims, he gets happily flustered when the detective interrogating him says other people say he's close to Jon. In the apocalypse, when Martin is talking to a manifestation of his own psyche, he calls himself out for imagining that they'll end the apocalypse by pressing a button that kills Elias while he makes out with Jon in the background. It's also notable that Martin stays fairly optimistic throughout the apocalypse, possibly to balance out Jon's despair. And one notable quote that sums up his view of the world when discussing the apocalypse and the end of everything is: "I think our experience of the universe has value. Even if it disappears forever."

Cons:
Manipulative - How could such a nice boy be a manipulator? That's it. That's the ploy. While Martin is kind, he's learned to weaponize his politeness to get what he wants. He can act more incompetent than he is at times to guide people toward underestimating and dismissing him as any kind of threat or major problem. He's willing to lie and cheat his way to protect and care for the people he cares about most. He got his job at the Institute with a completely made up resume so he could afford to pay for his mother's care. He broke down Jon's psychology with cold precision when he needed to push the man away in order to keep up the ruse that he was fully aligned with Peter Lukas. He forced Jon's hand in finding another solution to the apocalypse when he seemed to be stalling in a tailspin by pretending he was kidnapped by another avatar. Martin loves fiercely, and he will do what he thinks is best for you if you're his most important person... whether you think it's best or not.

Jealous - Growing up unloved and horribly lonely, Martin guards what ties he develops with a fierce and (sometimes) unreasonable jealousy. Because he fancied Jonathan Sims, he treated one of his coworkers with a little more polite aloofness than others when he thought she was in a relationship with Jon. Similarly, when Jon asked a coworker other than Martin for help in something secret, he became irritated and upset. While normally letting things roll off his back, Martin can become extremely sensitive about specific people he considers 'his.' Once they're dating during the apocalypse, Martin admits that he's horribly jealous that Jon was broken out of his coma by someone else instead of Martin, who had dutifully tended to his bedside for months. He even went so far as to request that Jon murder the man (another avatar), even though he hadn't done anything specifically bad to Jon, Martin, or their friends and allies.

Self-Loathing - Growing up with a mother who told him he was a terrible person and then seeing (via Elias) just how much she hated him has done a number on Martin's personal self-esteem. He considers himself less than the people around him, particularly the ones he loves. It's noted in the series that Martin isn't particularly well-liked or regarded by his coworkers at the Institute, in spite of his politeness and earnest attempts at kindness. They see him as bad at his job and not much else. As a result, Martin sees his main value in being the one to take the hit/fall/damage from something. He dropped out of school and doesn't think he's particularly smart, even if he can be clever sometimes, and he's fairly willing to take abuse about his abilities from people without comment just because... they're probably right a lot of the time. He's lied to get himself hired, so he IS worse at his job. He's gotten better about this as the series has gone on, but this is still a core part of who he is. Most of the important people in his life didn't see him as anyone of value and that's rubbed off in how he views himself.

Inventory:
- Clothes (includes belt)
- Glasses
- Cassette Tape Recorder (probably filled with spiders)
- Ornate, Antique Dagger (Western European, covered in blood from two different people!)

Powers/Abilities: None! Martin is arriving at a point where he's a pretty bog-standard human, having lost his Lonely-based powers.

TDM Sample: LINK