#I'm making a return

[queerstudiesnatural]

greta thunberg, liam cunningham, rima hassan, and everyone else on that ship, thank you, and i hope you succeed. i really hope you succeed. you know what you are risking, and i wish for you to come back safely, having done what you set out to do.

[itsclydebitches]

Love it when the kinda half-formed observations you make about an episode finally come to the forefront.

Watching the start of "Dot and Bubble": Hmm, everyone in this episode is very... white.

Halfway through: The Doctor certainly continues to stand out, especially in that bright red sweater amongst all the pastels

Lindy freaking out about the Doctor and Ruby being in the same room together: I suppose that could be due to some cultural taboo about interacting in-person when everyone is supposed to communicate via bubble, but that doesn't track with what we've seen of her work day...

The "twist" that the chronically online, all white, super rich, entitled to the point of satire, willing to sacrifice others without hesitation, oh so eager to colonize people living in a literal bubble (TWO bubbles) are *gasp!* actually, devastatingly racist...

Yeah, that's not a twist. That's all deliberately interconnected. The episode didn't suddenly move from an argument about social media use to an argument about racism; the two historically go hand-in-hand.

[atdawn]

'But to Sam the evening deepened to darkness as he stood at the Haven; and as he looked at the grey sea he saw only a shadow on the waters that was soon lost in the West. There still he stood far into the night, hearing only the sigh and murmur of the waves on the shores of Middle-earth, and the sound of them sank deep into his heart.'

[kymeraka]

wrice angst animatic because I miss them

this took so long I'm never animating ts again 😭

[defleptic]

"You know what they say, ____ makes you crazy."

[spaceprincessleia]

Andor Cinta!Lives AU: Mon Mothma informs Vel and Cinta of Cassian and Jyn's deaths.

[mixmangosmangoverse]

If you ever needed to know the extent of how the I/P conflict is fandomized, there is a popular post going around with a Sailor moon sticker saying Free Palestine and all the comments are talking about how it's their aesthetic and they totally need to buy it

Because this doesn't matter to them, it's just the cool hip and trendy thing

[mourn-and-watch]

you know what. i actually love that trying to talk to solas was the last thing varric did and it ended in complete failure. especially if you put it in the context of his feelings about anders. varric was so bitter every time he mentioned him because he could not stop him. he didn't even realize that anders was up to something and when it was too late he started to think of him as of someone who destroyed that fragile peace in kirkwall that actually never existed.

it adds layers to the way he felt about solas. he believed that time he could stop a friend who simply lost his way. because varric tethras can talk anyone out of anything, can't he? anders was just too dodgy and self-centred and cut everyone off just like solas did but this time varric is completely prepared. surely. absolutely.

he could have never talked anders out of it even if he had known what was coming. he could have never talked solas out of it either. anders was a desperate person standing against (as varric himself put it) forces he couldn't possibly defeat. solas was a god standing against a couple of mortals and his own conscience buried under his guilt and regrets. being a good friend would not stop meredith's oppression. being a good friend would not stop someone who fears so much that all of the atrocities he committed were for nothing and would mean nothing at the end. varric died because he didn't realize it. he died and left his second in command with an immense guilt because they believed he knew solas enough to pull that off and there's something tragic about it

[screwpinecaprice]

I already really like these two, but after The Return of The Pumpkin Rabbit, I have been smitten. (⁠人⁠*⁠´⁠∀⁠｀⁠)⁠｡⁠*♡

[tagidearte]

Cropped WIP. A well trained dog and his best friend, the hare playing rabbit. Sorry for quality, this is a picture taken of my screen.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

Marvel Meow (2021), Nao Fuji | Professor X and Magneto

Bonus:

[magnapanther]

drew hallownest's crown in its prime, before any stray wyrms decided to move in and create some random kingdom :3

surely the moths who built this fine statue would never turn their backs upon the being it represents, causing it to be forgotten and grow spiteful, seeding death and sickness in the interest of revenge!!

...

ANYWAYS, i know it's not super complex, but i'm pretty happy with it. been trying to figure out how to draw rock/stone and clouds in a sketchier/looser style, so here's my attempt at that, if anyone has some tips/tricks for that it'd be super greatly appreciated!! :3

also felt like i'd been drawing a lot of super gloomy dark environments and was kinda stuck in a rut/art blocked, so i wanted to step outside my comfort zone :)

seriously though imagine some beautiful sunny day with multicoloured clouds and sunbeams shining down through the crystal peaks, refracting off crystals and stuff.... i'd love to see that in-game somehow dude

[betterbooksandthings]

Best Fantasy Anime (with mostly female leads)

Listen, I love fantasy anime. They are fun and I love a fight scene as much as the next girl. I am relatively uninterested in male leads mostly because of the *cough, cough* excessive fan service. So, without further adu, if you are interested in some fantasy with women at the helm here's what I got.

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

Yona of the Dawn

Inuyasha

Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina

Villainess Level 99: I May Be the Hidden Boss But I'm Not the Demon Lord

7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy!

Fluffy Paradise

Ascendance of a Bookworm

I Shall Survive Using Potions!

The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent

Tearmoon Empire

My Daughter Left the Nest and Returned an S-Rank Adventurer

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!

Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts

Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World for my Retirement

Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear

I'm the Villainess, So I'm Taming the Final Boss

Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle

Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid

Reincarnated as a Sword

Dahlia in Bloom: Crafting a Fresh Start with Magical Tools

Kakuriyo -Bed & Breakfast for Spirits-

The Vexations of a Shut-In Vampire Princess

Didn't I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?!

Management of Novice Alchemist

I'll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History

Nina the Starry Bride

Snow White with the Red Hair

ZENSHU

These ones I am keeping an eye on but signs point to a favorable outcome.

The Do-Over Damsel Conquers the Dragon Emperor

Promise of Wizard

The Too-Perfect Saint: Tossed Aside by My Fiancé and Sold to Another Kingdom

The Gorilla God's Go-To Girl

[dorkshadows]

The Writeup

Thanks for the interest! As promised, I've come out of retirement for one (1) day to do this writeup about the intense things going on in the Nezha 2 fandom.

Once more, this is NOT about the people who happened to watch the movie, the people who are just interested in box office stats, the people who really enjoyed the movie, or the people who just really admire Nezha. This will be about the fandom fandom, the truly invested, the elaborate fanons behind certain ships that will make you go "wait what?", the rabid Ao Guang discourse that will also make you go "wait what?," the brainrot (affectionate) in its purest unfiltered form. This is a post about brainrot for those also suffering from brainrot.

This is a collection of patterns mainly from lofter, but also from douyin, weibo, bilibili, and xhs (I'm grouping everyone together because most artists/authors repost to multiple sites or have their content shared on multiple sites, so everyone ends up looking at the same things if they follow the relevant tags on each site). I didn't filter out or blacklist a single tag. I stared directly into the sun to collect this information!

Disclaimer: I genuinely have no idea how to warn for some of the things mentioned here, so just a blanket note of caution- if you click "read more," you are prepared to read about anything and everything. If you are OK with all this, then- let's go! 命由我不由天!

The movie has been out in China in for roughly 3 weeks. In those 3 weeks, all of this has happened in the deepest layers of fandom.

General patterns:

I can't speak for other site stats, but at least on Lofter, Nezha/Ao Bing as a ship is #1 and #2 trending (as Oubing and Bingzha respectively) out of all fandoms and topics on Lofter. But curiously, Ao Guang (#8 trending) and Shen Gongbao (#9 trending) are more popular as individual characters than Nezha and Ao Bing. The latter is noteworthy because Shen Gong Gong's tag was pretty barren circa 2019.

Some Oubing fans have decided that they don't have enough oubing content so they've started shipping Oubing.... from the 1979 movie. This is also in the top 10 trending. Their inspiration comes from this advert.

Ao Guang vocally disapproves of his son dating Nezha, but he can't do anything about it. The real victim here!

Any pairing you can think of exists. Any pairing.

Character/Reader fics exist for everyone in the main cast except Wuliang Shenweng and Taiyi Zhenren

There's a vibrant self-shipping community again for everyone except Wuliang and Taiyi

Lots of M-preg

CEO Ao Guang is common in modern AUs

Nezha is usually in his powered up form in Oubing/Bingzha content, but in his gremlin form in content focused on anyone else

Lots of "The characters themselves react to watching the movie!" type of stories

Shiji Niang Niang has been shipped with both Taiyi Zhenren and Shen Gongbao. The latter has spawned a meme. There's a comic I won't repost because I don't know who the original artist is, but it's very powerful. It goes like this:

SGB: "Prejudice is like a mountain in people's hearts-" SNN: "So I exist in everyone's hearts? That's beautiful <3"

"Lady Yin LIVES!" AUs aplenty

Wuliang's nickname is "Evil Peach"

Lots and lots and Lots of Shen Gongbao whump

Ao Guang has been separately interpreted as a daddy dom, a malewife, an old guy TM, a himbo, and a baby girl AND as all of those things all at once

Ao Run and Ao Bing are the only dragons considered to be smart

Shen Gongbao tends to have very low self-worth. This comes from a 2019 Jiaozi interview where he directly says our leopard lacks confidence

Any AU you can think of: modern AUs, mafia AUs, republican era AUs, actor AUs, musician AUs, wuxia AUs, this one AU where the Ao family are American senators for no reason, omegaverse, and so on

Lots of Journey to the West (a lot of Black Myth specific ones especially) and FSYY crossovers

There's a meme about the real Lu Tong using his antlers to attack people in their dreams if they dare make sexual content of him because someone who made "bottom" Lu Tong content claimed they were attacked by him in a dream. Others took this to mean that he only attacks if you make him a bottom. People who interpret him as a "top" claim that they won the lottery and their lives are going great.

Ao Guang and Shen Gongbao are usually on a first name basis. Ao Guang calls Shen Gonbao 公豹兄 (Gongbao Xiong, "Brother Gongbao") and Shen Gongbao calls him "Ao Guang" directly. This is sort-of canon because this is how they address each other in 敖丙传 "The Tale of Ao Bing/Aobing Zhuan". for those who ship it, their ship name is 龙王豹 (longwangbao/ dragon king leopard) *Keep Aobing Zhuan in mind. This will be important towards the wildest part of this writeup.

Now for the elaborate fanon lore behind two specific ships that seemingly came out of nowhere. Everyone knows about oubing, but what about the other popular ships out there? They're absolutely wild, but- HEAR THEM OUT.

DiLong:

This one has its origins from the first movie. 地笼 AKA "Prison Cage/Emperor Dragon." It's a ship based on Tiandi (Emperor of Heaven) x Ao Guang. The Di in "emperor" is pronounced the same as ground "di," which is also the first character that makes up the word "prison." And "long" (dragon) is pronounced the same way as cage (also "long"), hence the ship name.

Some time after Ne Zha (2019) came out, someone pulled out one of Ao Guang's lines and ran with it. It's a quote where he essentially says that even though the dragon clan was loyal to heaven and its emperor, the heavens betrayed and imprisoned them in the sea anyway. This section of fans took this to mean that Tiandi charmed Ao Guang on false pretenses, took advantage of Ao Guang's love for him, and then left him to rot in the eastern sea... after impregnating him with 1-3 kids. And this changed Ao Guang from an innocent beauty into a resentful dragon desperate for vengeance.

Things of note about dilong:

Tiandi 天帝 is NOT the Jade Emperor (Yu Di). Their mythos overlap, but the Emperor of Heaven is considered the supreme ruler of Everything in the universe while the Jade Emperor rules over the three realms. So Tiandi ranks higher than the Jade Emperor. (But he's also a more obscure figure in popular worship if we get technical)

At the time, Ao Guang didn't actually have a name in 2019 canon. So the fans referred to him as 敖广 (that's what the eastern dragon king has always been called, but Nezha 2 reimagines him with a different name that's pronounced similarly: 敖光).

Tiandi's given name, or rather, the name that the fans gave him, is Hao Tian 昊天, which is the actual name of one of the mythological Tiandi's many variations

Tiandi does not appear in either Nezha movie. His entire character (appearance, personality, etc.) is purely built on headcanons. He is usually written as a playboy, a heartless manipulative bastard, a deadbeat dad, an ungrateful power greedy monster, and so on. But he is always written and drawn as #Hot.

Ao Guang gave birth to Ao Bing in the Dilong universe.

As you can tell, this is a very angsty ship that usually ends in anger and suffering, but there are plenty of fix-its and happy ending versions out there too, mostly about Tiandi feeling bad for being such a shitty bastard in the past and trying to win Ao Guang back

Regardless of how you feel about Dilong after reading all this, if you are in any way fond of Ao Guang's design in Nezha 2, you owe your life and soul to Dilong shippers because Jiaozi's original idea for Ao Guang was making him a bearded geezer. The Nezha team saw how popular the humansona for Ao Guang was (from dilong fanart) and they incorporated it into canon.

#Dilong had a resurgence in popularity thanks to Nezha 2 (it's the no.6 trending topic on weibo as of right now). But you'll notice that pre-2025 Dilong may feel ooc now because Ao Guang is, for lack of better word, interpreted more as a softspoken twink than the beautiful himbo he is now.

*Keep Dilong in mind as well. It is the source of much insanity below.

LuBao:

Next, in a similar vein to Dilong, another wild ship has risen over the horizon! In terms of quantity, dilong is more popular, but in terms of engagement, this is doing bigger numbers nowadays. I'm talking likes in the ten-thousands range. That ship is.... Lu Tong x Shen Gongbao. AKA 鹿豹 (LuBao, DeerLeopard)

You might be thinking "HUH!? Why!?" My answer for you is that it's all Taiyi's fault. Both inside and outside the movies, Taiyi consistently screws Shen Gongbao over. Life imitates art! This section is a little longer than the dilong section because there is a Lot going on here. I'll admit that one of the most profoundly beautiful and well-written stories I have ever read is a lubao fic on lofter, I understand now

Just as the fans did for dilong once upon a time, this section of fans pulled a blink-and-you-miss-it quote from Nezha 2, where Taiyi tells Nezha that the previous captain of the demon hunting team was Shen Gongbao (after they meet the current captain, Lu Tong).

From there, the lore just got deeper. When Lu Tong greets Taiyi, he calls him 师伯 (Shi Bo, senior martial uncle). But you only call a male relative 伯 in Chinese when that person is your father's older brother. Wuliang is Taiyi's elder (martial) brother (Shi Xiong, as I'm sure you all know), so Lu Tong's address is incorrect. Taiyi knows this as well, so he corrects Lu Tong and says "It should be 师叔" (Shi Shu, younger martial uncle) EDIT: Taiyi doesn't directly say "It shout be shishu" to Lu Tong (that was an incorrect memory on my part). More accurately, Taiyi refers to himself as "Shi Shu" when talking to Lu Tong. Lu Tong continues calling him Shi Bo anyway. And more tellingly, Lu Tong doesn't refer to Taiyi as Shi Bo when Wuliang is around; he exclusively does it when Wuliang isn't there. The fans took it to mean one of two things:

Lu Tong did it on purpose because he only acknowledges one (1) person as his Shi Shu and that's Shen Gongbao

Lu Tong is officially Wuliang's disciple, but he believes himself to truly be Shen Gongbao's disciple and since Taiyi is Shen Gongbao's elder martial brother, he'll call him Shi Bo

Then it got even more elaborate. The fans surmised that since the celestials are so condescending towards demons, Lu Tong and He Tong were ostracized and bullied when they first arrived at Yuxu Gong. And the only person who was nicer to them/protected them/stuck up for them was Shen Gongbao since they're the only demons there. This is why you'll sometimes see fanart of the three of them together in the "Yuxu Gong days."

When Shen Gongbao immediately realized Shen Xiaobao's wound came from Lu Tong's arrow, the fans decided this meant that he was familiar enough with Lu Tong to know his fighting style. When paired with the above headcanon, this directly turns into "Shen Gongbao himself taught Lu Tong archery."

Whenever Ao Bing possessed Nezha, fans noticed that there was always a closeup of Lu Tong's reaction. They decided this meant that Lu Tong recognized Ao Bing through recognizing his fighting style, taught to him by Shen Gongbao.

The fans also think Lu Tong did not have to go off that hard on Shen Xiaobao and Shen Zhengdao. There's following your boss's orders and there's following those orders in the most hyperviolent over the top way possible. Their conclusion is that Lu Tong knew that was Shen Gongbao's family and did it on purpose. Because when Shen Gongbao left Yuxu Gong without telling him, Lu Tong took that personally. And when he took Ao Bing on as a disciple, Lu Tong took that more Personally. So Lu Tong has decided to do his best to kill everyone Shen Gongbao ever cared about until he has nobody left but Lu Tong. Audiences complained that Lu Tong lacked a personality in the movie- the fandom has assigned him a personality and that personality is "sadistic freak obsessed with his Shi Shu."

Things of note about LuBao:

dilong was requited at some point in time, but lubao is an aggressively one-sided ship where Shen Gongbao only requits 1% of the time either because it's a complete AU, none of the movie's events happened, or he has amnesia (inflicted on him by Lu Tong)

A common trope revolves around Lu Tong hoping and hoping for Shen Gongbao to take him on as a disciple, which never happens, planting the first seeds of disappointment and HATE

Lu Tong really fucking hates Ao Bing, whom he considers to be the antagonist of his life because Ao Bing STOLE all of Shen Gongbao's love that rightfully should have been Lu Tong's. He also really hates Ao Guang too, again for stealing HIS shishu. actually, he hates Taiyi sometimes too. He hates anyone Shen Gongbao ever talked to.

He Tong is the only person who knows Lu Tong is this way.

Sometimes Lu Tong meets Shen Gongbao as a primitive deer, a fully adult celestial-in-training, or a literal "deer boy." During his time as captain, Shen Gongbao usually takes Lu Tong under his wing at some point and/or is the person who spares Lu Tong from being slaughtered by the rest of the team or convinces the others not to kill him. OR, even wilder, Shen Gongbao interacts with Lu Tong for 5 minutes 200 years ago and that's enough to cause Lu Tong to go on this spiral. Whichever the case, Lu Tong imprints on Shen Gongbao.

90% of LuBao content includes Lu Tong taking his revenge on Shen Gongbao after Wuliang imprisons him. This includes all manner of graphic torture.

Lu Tong wants Shen Gongbao to hate him because he believes Shen Gongbao left him in the past due to indifference towards him. "Hate lasts longer than love."

Shen Gongbao: *exists* Lu Tong: I'll kill your family. I'll kill your disciple. I'll kill your disciple's father and your disciple's best friend. And Taiyi Zhenren too. I'll kill everyone who ever interacted with you. Then I'll break you and break you some more until you're nothing but bones and dust. I hate that you made me love you and that you left me. What do the dragons have that I lack? Are my antlers lesser than their horns? We both have blood on our hands and yet you think yourself nobler than I. You are inherently kinder than me and I hate that the most about you. My dearest revenge is dragging you down to my level, to make you hate me as much as I hate you. If I can't have your love, I will have your hate and your pain and your tears- Ao Bing & Ao Guang: 有病!??????? WTF.

恨明月高悬独不照我 is a phrase now permanently associated with this ship. It translates to "I hate that the moon in the sky shines for all but me." Lu Tong hates that shishu shares affection with everyone except him.

This is such a prevalent characterization of Lu Tong at this point that "obsessed with Shen Gongbao" is now his defining trait even in content where neither he or Shen Gongbao are main characters

If its an Ao Guang/Shen Gongbao fic, Lu Tong sometimes shows up as SGB's abusive ex, abusive stalker, or a guy that Ao Guang finds extremely creepy and annoying

If you're still here, this next and final section puts everything else to shame!

The Ao Guang Discourse

There is a lot of drama surrounding Ao Guang now, not because of anything he did as a character, but because of who's he's shipped with. But there's actually only one side of the fandom instigating all the arguments.

Now, remember Aobing Zhuan? That's a spinoff comic focused on Aobing's childhood that came out circa 2021(?). It goes into depth about his early days with Shen Gongbao, his brothers, and even his mother, 应龙, Yinglong. (Yinglong is a real mythological creature, a powerful dragon with a place in old mythos and folklore as well, but that's not entirely relevant here lol). Yinglong is older than Ao Guang, is beautiful, strong, etc. She dies in the spinoff.

A significant number of fangirls latched onto Ao Guang (as presented in Aobing Zhuan), and projected onto Yinglong, the mother of his children. After Nezha 2 released, Ao Guang understandably gained even more fangirls. Most of them became GuangYing shippers.

Now, it's a golden rule in CN fandoms to tag your content so others can avoid. GuangYing shippers do not care about this. They go onto any and all m/m content with Ao Guang to insult the authors and argue that their disgusting ways are disrespectful to canon, disrespectful to Ao Guang, and disrespectful to women everywhere. It doesn't matter that Yinglong is not in the movies and also dead--Ao Guang is not allowed to move on from her ever, and also he is STRAIGHT. Is there not enough gay content out there?? Why can't the heterosexuals have this one man to themselves?? The injustice!

Edit to add: m/f is also unsafe from the wrath of guangyin shippers. They also attack Ao Guang self-shippers for daring to be sluts coming in between him and his true love, Yinglong.

They especially hate dilong and have been harassing all dilong content for the past month. Dilong is their main target, but it's not their only target- you can also find them under Ao Guang/Shen Gongbao content claiming that "they're just besties" and "Ao Guang just sees Shen Gongbao as a pet" asdfasdf

Dilong shippers retort by saying all Guangying shippers do is attack and harass others instead of making their own content, which is why their content is so lacking and pitful. They also called into question the canonicity of Aobing Zhuan. Jiaozi supervised it, but he's not the actual author. They started bashing Aobing Zhuan as focusing too little on Aobing, making Aobing look bad to make his brothers look good, accusing the author of being a Xiao Zhan stan in the wake of the ao3 ban, creating events that directly contradicted with canon, crediting things that Ao Guang or Shen Gongbao did for Aobing as things that Yinglong did, the official Nezha team is embarrassed of the direction Aobing Zhuan went in and doesn't acknowledge it anymore, Yinglong is the author's self insert, etc. And back and forth-

And then, 匪我思存 (Fei Wo Si Cun), acclaimed web novelist, author of multiple novels, including 东宫 (Goodbye My Princess 2019) and 9 more that were turned into TV shows.... published a Dilong fanfic on main (weibo). It referred to Ao Guang as 敖广 and involved M-preg, of him giving birth to Ao Bing, who is also Tiandi's child here. Yinglong and Tiandi's wife are both in the story too- they are a lesbian couple who double as beards for their husbands.

The Ao Guang fangirls, I mean, Guangying shippers LOST IT. They came at Fei Wo Si Cun with full throttle rage. Countless socmed posts about what a horrible disgusting disgraceful thing this author did! How dare she use her wide platform to do this instead of putting it somewhere where nobody can see!? Some have even accused this one fic of destroying Nezha 2's image on the global stage. This one story about this one ship has DESTROYED the reputation of ALL OF CHINA. This is TREASON. Now when normies see Ao Guang and Ao Bing, all they will think about is M-preg.

Not only that, Fei Wo Si Cun had the audacity to do something as misogynistic as turning Yinglong into a lesbian beard! It is a SIN to break up a "canon" pairing and a sin to change the character's sexualities into anything except heterosexuality!

Correction: the lesbian couple part is hearsay and probably came from FWSC saying (that in her fic’s setting) Yinglong and Tiandi’s wife married their husbands because they can’t be with the people they love for “reasons”

The Yinglong crowd is still going at it as I write this. FWSC has not deleted or apologized for this fic. China's reputation has, last I checked, not been DESTROYED by this one story about an animated dragon man from a kid's movie, and dilong shippers are still suffering.

And that's a wrap for now. I may or may not update this if something even wilder happens. I want to say no, this is the end of the ride, but we are only 1 month in. There's plenty of time for more to crop up!

UPDATE: This post is already out of date LMAO! For those interested in updates on everything mentioned above, here's the follow-up: Writeup Part 2.

BONUS UPDATE: Part 3

[awallflowerdraws]

魔丸和灵珠 ｜demon orb and spirit pearl

[sigrid-of-solstheim]

Annoying nit-pick I have with some of the Oblivion fandom. Not infrequently do I see posts about AUs where Martin lives and relights the dragonfires only to shirk and/or despise the role of emperor or worse yet, dismantle the monarchy rule and establish something like a democracy. You can personally imagine whatever you want for your own entertainment or even the entertainment of others via fanfiction, but you have to realize none of that is actually in character for the Martin Septim the game gives us.

At first and for the majority of the game, Martin prefers to be called just Martin and stops you and the Blades from calling him Your Majesty saying either "I'm just a man" or "who am I but the bastard soon of a dead emperor?" I think people tend to misinterpret this as him wanting to reject the position or treating it flippantly when really he's just being humble. He fully understands the weight and responsibility of becoming emperor and he is willing to accept it when it's time, but for the moment he wants to hold onto being simply Brother Martin for as long as he can.

This all changes during the defense of Bruma when he puts on the armour of Tiber Septim and rallies the soldiers of Cyrodiil against the forces of Oblivion, his name in-game changes from just Martin to Martin Septim. Even without the Amulet of Kings, he's ready to become emperor and lead the people. and later when you do return with the Amulet from Paradise, he's waiting for you, dressed for the role. He doesn't stop you from calling him Your Majesty anymore, he's completely resigned to his fate. He even says it himself:

"After all, this is my destiny. No man can deny his destiny."

From this moment on he's made his peace and is committed to being emperor. He sees this as necessary and knows he's the only one that can do it. He doesn't complain, he's prepared to give his life to serve the people of Tamriel, and he does.

People often get carried away inserting real-life politics and modern sensibilities into fantasy, but this is a roughly medieval fantasy universe, monarchy is the most common form of government across all of Tamriel for most of its history, and Martin is an Imperial man, there is no way in Oblivion the thought of dismantling the monarchy and trying to establish something so foreign in concept as a democracy or republic would even cross his mind. It just wouldn't happen.

If you want further evidence just look at the genres and movies that likely influenced the games writing; Oblivion came out in 2006, Return of The King, a landmark film of legendary proportions and worldwide acclaim, had just released 3 years earlier. There's a reason Sean Bean was cast as Martin's voice actor. Martin is a very Lord of The Rings themed, Aragorn-esque character; a long lost heir returning to rightful kingship. Like Aragorn, he's extremely humble and all too painfully aware of the enormous responsibility of becoming a king/emperor and is at first hesitant towards taking up the role - not because he wants to selfishly go live his own life and do his own thing, but rather because he doesn't feel personally worthy of taking on such a tremendous position. These are the ideal traits of a good and just monarch, someone who is humble and puts the needs of the people before their own wants and ambitions. And further like Aragorn, in the end he finally embraces his fate completely with all the grace and dedication of a true king, even leading an army into a seemingly hopeless battle for the freedom of their respective kingdoms.

This is just my opinion, but I do think the game writing is pretty clear about Martin's motivations and hesitations regarding becoming emperor.