#especially considering most of us were pretending we were never in the fandom

[smartie-chan]

Long rambling incoming in 3,2,1...

I know that I'm not really any kind of big celebrity in the Stobotnik world. The only thing I've got going for myself is the fact that I've been there since the very beginning, with my one 'I'm so proud of this community' Meme getting a like or two every full moon or so. It's also been a hot second since I've written a Stobotnik Fic, and yet, I've never really left the fandom. Far from it.

So boooooy, when that trailer dropped, let's just say, I've been going wild! That being said, I have calmed down a tiny bit and woud like to share my two cents with you all.

Especially since, considering how gay the trailer was, I've noticed people kind of leaning into either of two camps.

Team 1: They might actually make it canon y'all. This is not a drill!!!!

or

Team 2: This is the most intense queerbaiting I've ever seen, but fuck it, take my money!

Now, I will tell you where I'm standing at the end of things, but let's talk facts before I do, shall we?

I know Jim & Lee were having fun on set during Movie 1, but I doubt either of them expected us all to get quite this feral over these two evil man. In fact, I'm not sure what their plans were for Agent Stone in general. I'd love to believe that they saw us freaking the fuck out and decided to make Stone a big part of the sequels because of that. But then I look at the Robotnik Mushroom Planet scene and think: They gave this man an actual stone to hold onto, going so far as to carve Stone's face into said stone, just so he could pretend he wasn't alone and Stone was still with him. Clearly, Robotinik was never willing to admit that he cared, admit that there could be someone who he had allowed to get close, given that there had never been anyone before who had cared enough about HIM, so why should HE make the mistake of caring about someone else either. Cause, you know, it's easier to pretend there's noone than admit that there could be, just to realise that you were wrong actually. And yet. Despite all that he held onto Stone the stone, like his life depended on it. I love that scene because it's hella gay, but I love it even more because it's amazing writing, giving us the payoff for the forshadwed "I won't miss you when you're gone" scene from way back when. They didn't have to do that. And yet they made that choice. Included that moment for a reason. So I'd love to think that even back then, they were very willing to play with the dynamic of them going forward.

Clearly things and plans changed After Movie 1 , after we saw these two and made Stobotnik as big as it is. I'll talk about movie 2 in a hot second, but let's return to the way they promoted 2 first. Cause THAT was CLEARLY queerbaiting ... or was it... ? For you see, they knew what they were doing, they knew how to get us all excited , posting this on Valentine, letting Sonic make a heart, drawing the whole thing in a romantic light, going so far as to include bi-lighting in the trailer. On top of the latte art that was designed to get us queers to show up. I saw that art, freaked out and showed it to all of my friends. One friend, let's call her Barbara, smiled at me, like you smile at somone who still believes in the Easter Bunny and told me she hoped I knew they were playing with me. In fact, she was kind of dissapointed I allowed them to get to me so much. And I KNEW. I knew they were trying to bait me. I'm not stupid. This isn't the first time I've been queerbaited after all. And it won't be the last time, that's for sure. And yet, I didn't care because I loved that they acknowledged us. Loved that they were willing to give us something, even if it wasn't actually real and they were clearly NEVER going to include actual ship latte art of Stone & Robotnik together. Cause that would be gay. Haha. And those two totally weren't gay. Ain't I right? :)) Queer rep has gotten more common and yet, so has queerbaiting. Cause nowadays the chance that something could be actually made canon is way more likely than it was, let's say, 15 years ago. So companies love to use that, love playing into that even more. Like, do I have to remind you all what they were doing for the Deadpool & Wolverine movie marketing ??? Just saying.

As much as I love Lee and as much as we're loosing our marbels every time he as much as winks in our direction, I'll not be using any of his posts as evidence for the points I'm about to make further down. Cause, you know, at the end of the day, he's just one of us as well. Another shipper. A hella supportive shipper who may or may not have had a hand in the way he portrayed Stone, but still. Love you Lee. Thank you for having our back!

So now. Movie 2. And the godforsaken Maid Dress Scene. I hope we are all proud of ourselves. Cause that scene was our doing. I promise you, promise you!!! they didn't have that planned before the fandom happend. They saw us and were like "You can have this. As a treat :3". Personally I didn't freak out as much as the rest of you all, but I'm glad you guys had fun. It was a gift to us after all, so I guess it's fine if we enjoyed it. Jokes aside though, let's get back to what movie 2 did, even though they may or may not have realised it at the time. As in: They made Stobotnik canon. What do you mean by canon, Smartie?????, you might ask. And I'll answer, cause it's simple: I mean canon, as in canon. Yes, that's right. Stobotnik has been canon for a while... or... at least 50% of it. Let's get back to the Latte, shall we? Back then I thought they were making fun of us. Queerbaiting at it's finest. And then the movie happend and Stone confessed his love right then and there for the world to see, basically drawing fanart into Robotnik's caffe for who knows how long and Robotnik? That stupid -3000 IQ genius knew. He fucking knew!! Has always known and was either unwilling to read between the lines or mistook the affection for simple loyalty. Not-Spoiler: It's the later by the way, because we have that deleted scene. That beautiful deleted scene. But let's get back to the art for a second. Because I was basically dying in my seat. And I didn't think people were talking about it enough, cause it was the proof, not that stupid maid outfit that was simply put in as a joke that audiences were supposed to laugh at. But this. This! The whole scene were Stone was lovesick and heartbroken, drawing art of his lost non-lover, the way the life returned to his eyes the second said man returned, on top of literally all of him for the rest of the movie prooved one thing to me: Agent Stone was in love with Dr. Robotnik. It's clear he's never said so out loud, and for a good reason, but he didn't have to. It was so obvious anyone with an IQ lower than 299 could have seen. Just a shame that that one 300 IQ guy couldn't. So now, deleted scene time. Woopwoop. :P Recall how they had planned to make Stone even more in love and heart-eyed - JESUS CHRIST MY GUY - but went for an alternative scene instead? In case you aren't familiar with the scene, it's basically Stone telling Robotnik how he's followed his guide-lines, making the Stone Comic Canon, how he's made sure noone touched his babies, how he's known he'd return, how he's waited for him all this time cause he knew KNEW he'd come back and for a second there Robotnik doesn't know what to say. He looks that man in the eyes and for a split second he wonders, questions, and then... then he's scared. Scared of what that could mean. Scared that he could actually mean something to someone and he panics and decides to use violence to laugh it off, to refelect, to pretend that in that moment, he didn't actually feel something. That Stone didn't make him feel ... vulnerable. Because at that point, he cares too. He's not ready to admit it, at least not without having to joke about it. But he does. He does!! And the thought of it being mutual scares him. Probably more than anything ever has. Because if he allows this, this feeling to settle and bloom, he's got to admit that this, whatever it is, has the power to destroy and hurt him. And he can't do that. Maybe not again. Maybe not ever. Not now. Not now that he's what... 40? and has found peace with the fact that he'll die alone.

I know they were leaning into Stobotnik a lot, but they also... kind of didn't, following the natural consequences of the stuff they had set up in the prior movie, allowing Robotnik to go through an actual character arc. It's subtle, and he's still and asshole - always wil be - but that doesn't change the fact that his arc still exists and is actually very well done. Stone doesn't really have that obvious of an arc. Because it's not really much of an arc, we're just learning more about him, fleshing out his character. The only thing we know for certain is, that he adores and loves Robotnik and that he's willing to betray everyone and everything for him. Even if Robotnik never loves him back. He's accepted that, as long as he's alowed a place at his side.

And now, my fellow shippers, movie 3. Or rather, pre-movie 3. And the much discussed question: Are we getting queerbaited? Well, that depends how you define queerbaiting, doesn't it? Is it queerbaiting if it's unrequited love? Cause that's our current standpoint. Stone has found his doctor, nursed him back to health, lived with him, been by his side for months (years) and the only thing that is standing in their way now is: Robotnik's feelings. They have great build-up, put this man on a path, shown us how he's grown and now all that's left is to see, how they'll decide to finish his story. If I look at all that's happend up to this point, from a writing/writer stand-point, I'd say, that it would make sense for Robotnik to admit, that he cares. Cause that has been his arc, his journey. To admit that yes: He doesn't care about humanity, but he does care about Stone. Has for a very long while in fact. Be that platonic, or romantic. Doing literally anything else would not make sense at that point and would actually be an insult to their own work. And their writing has been pretty solid, so I'm confident we will get something. Especially since... I HAVE seen the leaks. Now, storyboards are just that. Something from early development, something that could change. Which is why I'd normally ignore them.... iiiiiiiif it weren't for that one line from the trailer. That one. fucking. line. That made me realise: Holy shit, those mad lads are doing it. They are finishing Robotnik's arc. That's when I understood why Team 1 was loosing their marbels. Because,

SPOILER!!!!! he is going to admi it. He is going to admit it to himself, and he's gonna do something so wild and crazy it scares me more than you understand. The only question is. Will he surive to tell the tale? And if he does, will he be brave enough to share that admission with Stone?

END OF SPOILER

I don't have links to the storyboard. In retrospect, I should have saved them. But what's done is done. Not that I cod delete the knowledge of what I've seen even if I tried. People seem hesitant to tell people all they have seen, cause those of us who have, and know the Sonic 2 story seem to have a good understanding of what and when that spoiler is taking place. And especially what outcome it seems to be leading into. But, if anyone asks, I am willing to share what it was I saw. If you really wanna know. If you are truly sure.

That being said. How do I feel about Stobotnik? I don't think we're getting a kiss. But I think (and hope) we're gonna get a moment. A moment of Robotnik being open, of him sharing that Stone means somethig to him. They even have the potential to include a joke here, of Stone perhaps attempting to hug Robotnik, for him to allow it for 3 seconds or so, only for him to punch Stone and say something along the lines of: "Okay, that's enough." You know, something close to the High Five moment, just THIS TIME they actually do the high five (or hug). You can have the feels and the joke. It's still Robotnik after all. It's what I'm hoping for, actually, cause I don't think Robotnik is ready for THAT admission quite yet. A hug though? That I could see.

I know we still have to fight against being exploited and played with, but that being said, I don't think love confessions have to always be that huge thing, that clashing of tongues and body parts. They can also be soft and quite. A moment of vulnerability and trust. Of openness. In fact, if Robotnik were to allow Stone a hug, it would be even more impactful than a kiss could ever be. He's hugging Gerald in the trailer, so they have shown me that they are not afraid to make this man hug.

It gives me hope. And it - and the leaks - are the reason why I'm Team 1. I think we could actually get canon Stobotnik you all. And I'm so hyped you don't understand. Let's see what Stobotnik marketing they are going to feed us over the next few months. I, for one, am looking forward to it. ^-^

Live long and prosper 🥚🖤🪨

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AMITA for lying to everyone I know about my identity’s as a queer/neurodivergent person?

I (18M) am a bisexual, transgender man who is also autistic, ADHD, and OCD. When people hear this about me, even if they know me, I feel like they build up this image of me as an awkward, “cringy” 11 year old who’s obsessed with “cringy” fandoms. And while i have a qualm with this because I know they are looking down on people who are just less masked/higher support needs, I also dislike that they do this because it’s just not who I am. Without the labels, I mostly seem like just a normal dude, if not a bit nerdy.

I also used to be extremely bullied as a kid (7-12) to the point of a suicide attempt, mostly due to homophobic, transphobic, or ablest remarks about me. Since then I’ve completely changed community’s and do not talk to anyone i knew before high school.

When authority figures (Teachers, Show Directors, Investors of the teen programs I lead) apply ablest/transphobic stereotypes or prejudices to me, they also tend to be less,,, normal? around me. Less kind compared to other kids, call me an “inspiration”, or they’ll coddle me when I’m incredibly capable. I do a lot for someone my age- and I know the connections I make now at conferences and whatnot will help me in the long run. My dad’s family is poor, and my immediate family is more comfortable but not that much. I know I’m smart, and I can weaponize that to get a better life for my family by getting good scholarships and jobs in good fields. I can’t just let people who could be very important to my goals look down on me. So i just.. don’t tell them anything about me. They might assume Im odd or “not normal”, and for the most part I let them assume whatever, but if i’m ever asked directly about anything I deny it. Especially in relation to me being transgender; I have the very privileged ability to pass without any medical intervention, and I use that to pretend to be cisgender. Living in the deep south of USAmerica, most of who I am could make my social life very uncomfortable to downright miserable.

Here’s where the problem starts happening. when my social and (what i consider to be a) “professional” life occasionally touch, I wouldn’t be able to be out everywhere socially without someone I don’t want knowing finding out. So i don’t tell any of my classmates/friends/peers about any of my identities either. I hang out with queer and straight people, never be actively homophobic/ablest, and will be very vague about the two questions i’ve ever received about any of that stuff. It’s very, very exhausting to pretend all the time, every day, especially pretending that I’m cisgender because it’s a tricky game, but I can’t really back down and I’m afraid that I might get bullied again if I was ever open about it with classmates.

A few months ago, I was dating this guy, who i’ll call Kai (17M) Kai is also a transgender man, but does not pass at all and is comfortable with it. He’ll get shit sometimes, but also has essentially no straight friends. I told him I was queer when we became good friends, and then told him I was trans after we started dating. I also told him why I lie about being cishet or neurotypical, and while he didn’t seem happy he didn’t push it at first. I told him that I understood if he didn’t want to be in a secret relationship, but because of where we live and what I want to do I wasn’t comfortable with being out again. He said he still wanted to date me, and claimed he would support me, and we had a pretty good relationship overall.

A month after that, he started bringing it up again. He told me that I was more than my identity, and if people didn’t see me for who I am instead of stereotypes, it isn’t worth talking to them at all. And while I agree with the sentiment, it’d never be possible to just not hear someone if they were harassing me, and while I truely dislike a lot of the authority figures that I engage with, they are in the professional fields I’m interested in, and I’m incredibly lucky for getting where I am so early. Kai also said that since I am well known in our very small school (only 300 kids), being out could be a positive influence on what people think about autistic people or trans people. In a particularly heated fight, he even said I was doing a disservice or betrayal to my community by not representing or being proud of being apart of them publicly.

We broke up pretty soon after, but I think about what he said a lot. I know that I wouldn’t be the only out person at my school, and that my school is actually a lot better compared to most local schools, which are a lot larger and… dramatic, but I just don’t think I could be out without going back to how I used to be mentally. And Kai was right about how I could be a good influence on some of the meaner classmates- I do think some of my peers who I ingenuinely connect with might reconsider their prejudices if they knew I was transgender.

I’m intentionally choosing not to take the opportunity to do better. It wouldn’t ruin ALL my relationships with the authority figures I consider to be important holding, since it would just be my school, It might dampen one or two of them. Plus, I’m lying to pretty much everyone who knows me. They build relationships with a false idea of me, and I feel like an asshole sometimes because I’m not honest.

TLDR: I’m a transgender, autistic guy in a very bigoted community. Everybody thinks i’m cishet and neurotypical. AMITA for not being proud of who I am because of potential social losses, and AMITA for lying to people and giving friends/peers false ideas about who I am even if they would not be friends with me if they knew?

What are these acronyms?

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/753405110589259776/note-spoilers-on-this-ask-for-anyone-who-hasnt

I’m this anon, and using your anon box to reply to a bad take in the reblogs of it lol.

1. aO3 treats the show and book series as separate fandoms for Bridgerton. My friend’s genderbend fic though is based on the books — thought I made that clear here. And yes book fans were being genuinely homophobic in her comments, not just her interpreting them not shipping it as “homophobia.” It was full of “get out of OUR tag” and claiming just writing a female character in a male version or shipping her male love interest with a guy was “misogyny,” exactly as I said. It’s a huge problem in the fandom. The main Reddit sub is so full of homophobia that queer fans had to spin out a separate inclusive sub called r/bridgertonlgbt. I’ve heard of people on TikTok being called “bourgeois degenerate” and “groomer” just for questioning why it’s supposedly such a dramatic and horrible change to make Michael into Michaela in the show.

2. Can we finally fucking retire the really tired, knee jerk “book is always better” attitude that has never been universally true anyway lol. The books Bridgerton are based on are pretty middling het histrom that repeat plots so much between them that that’s one of the big changes the show has had to make — just not have seasons 1 and 2 follow the same plot beats like books 1 and 2 did. The show has had to make a lot of changes just because it has a bigger audience than your average het histrom reader and while I haven’t loved every shift, it is overall better for it. Or just like, focusing on more than just each season’s main couple like the books only do — also better! The subplots are some of the most fun parts of that show, but also, it makes sense that people are going to continue to want to follow their favs from season to season and not just zero in on each couple. Yes I’ve read all the books. They simply are just not that great, TV is a different medium than books anyway and so certain changes are necessary, and frankly most of the loudest parts of the “book fandom” online who complain about the changes are people who read the books because of the show anyway. They’re all wildly inconsistent in what they consider acceptable changes: they’re largely on board with making the universally white books more racially diverse, but not adding queerness and gender diversity. Why is one ok but not another? Especially when a lot of them are ok with sad or bittersweet queer stories in subplots like Brimsley’s but not happy stories for main characters. Why is that, I wonder? A lot of people are pretending to be “book snobs” as a mask for bigotry, or just have bad taste, but regardless I think we need to get over the idea that stalwart defense of some mediocre and overly tropey romance novels is more elevated or intellectual and like the show isn’t an improvement in being less lazy about the cliches of that genre than the original author. (Seriously, I read a lot of romance novels, so this is not a knock on the genre as a whole or its readers — but the Bridgerton books are SO lazy and SO repetitive. Honestly I think a lot of the book defenders need to read more histrom themselves. Then maybe they’d see how weak and lazy those books can be compared to what else is out there.)

Fandom please learn basic things about how adaptation between different mediums works 2k24 also stop assuming that consuming a story in text form over another is an inherently intellectual activity

--

A pretentious friend of mine who loves Shonda Rhimes was going on at me a while ago about how she ~always reads the book first~ and then waiting for applause as if that's unusual!

She then tried to launch into how shocked she was by the books being... well, lowbrow trash, but she had some complex and boring way of explaining this.

I was like "Honey, you do know what a regency romance novel is, right? Right?!"

I mean, there are adaptations that are nearly exactly like the middle tier of romance novels. They're movie length and they air on Lifetime. This was a change not only of medium but of overall target audience and vibe.

[fromkenari]

For the love of Buck, this fandom hasn't been chill since Season 2, and their choice of introducing Eddie in a classic love interest way with Buck being the lead it was aimed at and then pretending we had ship goggles, which was beyond disingenuous. But please, as a steadfast fan of the show, can Buddie fans wholly ignore the Tommy part of Buck's longtime evolving love arc instead of arguing about which ship is better? This fandom usually ignores Buck's onscreen love interests. Why is this one dude so different? I know why on both fronts, but please consider that the BuckyTommy ship is new and has only a few interactions from this season. Just let them ship it. So what? Where is the harm? Most of us have had blinders on for even the longest-lasting love interests of Buck, which were never significant beyond Abby, and that's because she was significant to Buck and not the other way around. You don't need to rip anyone to shreds by sending links to each other of people talking about BuckTommy or Buddie with a snide, "I'd love to hear your thoughts. <3" because it's not the one y'all ship. Buddie is still going to be the largest ship for the show. So please lay off because I have seen some actual homophobia happening from Buddie fans and that's not okay. Telling a queer man he is a predator for liking BuckTommy is gross. What are you doing? Can we all be happy that Buck is a canonically on-screen bisexual man? For Buddie, that is halfway there in what you want, and the statement already out there that they were going to make Eddie the bi lead, which makes it the second time Eddie's planned multiseason love arc has not happened. They also took his son away from him, so something has got to give on the Eddie front next season. Nothing is holding back changes in his life, and if something queer does happen, Tommy might not even matter anymore. There's also nothing wrong with enjoying the scraps of a new ship, especially a queer one, because that's usually how it goes for queer ships on these shows. Do y'all even pay attention to what has happened to Henren in seven seasons? Do you know the crumbs they have had in most of those seasons? I love Buck. Period. Y'all tearing each other down because you like different ships is so tiring and so disheartening. Just stop. Please.

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 4

Joan Watson

How were BBC Sherlock shippers so rancid about a WOMAN who wasnt even in the SAME SHOW?????

Martin Freeman of BBC Sherlock insulted Elementary and specifically Lucy Liu in the press. He straight up called Lucy Liu a "dog" in an interview APPARENTLY as a joke, because calling female actors ugly is hilarious. Benedict Cumberbatch was more measured about it, but he still said he was cynical about Elementary because it would lose the "male friendship" dynamic, which of course Johnlock shippers used against Joan Watson fans. Even the lead BBC Sherlock actors got in on the yaoi victimization of Joan Watson... 😔

she wasn't even in the same SHOW as the yaoi I've been convinced she deserves to win the entire poll. I was a Johnlocker but I did watch the first season of Elementary and it was fine????? It was totally okay????? Especially in hindsight given how hard Sherlock season four flopped. Also Lucy Liu is a queen and deserved zero vitriol for *checks notes* playing a character???? A fucking fictional character???????? Oh my god we were all SO mean to this show and we (or at least I) thought it was like The Good Fight™️, like we were defending BBC Sherlock against copyright infringement and straightwashing and Jonny Lee Miller's bizarre scarf, (it wasn't a good scarf I do stand by that) but then Elementary didn't make Holmes and Watson a couple either???? And also it didn't insult its audience constantly etc etc we've all seen the Hbomberguy Sherlock is Garbage video. This is really long sorry hashtag justice for Joan Watson.

Misa Amane

she gets treated in-canon the way fandoms treat female characters that Threaten an m/m ship. it's like, "oh why don't you go sit in the corner and be pretty, misa, while the Men have intelligent conversation and pretend they aren't ten seconds from fucking each other, doesn't that sound nice?" it's infuriating. and MAYBE it's better now but i remember her getting treated the same way in fanfiction too, like we all need to do just as badly by our female secondary characters as fucking tsugumi ohba, but with the added insult of making her be alternately oblivious of the relationship between light and L or actively trying to sabotage it—incompetently, of course, because god forbid misa be allowed dignity or moments of cleverness.

she's one of the first characters I think of when I consider old school fandom misogyny. The annoying bitch and clingy crazy gf allegations were AFTER HER ASS. She's also a lot more intelligent than people gave her credit for, but most seem inclined to take the Very Biased word of our unreliable, narcissistic narrator and his homoerotic arch nemesis and claim that just because she's bubbly and into romance that she's also a complete moron. Which is blatantly untrue. Everyone was afraid of Misa girlbossing too hard. Killing people and devoting yourself to the deranged twink of your dreams even though you know he'll never love you back??? Having a hardcore goth aesthetic and being so Hot even literal Death Gods are into you?? God forbid women do ANYTHING!

Not only is she the victim of yaoi culture, she is the victim of early 2000s misogyny by an author that wanted to introduce a girl character because he knew his male rivals were getting too homoerotic. She is a goth bimbo icon who portrays what I think is one of the few callouts for stan culture and what parasocial relationships can do to both the stan and the idol. The fact that she is a toxic fan of Kira and also hot, funny, sociable is tragic in its own way, which I think the author did try to touch on but was too misogynistic too really get through. Of course, she was reduced to villain status by the fandom and anime alike because she got in the way of the supposed romance in their psychological horror anime.

[youryurigoddess]

For those suddenly interested in Regency silver snuffboxes

I have never smoked anything in my life, but still consider antique snuffboxes, cigarette holders, and lighters rather neat. Aziraphale — or at least the show iteration of him — is in a very different situation though. 6000 years of yearning and pining can do incredible things even to the literal angels, especially the naturally sensitive and anxious ones, right?

So the mention of Heaven as a non-smoking area baffling him enough to include it in his New Year’s resolutions gave some fans ideas. Since 2006 a part of the fandom firmly believes that both Aziraphale and Crowley are — or at least were in the book — smoking.

The same list was shared by Neil on his Tumblr in 2012, including this most amazing postscript (highly recommended read).

Which led to a fellow Tumblr user asking a rather direct question about it after ten years, in 2022:

Can’t believe that we had to wait so long for that joke to land.

Anyway, if you rewatch both seasons of the show carefully enough, you might spot the snuffboxes making an appearance in some of the objectively cluttered bookshop scenes. They’re also visible in this Radio Times exclusive material from a set tour — which is an absolute must-watch for other reasons as well.

And here’s a peek at a part of Aziraphale’s collection shared by Neil himself:

Snuffboxes appear repeatedly — and often as plot devices — in books written by Georgette Heyer, one of Aziraphale’s favorite authors, who famously combined Regency romance with detective fiction.

Most memorably, Judith Taverner, the main character of Regency Buck, pretended to take snuff just for the boxes and to make herself unusual (one of the other characters commented that the Queen also did that). The same book also mentions a snuffbox used as a means of poisoning people.

[twdgwritings]

Character Discussion;

Marlon

Something I experienced while being in the fandom is a lot of a backlash for liking Marlon. Now I’m not saying anybody has to like him or agree with me, but I don’t think he is just a black and white character that most believe. I don’t think it’s true at all, he has many shades to him. In this post I’m going to deep dive into Marlon, the things he has done, overall opinions and stuff like that. I might even do this with other characters if y’all would be interested in hearing my thoughts.

Also my power was out for a few days, so that really set me back with writings and other stuff. So please be patient with me!

Warnings: typos, talk of parental abuse/neglect, children dying, kidnapping, accidental murder, violence, other stuff probably?, spoilers

1. Marlon’s Past

While we don’t know his past for sure, I think it’s important to consider what we do know or could influence his current behavior. I’ve headcanoned, since the first time I played, that Marlon was abused as a child. Given his problem with authority figures (adults, the headmaster, Lily and Abel), anger issues and the need to be in control I believe this is a strong point. Acting out from his terrible home life is probably what landed him in a troubled youth school, especially since we can assume his parents were possibly tired of dealing with him. Of course this isn’t canon, but I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibilities. Regardless, I think it’s important to keep a troubled past in mind when discussing a questionable character.

We know it’s been about eight or nine years-ish since the apocalypse started. (Clem was 8 when it started, and she was 11 when AJ was born. AJ is now 6 in the final season and Clem is 17.) Marlon is clearly older and confirmed 18-19, so he was 10-11 years old when the world went to hell. Imagine yourself at that age and no adult to help guide you because as we know they all but the nurse abandoned these kids. So a little kid stepped up to take care of many other kids when the adults left, and some kids died under his care and protection. (Not his fault though) As said a few times in the game there used to be a lot more of them, which means a lot of them died. Which that stress and trauma added onto Marlon’s mental issues.

2. The Twins

Let me say this; I don’t like what happened with Sophie and Minnie, but was there a choice? No. There was no right answer in this situation, the world is killed or be killed. Morals are out the window, only survival. I think Marlon caved to Lily and Able because of his trauma and fears, because of his past as mentioned above. He either said no and they all got kidnapped or killed, or he could give up two people to save the rest. Why didn’t they fight back like they did in the game? Because, as much as I love Marlon, he could never lead them and organize a battle like Clementine did. They NEEDED her, without her NONE of them would have made it. Why didn’t they go save him? Again they probably couldn’t do it without Clem, and as Marlon said he was afraid. He could die, they could all die or they could all get taken. Marlon thought he was doing the right thing. He should have told the truth of the fate of the twins, that they were kidnapped (because they were). Marlon is a coward, I’m not even going to pretend he isn’t, he knows he is. Marlon’s fear of losing his friends/family is what lead him to make the mistakes he did. He feared being casted out, them becoming angry at him, or even death(them and him).

I think it would have been interesting to see in the game Marlon witnessing what Minnie became, what he had done. To realize even more how badly he fucked up. Though unfortunately he didn’t get to see what he had done, nor was he given the chance to try to atone his mistakes; to make it up to everyone, or redeem himself.

3. Brody + Trading Aj and Clem

“He killed Brody!” “He hit/hurt Brody!” I KNOW. I’m not happy with what happened between Marlon and Brody either. We know Marlon has anger issues. We know when he gets scared he gets mad (As Brody told us) But, we also know her death was accidental. As soon as Marlon hits her he instantly regrets it and feels remorse, so much so he even goes into denial that he can save her. I fully believe he did not go into the basement with intent of hurting or killing Brody, he never wanted to hurt anyone. “He was going to trade Clem and Aj!” I doubt he saved them with an intent to trade them, I don’t think it even crossed his mind until the run in with Abel. I don’t blame him either, why give up friends you’ve known for years when you can give up two strangers.

4. Marlon’s Death + Alt choices

Obviously his death was supposed to leave an unfinished business kinda vibe, which is dumb as hell in my opinion. I also think it’s very random of Aj to automatically shoot Marlon but not Abel? Like if he was going to kill anyone without warning it should have been the guy who was armed the entire time, not the dude who dropped the gun and was no longer a problem. It goes against everything Clementine taught Aj, and it just feels really rushed and unnecessary. I know Marlon’s death is what pushed the plot forward, but I think there were other ways to go about it. Like if you chose to kick him out, Clem and Louis/Violet could escort him out (like Violet and Louis did to Clem and Aj) and that’s when they have the run in with Lily and Abel. Obviously different out comes for what yoy decided to do with Marlon, so his death wasn’t necessary. The writers would have just had to taken more creative liberties and shit.

I think it would have been more impactful for Aj’s character is Marlon lived. It would be an opportunity to teach him that some people can change, that sometimes people can be redeemed. Marlon wasn’t a monster that deserved to be gunned down after being disarmed, something I think Aj could learn. (Lily’s situation was vastly different. Lily would always be a threat, she would have come back for revenge and needed to die). It would have been interesting to see Marlon during the battle against the raiders (probably after being coaxed to fight by the player) and maybe he was one of the people to get kidnapped. (As I stated before him seeing what Minnie became would be intriguing.) Once aboard the ship Marlon refuses to leave the cell, believing he deserves this. Then the player can talk him out of leaving or chose to leave him in the cell. Or at least give Marlon a better death, dying a hero to atone for his mistakes. Maybe instead of Louis/Violet at the bridge, it was Marlon who throws Tenn across and sacrifices himself to the walkers or tries to stop Minerva.

Final Thoughts.

Is Marlon a perfect character? No. Absolutely not. He made mistakes, stupid decisions and has flaws, that’s what makes him such a well rounded character. I always dive deep into characters, never taking them at face value which is something I think more people should do. I just find it a little strange people will beat down Marlon, but turn around and defend Minerva when she wanted to kill her own little brother(I don’t hate Minnie either). Marlon feels like wasted potential and I wish we could have gotten more development around him and his character.

I appreciate everyone who read this post and I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions! I hope you all have a great day/night!

What are your thoughts on Marlon?

What would you do if you were in his position, would you trade the twins away?

What would you want to happen if Marlon lived?

[iammissingautumn]

genuine question, in the kindest way possible: why do you like south park? i truly don’t get what the appeal is, especially in a sense of wanting to make fan content for it. i understand that it can be funny to watch sometimes, and i get when people like it casually, but i am continually confused when i see people making fan art and fanfics and intense in depth meta posts about characters and characterization because it’s like. a joke show? it’s all a joke. it’s all satire and inappropriate/sometimes genuinely over the line humor. i don’t understand why there are so many people who seem to resonate with it in such a way, especially because as far as i can tell most of the fandom seems to be very young people - teenagers and young adults. again, i don’t ask this in a mean spirited way or to judge or shame, i just am genuinely baffled every time i see south park content you share and i wanted to ask… what’s up with that? what’s the appeal, for you? why do you think people are so into it in this fandom way? do you think that the fandom is just very divorced from the content itself?

Oooo thank you so much lovely follower. This is an amazing ask. And if you’d want the answer I’ll give!!! And there’s a TL;DR at the end of this :>

Why do (you) so many people like South Park?

(C.W. for south park typical stuff, mentions of abuse and s/a in many forms and serious topics.)

1. What’s the appeal for you?

I got into the South Park fandom at the age of probably ten or so. Eight years ago. How did I get into it? Uhhhh I watched the series rarely as a younger kid. What made me want to get into fandom? To tell the truth it was Stick of Truth. That was South Park’s first video game where you are put into the town and play along side the kid. South Park was the first fictional series I ever got into. Before that I had been a youtube shipper (Septiplier). And then I saw South Park. To be fair, I saw Kenny. Early memories of South Park is fanfiction and pinterest art and playing hours on hours of Stick of Truth, and later the next game.

What did I see in Kenny McCormick? He was a poor kid, who died everyday, with parents who fought physically and verbally. He was the fourth wheel in a best friends/obsession dynamic of his close friends. Pretend this isn’t a comedy. Pretend this isn’t some silly show. It’s a boy who can barely have enough money to eat. He had a younger sister he was willing to sacrifice anything for. And an older brother who never said much without a slur to his words. Without saying too much about my life on main I had a lot of reasons to identify with that. This is a house that many people can identify with, drunks as parents and kids who have to take care of themselves. On top of this he’s Princess Kenny :) Get’s treated as a girl in a roleplaying context and loves it. She’s a great princess. My interest in Kenny then went to Bunny (Ship of Kenny McCormick and Butters Stotch).

What is there to see in Butters Stotch? He’s a boy being dragged into sexist, racist, and homophobic talk. We quite literally throughout the series see him become more and more mean. How does a nine year old boy get dragged through those things? His parents are incredibly abusive, often grounding him for things he didn’t do and finding any excuse to blame anything for. He believes he’s at fault for everything he’s in trouble for. The only friend he eventually gains is a boy who uses him for schemes and tried to kill him at least once. The other person he considers to be a friend doesn’t speak or lead. He finds someone who sticks with him and isn’t a hypocrite and sticks to him no matter the pain he’s put through. He also want made for conflict and enjoys femininity. This will be talked more about later, but I assume you can make some assumptions as to why a ten year old could like the stuff shown here. Then again the next list will be why I like it as well. But Kenny and Butters were my start. They’re on of the most popular ships in fandom. So there’s a lot of content.

2. Why is this a popular fandom?

It’s like. Have you ever been neurodivergent? Have you ever been gay? Have you ever been trans? Have you ever been abused? Have you grown up in a simple U.S. town?Have you ever accidentally become codepdent to your childhood friend as a child? Have you ever been born into a situation that hurts you for years but you’re a child you don’t know what to do? Have you ever been a child and all the adults are so stupid and they’re supposed to be protecting you?

Have you ever been all of those things or some of those things and wondered. Holy Fuck. How am I going to handle this all? I hope I don’t need to explain how or why some people would feel these things and how they would use South Park to express these feelings. (Relatability.)

(Age.) A big criticism I’ve heard is. Oh no. They’re Ageing Up These Characters To Have Sex. It’s a very weird assumption and very strange to assume that people would only care about themes of childhood, being a son, or growing up if it’s about sex. Aging up the characters often has to do with wanting to give them maturity and time to learn. You have access to kids still forming their brains, you have access to 50 year old adults who are still growing and dealing with their current problems. High schoolers going to teen parties for the first time and drinking and smoking. College kids going to parties for the first time drinking and smoking making steps to join their profession and figuring out what they want from live and having the freedom of life or being trapped by family expectations.

Infinite scenarios. The amazing thing about South Park is you have at least ten characters to make whatever drama you want with at a time. You can make an ensemble piece of friend groups full of years of love and hate or a focus on one characters inner turmoil. You can make them into fucked up adults with complicated feelings, a gay man who’s never accepted himself sees his childhood best friend and Understands. The kid being drugged secretly by his parents dies of overdose and now everyone has to deal with that and the feelings towards the person. It’s winter and there’s too many holes in kenny’s house so he asks to stay over at someone else’s by knocking on a window and sneaking in. On top of this for many seasons one of South Park’s things is they would make fun of specific movie concepts that have been run into the ground by putting the kids in it. Losing Edge, Stanley’s Cup, and Up the Down Steroid are great examples of this.

People love to take the absurd seriously. I don’t think I can explain how people who see something silly and take it seriously do it. If you don’t see the appeal that’s really fair. But when Kenny Dies plays and we see Kyle Stan and Eric deal with death in their own ways. We see their differences highlighted. As we watch The Passion of the Jew we see this internalized anti antisemitism, that many people who have the same thing or something similar like internalized racism, homophobia, transphobia, ablism, etc. see reflected on the screen in this surprisingly real way.

A lot of content. There are 26 years of seasons in this show. That’s a lot of content, but genuinely a lot of people don’t watch even half that shit. Majority of the time I’ve spent being invested in South Park I had only seen a few dozen episodes. There are two full videos games with extra content and a phone game. A movie as well. A lot of content you can pick and choose from! A lot of small moments to hang on to. (I.e. Good Times With Weapons Butters get his eye hurt, fandom draws him with a scar more often then not. Eric got Kenny’s eye as a transplant after Kenny died one time. Kyle is said to have the same nose as his mom; hooked.) these build the fandom, but everyone has always embraced those who reject and those who accept canon. There’s so many different things to sink ur teeth into, including serious AU’s of the canonical fantasy and superhero games the characters play together.

But once again I’ll harp on this. I think what brings people to this show is seeing damaged things and giving them the chance to heal. Or giving them things to make their damage a bit easier. Or maybe damaging them more. Standard exploring relationships and feelings. But on top of this we see character who have been sexually assaulted, groomed, abused, neglected. While also the show gives very liberal takes and knows how fucked up these situations are. That’s apart of the comedy (Tsst. Where we see Liane Cartman take away the chance for Eric Cartman to become more respectable and less bigoted and everything because she wants someone to hang out with her.). There’s always something enthralling about seeing yourself on the big screen, and seeing my friends right there too etc. (Relatability, again.)

Simple designs. A child could make the cardboard cutouts that we see the characters as. That’s motivating! What’s also motivating? Giving these characters with specific color schemes a full face body and wardrobe of clothes ! Oh so that means I can make my favorite superhero team Coon and Friends all hanging out together? So that means I can draw something about Kenny dying? So I can make them play dsi’s together? There’s a lot of one off concepts we get that are very cool and some people love to reimagine them in their own style. Others love to make the setting more fantastical like Princess Kenny in the rose garden during the Black Friday Trilogy. You can make them anything!

Sand box! We have set up friend groups, conflicts from twenty years ago, and a mayor of the township! We have the entire map laid out in front of us and more from every episode’s location that hasn’t been included. We have the local coffee shop and the local movie theater. We have a whole city! We have canonical neighbors and stores and everything! Where would you like to start? We have it all.

Taking things “Seriously”. Most importantly, South Park wants to be take seriously. SP doesn’t work without being able to take it seriously. The comedy in Passion of the Jew doesn’t work unless you sympathize with Kyle. I laughed at the obliviousness of the adults as Cartman formed his group and then a pit grew in my stomach as I saw Kyle and them about to crash. The comedy in World Wide Record Concert doesn’t work if you don’t know that Mr Garrison feels bad for a very dumb reason !!!! But that episode is genuinely one of the funniest to me. South Park did not make it a character trait that Mr Garrison is gay for all those early seasons just for us to not notice. And more importantly he feels like a very very ignorant gay man in those seasons, but he feels genuinely gay. As Kenny Dies it asks you to take this seriously, and we watch in Coon Vs. Coon & Friends and are asked for it to be taken seriously as Kenny describes the many deaths he’s faced. This show quickly shows how absurdist and crazy it is in most if not all episodes it has yet it still cares to ask you to take things seriously, to sympathize, empathize with these characters. It tells you to laugh at Kenny’s deaths and then it has the audacity to tell you he remembers Every Single One and is reborn every time, and that Cartman always knows and they never talk about it. They never mention it more then once. They lull us into personal moments and then never bring it up again. The fandom is built around these one off moments, these things the creators didn’t think too much about. These characters have such strong personalities and back bones that have existed for YEARS. Stuff set up and shown in the first five seasons makes sense to the characters of today. The character consistency goes rlly hard for a 25 year old show that only stops itself for exploring character because they know they’re there to be funny and not serious. It’s crazy and amazing and we want the serious shit!

History. South Park history is crazy, what’s ever crazier? Fandom history. The shows history doesn’t matter too much (except that time Matt and Trey went to The Oscars for sp while on LSD) but the fandom history is legendary. The development of fandom, the fandom blorbo of the time, the Stan and Wendy baby guy. It’s really neat. We have a steep history with artists that have come and gone in a very unique way because of how tumblr’s algorithm is set up. South Park’s fandom existed before most popular social media sites. And while this allows you to put the character in Any decade it also lets you see how old some of those ff.net fics are. The fanart on tumblr can easily be a decade old if you look at the right blog. A deactivated user behind it. Ships that have come and gone, we’ve been here this whole time !!!! I love hearing about different sites issues and problems. And also the beloved stuff that has happened here. Some people weren’t here before Creek was canon, some people came in with a canonical gay couple amongst the kids as just an average background thing.

So those are some reasons. The most important ones that I think most south park fan in the fandom. will list at least one of when being asked Why. I value all of these things heavily. You also meet some really great people with mostly solid opinions ! It’s great ! Genuinely a really understanding and accepting place with unique stories from anyone you meet.

3. Do you think that the fandom is divorced from the canonical content?

Off the rip I would say no. But it’s complicated. To those who have seen all or most of the show I’d say; We’re pretty connected. I think the majority of us are just smart enough to understand that Cartman is a bad person on purpose. A lot of this has to do with he’s something the creators use. He’s an archetype of the worst person and is the only character imo that gets pulled ooc in order to do What The Plot Needs. But majority of the fandom is gonna give Kyle curly hair, green eyes and he’ll love to study with some side sports interest. We have a lot of continuity in many ways.

That being said there’s MANY people who have seen Five episodes and read the wiki and maybe play the game(s?). And they treat the show the same as those who have seen it more. Those who have not seen the show might be a bit more outspoken about how it’s Bad or Wrong when they haven’t seen it and I usually don’t trust those people. Hence why I’m watching the entire show rn on my own, to get my own opinion. Those people who haven’t seen shit are also probably connected mainly to a duo or one character. Popular examples of this are Creek (Craig x Tweek) and Bunny (Kenny x Butters). There’s non watchers in the Style (Stan Marsh x Kyle Broflovski) and Kyman (Cartman x Kyle) community but less so from what I’ve seen.

But we’re looking at this show in a different genre. Many of us act like we’re creating CW Shows except Better. Many of us lean into drama and tragedy. Others are in it for the sillies. Majority of people know what’s bad in this show, some people are sometimes so hurt or misguided that they think Cartman is the only evil and never want to see him. Other times ppl are just uncomfortable with him (Like I’ve spent the majority of my time here being). There’s a scale! I think it’s important to realize what is wrong with the show in your own way, and I think the show gets demonized for its effects on main stream media and boys who couldn’t grow a spine for themselves so took Cartman’s personality. It’s pretty apparent that Matt and Trey are very liberal they just thought “making fun” of everyone “equally” was right which got some bad apples. No one likes season 9 episode 1. Not a soul. Tbh most of the drama doesn’t relate to bigotry, though enough does that it matters. And if you aren’t interested in exploring how bigotry effects ppl I’m not sure why you would be interested in South Park.

Like yeah Matt and Trey haven’t thought about Marjorine more than once, but everyone saw a boy being accepted and cared for and enjoying himself seen as a girl more than ever before. And Matt and Trey aren’t gonna give these kids real mental illnesses when we see the symptoms clear as day (price of making characters “unique”). We’re playing a different game then they are, so yeah we’re disconnected in some ways. But we’re very connected in others. We don’t let all 25 seasons go to waste.

And what has my opinion been from watching the show so far? Well I’m on season 11 and so far it’s not as bad as I expected. I agree with a lot of their messages and the stuff that’s obviously just. terrible isn’t as common as I thought it would be? Again, s9 e1 is the worst of it, and you phrased it really well when saying it’s mainly inappropriate humor that often goes over the line. They’re very liberal though, I mean they introduce a gay character in the first episode and in the 90’s teach a kid gay is chill. There are episodes I dislike or just get bored by, but most of what I’ve gotten through which is getting closer to half of the show runs from decent to surprisingly well made (pick any s8 ep tbh. oops all bangers). Mattrey aren’t me, and I’m here to develop the characters, they’re there to develop a comedy. we are not the same but we appreciate each other even tho we probably squint and think the other is more in the wrong then ourselves. But we enjoy each other occasionally.

EDIT: I meant to put this originally but not everyone here is a young adult. I’ve seen 11 year old fans I’ve seen 50 year old fans. we have a lot of diversity in stuff like that. I think young adults had a wave of coming into the fandom because creek became canon which gave the show credit for showing how good it can be at times. Every one of my south park friends are at least two years older then me. That being said I joined a discord that I hadn’t realized was for minors and saw the swath of young ages we get. a lot of us have a decade between each other, but even more of us are in that 17-25 range. I think it’s just more common for young adults to get into it since we have the freedom to watch whatever we want and it’s a household name some may have been restricted to. Then again I joined this when I was 10 as well so like. i may be a bit warped. either way this shows rlly has smth for everyone.

Oh wait! Oh no!!! TL;DR: South Park is a show that’s important to me and others for a lot of reasons. Nothing butters me up like seeing people in broken worlds be able to put it together again in the future, or to be torn apart idk it depends. Other reasons to like the show are: Relatability, they can be literally any age, Infinite scenarios, People love to take the absurd seriously, A lot of content, Relatability; again, simple designs, the setting is a sandbox, creators kinda want us to take this seriously, and a lot of fandom history! And probably more. We’re not that disconnected from the series itself but everyone is pretty aware how problematic it is and many disconnect entirely from the series. Other choose to embrace it to Fix Them. Ppl love to do a lot.

[voltronisanobsession]

Yandere Fujisaki/Father with Reincarnated Reader

NORAGAMI OBSESSSSIOOONNN 😜😜😜

This has been sitting in my drafts for a minute but UGH I CANT GET THIS OUT OF MY MINDD

I’m feeding what’s left of the fandom😔💔

I don’t write a lot of yandere stuff on here. maybe occasionally I’ll write something but it’s hard to characterize characters with darker intentions

NOT WITH FUJISAKI/FATHER THOUGHH

He would make such a perfect yandere ESPECIALLY if we put in a reincarnated reader

For the sake of making things easier, imma refer to this dude as Father

Father had to have known you when he was once alive, before his death, to be attached to you

Whether you both shared a romantic or platonic relationship, his obsession with you is the same

Controlling and suffocating

Before his death, you guys traveled together

You’ve accompanied him wherever he went, always having that perfect smile on your face if yall ever faced a problem

He appreciated your positive attitude, seeing as he had a more nihilistic approach on most things

You accepted his views of the gods above, even if you didn’t quite share the same feelings

You fully believed things happened for a reason, even if they aren't ideal

He’d be extremely protective of you and would often shelter you from others as he believed you were a bit naive

He made it known that he didn’t like it when you spoke to people of the new village you arrived in

Besides himself and Kaya, who had saved you both from the nearby river, you wouldn’t get much interactions from others

To keep him placate, you would more often than not keep quietly to his side

Father cared deeply for both you and Kaya, enjoying the time you all spent together scouting for food

Everything had been fine for many months

That is until yours and Kaya’s untimely demises. Everything goes downhill from there

For centuries, he’d hold onto the memories and grudge your death had left behind

I think this would be when his more darker side comes out, that even after death, he holds you on such a high pedestal

Father would tell stories of you to both Mizuchi/Nora and Yato. They both knew to never interrupt him when he spoke of you, lest they wanted to feel his wrath

They both knew that even long after your death, he still searched the entire country for you

So imagine Father's shock when he sees your sweet face one sunny afternoon

He'd be coming back from school as Fujisaki had to attend, but would only stare starstruck at you from across the street

You had sat on bench looking over your notes from your classes and failed to realize the stare burning onto you

Consider your fate sealed after this honestly

He'd slowly yet surely integrate himself in your life, whether you wanted him to or not

You don't have a say anymore, not after you left him for so long

With no hesitation, he would drag you into the spirit world

You would have the sight to see beyond regular humans, to see the ayakashi hidden from human eyes

It terrifies you, especially because you cannot defend yourself against these monster

Which is why Father RELISHES whenever you beg him to protect you from the corrupted souls

He actually uses this against you whenever he can, if your disobeying him or if you're fighting back too much for his liking

Since you want to leave so bad, go ahead. He won't stop you. Let's see how far you can get though. After all, you're just a mortal on the verge of death without him

You'll die if he isn't around to protect you. He makes that known whenever you have to be without him.

Father would send Mizuchi to look after you whenever he can't

She follows whatever Father says, even scaring you a bit whenever he feels as if you're getting too confident

She pretends to be your friend, but I think reader is smart enough to know she'll always be on Fujisaki's side

Mizuchi enjoys unsettling you, always appearing from the darkness and whispering in your ear

She doesn't understand what her father sees in you, but if you're important to him she'll accept it, for now

After all, she does get quite jealous whenever Father's attention strays from her

He is honestly so cruel to reader im so sorry

He spends hours breaking you down trying to get you to remember your past

To remember everything he does

He will not accept the fact that you're a different person now. You are still the same from when he remembered you, and if he has to train you to behave the way you did before, then so be it

I feel like your only saving grace MIGHT be Yato or if you were a devoted follower to a God before being taken by Father

Yato might help you, just a little bit, but he won't outright help you escape

Unless you request his service to do so, then he's obligated to help you as a delivery god

But he doesn't enjoy messing around with anything regarding his father

He keeps his distance but pities you

If you were a devoted follower of a god though, you might have some 'angels' looking over you

Perhaps this god felt a looming sense of danger hovering near you and decided to take pity on you

You would be blessed with a protective item, maybe a necklace or a bracelet! The protective blessing put on the item you wear will protect you from any physical harm, it's honestly the best thing you could have at this point

It's your last hope to have faith and to stay strong

To not let this man crazed by time destroy and ruin you

Father enjoys seeing how you still have some fight left in you

He admires it dearly as it reminds him of the past

You may try as much as you want though, you're not going to be escaping him anytime soon

He'll make you remember him one way or another

OMG

He would TOTALLY take you with him whenever doing some dangerous shit

Like if Yato was planning on hunting him down, boom

You'd be there as a human shield for Father

Father knows Yato would never hurt an innocent human like you and uses it to his advantage to make dramatic getaways

[teaveetamer]

How does Raxis's orientation, gender, and skin color matter? And why does yours matter?

Why does me being a queer woman matter when a cishet white man accuses me of being queerphobic and misogynist?

Assuming you're the anon Ezra keeps getting who is complaining about us pointing out his age (since I got this right after I reblogged one of those), you probably read his blog right? Considering Raxis claims to be such a great progressive ally and co-opts all that progressive language, I'd think people who follow him would understand why this is so important?

Okay, I'll be very clear, cut because this got long, I'm not repeating it ad nauseum after this post.

His gender, sexual orientation, and race wouldn't matter if he hadn't made it matter. Raxis is not only a bully, he's a bully who constantly appropriates the language of social justice. My very first direct interaction with him was literally me calling his ass out for using the murder of Roe v. Wade as a bludgeon to win a fandom argument. Which happened, like, right the fuck after that decision came down and most women in America were fucking traumatized from literally having our rights stripped from us. And I wish our relationship ended at that "apology" but he hasn't changed and he keeps doing it.

He is the one who consistently accuses me (and other women) of being misogynistic and having internalized misogyny. He is the one who consistently accuses me (and other queer folk) of being queerphobic. He is the one who accuses BWIIDT (who is mixed race) for being out of line for thinking Cap (another white man!) has written racist elements into his fic (unintentionally or not). He consistently uses our oppression as a justification for why it should be okay for him to bully us.

If you are going to use our identities as part of your justification for harassing us, then we have every right to point out that these are identities that we hold and you don't. We have every right to point out that the opinions of a cishet white man about misogyny, queerphobia, racism, etc. do not matter as much as ours because you have never fucking experienced it like we have.

The role of allies is to amplify voices in spaces where we are not respected (e.g. with other cishet white men), not to lecture marginalized people for being "bad queers" or "bad women" from your throne of privilege.

It's especially fucking slimy because he pretends to be super progressive live and in concert, but when he slinks back to his buddies he laughs at us for being upset about being misgendered:

(Yes because you repeatedly misgendered me for months and only started correcting yourself and your anons when I called your shit out. You are literally "the misgendering type" but it's cute how you tried to act like I was being unreasonable for wanting the basic human respect of being referred to by my proper pronouns)

Accuses us of trying to hide behind "identity politics" when we're talking about the fucking oppression we face:

(Always a great sign when a cishet white man accuses queer women of "trying to use identity politics as a shield" when they're talking about their own fucking oppression. An even better sign when a cishet white man brags about "out identity-politicking" queer women when they're telling you to stop fucking throwing their oppression back in their faces. Whining about "identity politics" whenever marginalized groups try to voice anything is frankly such an alt right dogwhistle in itself at this point and I genuinely hope he's just not aware of it.)

Bullies queer women on his side who disagree with him and try to say basically exactly what I'm saying right now. That straight men can't appropriate the language we use to describe our oppression:

(usernames censored for the privacy of those being harassed and those not participating in harassment. This conversation has so much fucking more btw holy shit.)

Accuses me, specifically, of being "desperate to be a victim". I'll remind you I quite literally tried to give him grace despite him consistently using my oppression as a bludgeon to win stupid fucking fandom arguments and harass people (see also, the link above about me calling him out for the Roe v. Wade thing):

(Yes, Raxis, I fucking loved pouring my heart out about how my dad would kick me out for being queer and how I've faced sexual harassment. Tee hee. I'm having soooooo much fun "being a victim". I don't 'argue', I tell you, because your horrible treatment of people and my feelings about it are not up for debate.)

And engages in racist behavior like calling being black a "multiplier" to deflect from criticism and mocking a WoC when she posts about how racism upsets her.

(Yes Raxis, WoC tend to get "big mad" and "suffer" when they encounter racism, you ghoul. Before you ask, the blacked out part just wasn't relevant to the conversation.)

And this is just the stuff I got out of a quick keyword search because I don't want to expend that much energy on this. God only knows what else is buried in there.

This tells me you aren't actually an ally. You're an "ally" when it's convenient for you or when you think it'll make you look good, but your allyship is conditional, and the second you're "crossed" by someone you claim to champion you throw their trauma back in their faces. Not even your supposed friends are safe from it, so what chance did we have of not getting harassed by you?

"But there's queer women in the Edelgard fandom who like him!" Okay? So he can't be engaging in harmful shit just because he has a queer friend? When has "I have a [blank] friend" EVER been an actual good faith defense against criticism? News flash, we're not a monolith, and just because some women and queer folk might like you or even agree with you doesn't mean you get to tell me how I should respond to my own fucking oppression. It is not your place to accuse me, a fucking queer woman, of having "internalized misogyny" or "internalized homophobia" every time I say something you don't personally like.

Frankly, from what I've seen of their server, it's less "queer women like him" and more like "queer women are too afraid to say anything against him" because whenever they try he cries to his pro-genocide mod buddy (THAT is a whole fucking story) who threatens to ban them.

And I'm not going to add these screenshots because I feel icky airing her personal business like that so explicitly, but I do have them. The woman involved in the censored screenshots above posted, in the server, about how unsafe she felt because she'd been threatened and silenced by cishet men for trying to talk about queerphobia. She left the server entirely after that.

And let's not forget what started this: he's thirty five years old and in many cases he's pulling this shit on people who are significantly younger than him. Exceeding a decade his junior in some cases. I point that out primarily for the power dynamic inherent to that. Not only is he privileged on the basis of race, gender, and orientation, he's fully developed and he knows what he's doing. He has the privilege of age and experience.

Fuck dude, he started going after some folks on Tumblr when they were still like? 18? 19? Not children, but fucking close.

I'll be very explicit because I know he's going to take this and try to accuse me of ageism, because that's what he always does when he gets called out for appropriating the language of social justice: you are a fucking adult. You have been an adult the entire time you have been in this fandom. As an adult, it's your job to be a fucking adult in these situations. Not to verbally abuse and harass inexperienced teens and early 20 somethings because they don't agree with your video game opinions. You are a grown ass 35 year old man man who thinks he's cool because he can "beat up", "cow", and "bitch slap" teenagers and early 20 somethings who are still developing, figuring themselves out, and learning how to express themselves in an articulate manner. Many of whom are already dealing with varying levels of actual trauma based on their upbringings (abusive, hateful, uncaring, or just generally unpleasant environments) or how they've been treated because of their identity (race, class, gender, sexual orientation, mental health, disability, sometimes multiple all at once) or both. That is why I keep bringing up your age.

It is quite possibly the single most embarrassing thing I have seen someone in fandom brag about. Not even just because you did it, Raxis, but because you're proud of it and you genuinely think it makes you look cool. It's embarrassing. You're embarrassing yourself.

[bohemian-nights]

I thought I had seen it all until I realized there were people who actually thought Laena killing herself in arguably the most painful way possible (burning to death) was okay. Not only was the way she died different from the book (still tragic btw) but also a lot more traumatizing. Making the decision to burn yourself to death really says something about your mental state (and the fact that this happens after she admits to Daemon she knows she’s his second choice 🥴).

This situation really traumatized everyone. Daemon who watched (not really Laena’s fault because she didn’t know he was there but still) her daughters Baela and Rhaena (losing a parent especially a mother is hard enough but to loose a parent by means of suicide is ten times harder) and then of course Laena herself who choose to burn to death!

It seemed as if through episodes 5-7 the writes weren’t sure whether they wanted Daemon and Laena to be happy together. Because you can see in a few scenes where Daemon and Laena genuinely look happy to be around one another and then there are others where they look miserable. Also another thing that bugged was how in the book after Baela and Rhaena are born Daemon returns to King's Landing to get the crown’s (Viserys’s) favor bestowed upon his children. Whereas in the show the last time Daemon has talked to let alone seen Viserys was ten years ago. It’s almost as if it was another subtle (but effective) way to say how Show!Daemon is constantly putting his pride above the betterment of his own family.

When it comes to Balea and Rhaena the way I've had to hyper analysis both (but especially Rhaena’s) body language in order to get a sense of their personality because they barely talk is infuriating. The way they are being used as arm candy is infuriating. Their relationship with Daemon is infuriating. We have not seen Daemon interact with daughters in six years. Not only that but one of those daughters feels as if he ignores her while he shipped the other one off to Driftmark (I know warding is a common thing in Westeros but when you take into account Daemon’s relationship with his daughters it really makes him appear more shitty).

His relationship with Laena was also so poorly portrayed. Not only did it serve no purpose but to make Daemon look like a ass but it also made Laena (a black women) seem like the miserable second choice (to the white woman).

If that was infuriating/disappointing enough after her death (that he very traumatized by) he not only fucks Rhaenyra but also marries her. Laena and Harwin both just died. Laenor (who Rhaenyra claimed to love) just lost his sister, Balea and Rhaena their mother, and Jace and Luke (Joffrey too but he’s too small to understand) their biological father.

Speaking of Laenor I was not of a fan of how they made him appear to be a druken bum who abandons the children he swears he loves (especially since said man is a black man🙄).

Yeah, they loved it and thought what she did was okay and bada** and yah know not 100% because she was likely severely depressed herself/out of her mind from a difficult labor because they wanted Laena out of the way for their ship(in large part due to racism).

Yes, Laena dies in the book(s), but she dies with her husband by her side after he helps her ride on the back of Vhagar one last time per her wishes. She’s loved by him. She’d never traumatize him or their children because she's not some poor pitiful unwanted woman. They cut that out in favor of “let me go light myself on fire because my husband doesn’t love me.”

The treatment of Laena by the showrunners and the fandom is so foul considering how before her race-bending people said that she was Daemon’s most beloved wife(and the woman he loved the most cause they liked to pretend that Nettles was just lust). People acknowledged her importance to him, but since she became Blackish she was his second choice and Daemon never loved her as he did Rhaenyra(the woman he ended up choking out after she gave birth and will eventually abandon in favor of the actual woman he loves but I’m getting ahead of myself 😗).

Her relationship with Vhagar(a literal dragon) was her most important relationship. Or it’s so sad that we didn’t get to see Rhaenyra and Daemon slobbering on each other as Laena sat back and watched I mean it’s sad that we didn’t get to see Laena worshiping Rhaenyra I mean it’s so sad that Laena and Rhaenyra didn’t happen(little evidence for that it happened in the book). That’s what we should really be focusing on.

Who cares about her relationship with Daemon or her girls(which Rhaenyra’s rachet fans like to claim as hers because Queenie gave birth to a lizard and Laena was the only one who actually gave Daemon daughters. So they cope by saying Baela and Rhaena are her legacy and not show!Laena who birthed and raised them). Laena’s such a bada** 🙃

Sadly because of the fandoms meth induced delusions, I mean 100% canon observations/commentary on how Dumbnyra are soulmates and Daemon changes for Rhaenyra his one true love didn’t pan out how they wanted to(choke gate was instant karma🤣), they still harp on about Laena even though she’s second choice.

The show screwed Laena and her girls all the way over and the fandom used that to further their delusions. It’s not okay, but there is still hope for Baela and Rhaena and in the end, they've done a crap job with all the characters(so I feel a little less salty about the situation).

(I do hope that Daemon acknowledges how he didn’t treat Laena how he should’ve to them and says that he was distant because they reminded him too much of her. Again it’s not okay, but a conversation like that is needed).

Laenor’s characterization🫠 The only reason why they didn't kill him off(and why they made him into a “deadbeat”) is that they wanted to make Rhaenyra look better. It looks extremely bad to have her ordering her husband's death(or if she turns a blind eye to Daemon murdering him) so that she could marry Daemon.

Allegedly he’s going to die off-screen this season so that whole plotline was done solely to protect Rhaenyra’s image.

[marcusrobertobaq]

List your Gavin headcanons, I am now curious

I suck at headcanons but these are the cop headcanons I was talking about:

Gavin joined the force around 10yrs before when we meet him in the game

Back in patrol he used to be rough with suspects even if he knew they were innocent, y'know the ego, never admitting he's wrong and shit. The use of force is a bit over the limit too, throwing people on the ground when ain't that necessary, pinning on the wall, car hood and shit. Your average police brutality metaphor.

Always an escalating prick: if he can make the environment kinda tense he will, with authoritative and sometimes sarcastic tones. He also tends to joke about the suspect behind 'em back, calling 'em idiot and shit like this.

On scene he used to make questionable jokes with his pals (that were like him) when with a suspect detained or arrested especially if related to DUI.

His superior on Patrol Unit used to be "corrupt" too so he was always kinda backed up cuz although he was an asshole he got things done and u know what cops think about some types of suspect, especially the hostile ones

If he can go for his gun he gonna go for his gun and gonna point it in your face.

Although Gavin could be considered a corrupt cop for having power trips dude knows the laws, the thing is he does what he thinks that needed to be done to make the wheels turn. I'd say he got his own laws.

When going to clubs or bars things almost always ended up in conflicts or fighting and i'd say even if he took a beat mf gave it back doesn't matter if the mf is a 2m bodybuilder. Ofc mf drop the "cop card" to put people in 'em place. This habit continues to this day

For some reason I believe Reed been a detective for at least 4 years when we meet him. He thought about trying SWAT before or even K9 (mf love dogs, hunter dogs) but found himself in financial related crimes division, later in major crimes like homicide. He liked the detective even tho was a hell of work and u couldn't have peace. But it's a popular area to try building a career.

Dude's kinda interested in firearms.

He's still got the habit of joking even on the most gruesome crime scenes. It's like things don't impact him that much to the point if he discovered something he didn't like about the victim he would joke about 'em death

He got a damn of a dirty mouth esp when not inside the station and he can be disrespectful in some moments

He's known ass Det. Asshole in his division. Dude's always sarcastic and arrogant, and wanting mfs to laugh or agree with him. Some actually pretend being in the circle but still think dude's an asshole and invasive sometimes, especially the women.

He'll often make homophobic and transphobic jokes especially if he wanna piss someone off - mostly about men, if fruity or too feminine or trans women that looks "kinda masculine". Nothing personal, tho.

If the person is fucking an android or is an android "lover" he'll also shit on this, usually saying things like "you can't fuck a real person so you need a piece of plastic as replacement". It's basically like asking for him to look down on mfs. He also bully his co-workers about it, especially if the coworker dislike androids too. It's like an offense.

He got very peculiar opinions on Tracis, especially the fem ones. By peculiar I mean quite negative and I got the impression he would do some bad things to 'em. I'm talking about destroying 'em, ofc.

He also ain't got respect for "the bitches" - u just gotta look and/or act like one, btw. Well... He'll joke about it and be quite disrespectful. Men can be bitches too, according to him. "Pussies".

On the contrary of what most of the fandom think doesn't matter if he kinda see an android like an individual he'll still see 'em as inferior beings that should kneel to him and kiss his feet and he'll carry this mentality for a good time. The rebellion actually makes him "hate" android more cuz now androids are giving "orders" and making demands.

He sometimes bully the android cops too. He just likes making fun of 'em, bumping into 'em on purpose sometimes even making 'em fall to the ground and saying "oops! Sorry" in sarcastic tone. Ofc when things are more empty at the station and nobody gonna complain about it

He'll be an ass about androids while they're passive, and he expects 'em to always bow down in the end. Even if the android did something absurd he gonna joke about it or force 'em to bow. The moment the android becomes visibly unstable dude gonna shit on his pants and gonna order somebody to deal with the shit - which was the case in The Interrogation with Ortiz's android. But I assume most human characters are like this as they're not used to unstable androids or see 'em as just defective machines comparable to your printer going wild in the office

He like telling stories about his cases and experiences to anyone next to him in the moment. Even if it's some fucked up shit mf is always with his sense of humor on point.

This fucked up and sarcastic sense of humor happen to be one of his manipulation methods in interrogations, where he constructs a bridge with the criminal so they feel like in a friendly chit-chat and confess. But his favorite method is roughing up suspects, if he can get physical, punch mfs he will so if mfs don't tell him what he want he kinda doesn't mind that much, if u know what i mean.

Bro is aiming for supervisor ranks for the name but he actually sucks in being in a team. Dude always wanna order everybody and do everything himself, not obeying orders that goes against what he think is right. He hates some people are in the way of him achieving it.

If the "lead" detective on scene he doesn't wanna anyone fucking around, even if the person is a witness. He tends to escalate things or even get the witness "roughly" detained if they piss him off.

Some co-workers try avoiding him, fear him but some are just assholes like him. Not the majority, tho. Sometimes mf can be an asshole but dislikes Reed

Although he's a complicated person he has been more cautious in not having his shit being discovered by superiors not cuz he think it's wrong but cuz he doesn't wanna mfs screaming in his ear and fucking with his stairway to success. Shit going public also wouldn't be a good deal.

Bro just wanna get the job done to add to his list of accomplishments, to show how although he got an asshole reputation mfs can't say he's a bad detective. And it's even the reason some superiors are actually cool in pretending they didn't see shit - we're dealing with criminals, after all. They're less than animals.

He knows Hank covers criminals and it makes him pissed how Jeffrey backs him up just cuz he's his friend, not cuz Hank is doing a good work. It's all about the old times. Gavin looks down on the type of criminals Hank cover, even tho he kinda pits 'em. But there's one reason: androids. As I said before Gavin jokes about mfs addicted to drugs, he looks down on 'em most of the time - alcohol and red ice being the common ones. Control the shit, don't let it control ya is the deal.

Some mfs already tried bribery with Gavin cuz they were "relevant" or something so minuscule there's was "but why?" in the air but mf throw it back at 'em and kinda laughs. If he gotta investigate what end up to be a fellow police officer he'll do it and be pleasured in fucking mf's life, unless mf is really friends with him. The issue is when some commands come from above him, it's another reason he's aiming for higher ranks. He doesn't care if he would act kinda corrupt as long as he gets what he wants done.

He knows about the overall police reputation and how he can be seen as one of the rotten apples and i don't think he cares about cleaning the org's name, just about getting his work done.

During the "Android Crime Unit" episode he was the only one that thought this whole thing was sus af. But it was out of his hands, had superiors involved on this so he just let it go even if he hated it. Although he can be impulsive he got good eyes and ears to detect fuckery going on.

He ain't a fan of CyberLife at all not only cuz of android but cuz he dislike megacorporations like this who got 'em hands on everybody like this, replacing everybody like they're nothing. If he got the opportunity of shitting on 'em he will. Being replaced by one of 'em shitty products is a damn offense, almost a threat.

He dislikes the gov but when the deviant crisis happens his opinion on androids doesn't change. He actually wants 'em to be set on fire, gunned down, destroyed, even if it means it's helping CyberLife. He's there to serve his city, after all. LE gotta show who's the boss in this mf. Curiously this a sentiment most of cops share even after a successful revolution.

He got this "badass motherfucker alive" sentiment. Back when he was in uniform he used to take pictures of him with hand on holster or gun in hands, "like a boss" poses and shit. Y'know, those cops who like some aviator glasses and badge always on sight. It still kinda a thing now with plain clothes. He just thinks he's the best mf ever esp at work - always trynna prove being superior

There's a very good way of shutting him up, tho: letting him talking to the walls or being too polite in counter-argumenting him at work. He'll get angry fr. He doesn't like when mfs think they're better than him or more "successful" than him at his job.

In the end he's just a high-nose bastard. Everybody facepalms and sigh deeply when they know Det. Reed is in the area.

Some stuff may contradict another but I guess I really don't give a fuck now? I'll have a proper list with a proper english in my docs some day, maybe February 31st.

[comphetkoncass]

i think the biggest divide in fanon enjoyers and canon enjoyers is that there's a lot of hearsay and exaggeration on the fanon side, and it's frequently used to put down characters that canon enjoyers like.

certain headcanons and hurt/comfort bait are fan-favorites in fanon because they're tropey and easily digestible without thinking about it. they take popular character tropes from media at large (the hacker guy, the sensitive one, the sexy one) and reshape canon characters to fit into that trope more easily. but when canon enjoyers see these hcs pop up in our favorite character's tag, we're sort of left scratching our heads, because... well, that's not them. it's especially baffling when they take canon-adjacent scenes (sometimes even extremely compelling ones!) and reshape them to suit these fanon tropes. these often either didn't happen at all, or it didn't happen like that. all the context that makes the compelling scenes interesting to people that read it has been taken away and stripped of meaning, to repackage it as meaningful to people who haven't read it.

some of this also happens in the comics themselves, though. characters can be written as wildly ooc depending on the writer. sometimes they're made spicier and create needless drama, and other times they're made extremely bland and brand-friendly, taking away most of what made them compelling.

there's definitely some nuance here considering fanon and canon writers frequently do the same thing. and i'd hate to be more mad at fans who engage with this content for free, than the people who get paid to write some of the newer garbage.

at the same time though, fandom is clearly influencing canon. and for those of us who like certain characters who have gotten more and more bland and fandom-y... it kind of feels like the end of the road for us. because we can point to older, more consistent, more compelling characterization from older eras, 2 reboots ago. we can talk about how impactful and cool and moving our favorites were, back then. but they aren't like that anymore -- not in canon, and not in fan content. and myths get spread about them, or they're used as bland accessories that are a faint echo of relationships that used to matter but haven't in over a decade due to reboot shenanigans.

and that sucks.

and we frequently get painted as nags and killjoys for pointing out this stuff in fandom. when we say, "hey, that never happened. she literally never did that" or "hey, you might not know this, but due to weird canon shenanigans, that wasn't really them who did that awful thing, it was this other person pretending to be them" or "hey, X shouldn't be mad at Y for not being there, because Y was literally dead during this time" or "hey, if he's his love interest here, why doesn't he know anything about him?" it's seen as policing fandom.

we're really not trying to be killjoys. but it's pretty frustrating having these myths and misinformation and major mischaracterization spread when it's not true. especially when some of the myths and misinformation that get spread frequently overlap with sexist, racist, and ableist tropes.

even attempts at fixing dc's genuine issues with xenophobia tend to fall flat. and that's because because they frequently do this by giving more credence to the fanon interpretation of the character than how they were actually written.

gonna end this essay here, because i think i've said all i really feel about the issue.

but i truly don't hate all of fanon. i can enjoy a nice batfam hurt/comfort romp here and there. i know that every au is legitimately its own alternate universe and that's totally cool. it just gets to be pretty off-putting when these aus include characters that just... wouldn't do that shit. and people start believing that that's actually how these characters act.

[delusinalandpassionate]

Sorry to bother you. I saw that you'd gone through 4.5 and couldn't help but try to make a plea to convince you to join in the boycott of the game going forward.

Project Moon hasn't made a single announcement since the Korean-only notice of the story illustrator's absurd(and certainly illegal) layoff. I'm thankful a lot of tumblr's been made aware, but. They're clearly hoping the situation will blow over with 4.5's release, possibly with many international fans never even hearing of this... this absolute idiocy they've commited. They won't post English or Japanese explanations, they didn't even include the Korean one in the in-game announcement. They know they're in the wrong. It's cowardly and their horrible treatment of their employees and contractors need to face justice. We have to make clear we don't approve of these practices, because if we let them get away with this, in the present, they'll be doing it forever. Their actions have shown all they care for is the capital they get from active users, directly and indirectly.

I realize it might be hard to let go of the characters and the unique world of project moon that you've become fond of. Isn't it the same for us all? But I implore you to consider refraining from logging in, at least for a little while. The investments they get, that keep the company going smoothly, are tied closely to the number of active daily and monthly users, especially after a big update like now. If the international fandom could join in the boycott(not logging in, deleting the game or requesting refunds through the app store and steam if they've spent money on it), projmoon will eventually have to address the situation if they want to continue servicing limbus. I mean, there are other factors such as pressure from news media and the possiblity of a lawsuit from the illustrator, but this is the most definite way.

Projmoon's broken our faith in the worst way possible. They'd rather indulge the outrageous demands of a hate group that antagonised their employee over evidence of nothing and tanked their game's reviews for fun than show an ounce of sense, and personally? Those very employees and contractors seem to have been the heart and soul of the stories I fell in love with, and with kjh refusing to even pretend to understand the very themes his games have been built on, I can no longer take any of it seriously either.

Uh, well. The ask's become a bit of a slog to get through. If you have anything you want a clearer explanation on I'd gladly answer, and if you want to keep on playing I can't stop you. And I suppose it might not feel fair that you were the one I addressed, out of the many, many who are doing the same.

But thanks for reading anyway, because I loved their games, loved anticipating the future stories they'd tell, and kjh turned out to be the kind of asshole who fires a longtime employee over the phone at 11 pm over baseless claims with not a shred of regard for labor laws, and I am at a loss at the absurdity of this entire... thing. I had to say something. Hell world.

To my fault, I didn't think about boyscot as act of protest by myself, and saw people suggesting it on Twitter only when finished 4.5. It made me feel really stupid, especially when I saw graph showing how many people visited game. But now I'm not going to return to the game, at least until PMoon makes an announcement. I also feel horrible and confused, especially with the amount of false information around, which makes it extremely difficult to trust anyone right now. But I'm trying to stay optimistic.

Also hope that at least my mistake, will help people, satisfying their curiosity without need to read by themselves.

[transgender-png]

i didn't wanna tack this on my last reblog bc its so long and i didnt wanna take away from ranboos speech either but. theres some specific parts my brain has latched on to from that.

first off being bazoingas, them acknowledging how busty their vtuber and people's art of them was hilarious. i love seeing him explore his identity more, i love that he's comfortable enough to do that. it gives me hope and courage to do the same, and i see a lot of myself in ranboo in terms of gender identity and expression. and something about the phrase "young queer kid" and how we helped that queer kid makes my heart sing. like. they were a young queer kid. they were scared at one point. just like me. just like a lot of us. but if he can make it this far, maybe we can too

and although the whole thing is mostly addressing what the community has been doing wrong recently, i melted when he mentioned how much he appreciates us. bAcK iN tHe dAy, before live streaming and especially twitch became so popular, there was always such a big barrier between the content creator and their audience. you knew your favourite CC appreciated you, sure, but you were always aware of that barrier and how it would always be there. now tho, for better or for worse (thafs a different topic that im too migrainey to tackle rn) that barrier has become a little.. transparent? i guess? it's more like glass now. it's still there, and you're still aware of it, but it has become so much easier to make a real connection with your audience as a creator, and vice versa.

seeing ranboo talk about how he has fun with chat and appreciates us.. it makes me happier than i can accurately describe. ranboo always seems genuinely excited to meet fans and is so active in their own community. it's one of the things about them that charmed me when i was first getting into their content, is how much they clearly loved their community.

but it also makes me sad how much he's been having to correct the community lately. i wont pretend im not part of that issue at all, bc im not perfect and ive definitely broken a rule or two or crossed a boundary once, intentional or not.

but ive been stepping away from ranboos content recently. part of it was not being into their new content as much, as im not a huge fan of horror (but that has been steadily changing for me) but a lot of it was the community. ive watched a lot of great fandoms and communities go sour because people cared too much about the wrong things. i don't want that to happen to something/one that has helped me so much.

but i don't want to end this on a bad note. one of my favourite parts of being a boober is the community (and the name). ranboo fans are some of the most creative, supportive, passionate (even if the passion is misplaced) and welcoming people ive met. even though its easy to forget, especially with what's been going on lately, i try to remind myself and others that there are good people in this community. they can be funny and witty and talented and inventive and observant and so many other things!! this community is filled with good people!!

and at the end of the day, we're qll here for more or less the same reason.

we like ranboo. we enjoy his content and his personality. for a lot of us, ranboo has helped us through some dark times, and led us to make some great friends. some of us are here from the old enderian-platonic-husband days and some of us are here from generation loss and some of us are here for the variety horror games and some of us are just here for minecraft content and a million other reasons. ranboo has charmed their way into the jearts of me and many others. some of us consider finding ranboo to be one of the best things to ever happen to us.

ive never been good at wrapping up these things but ig ill end with. remember where we all came from, and why we're all here.

whether you're a long term fan, a new boober, or have stepped away as the content has shifted, we all were impacted in some way, hopefully positive, by this creator. he's helped a lot kf us, whether it's with mental health, starting our own content creation journeys, inspiring us to make art or mess around with how we present ourselves, or just made us laugh with their jokes and offhand comments, we're all here because of ranboo.

and idk about you, but the fact that so many people can and do come together all because of one person.. that's pretty fucking beautiful to me.

basically, live, laugh, love ranboo. <3

[mischief-lies-and-stories]

Loki Ships

All right, I think it’s time to jump into the inevitable, since ships can make or break whether or not some people care what I have to say, and I get it. I considered including them in my pinned post, but that was already way too long. 

I ship Loki with a lot of people. The first time I heard the term fandom bicycle, a friend was using it to refer to Loki, and I took it to heart (and probably also a challenge). As I said in my pinned post, though, I mostly ship Loki with guys, since his canon women love interests are often kind of shitty to him. This doesn’t deter me from the potential of shipping him with women (I acknowledge and celebrate that he’s bi/pan, after all) but the women that he’s around tend to be assholes to him, so the men kind of have to pick up the slack. (Is the assholery deserved? Yeah, sometimes. But I also like the idea of people being soft with him. And I think he deserves that sometimes, too.)

So I’m going to explain a little bit about the ship in general, why I ship it personally, and the canon likelihood of it, whether or not it’s likely to become canon in comics or the MCU or both or neither. Also spoilers for Where Mischief Lies, The Defenders (1983), The Defenders (2021), and Defenders: Beyond.

 Thorki: Might as well start with my most divisive ship, though if you read my Loki playlist post, you’ll already know I ship this. I believe this is the first person I came to ship with Loki. This is obviously Thor and Loki, and I get it. I do. I am not here to defend my questionable taste at all. I am not here to make the flimsy arguments people sometimes make for this ship, like that he’s adopted so “they aren’t really siblings, so it’s not really incest.” I think that’s damn rude to people who are adopted and have adoptive siblings. Frankly, these are fictional characters who are fictionally siblings and I know the difference between fiction and reality. Am I supportive of IRL incest? Not particularly, no. But Loki and Thor are not real (and thank God for that; Loki would annoy the hell out of me). So I’m not here to defend it. I just think that they have a lot of chemistry, and a lot of romantic and sexual tension. Especially in Thor: Ragnarok. Like towards the end, they have this whole conversation about how Loki belongs on Sakaar, how he can flourish there and rule over Sakaar and it would be the ideal place for him. And both of them (at least verbally) agree that this is the case. And then Thor leaves him basically seizing from electric shock on the floor of a hangar. And then the next time we see Loki, he has come back to Asgard anyway, to help Thor save the people. And if that’s not love (familial, romantic, whatever), I don’t know what is. 

          Canon Likelihood…….Unlikely.

          Not even possible, it’s never going to happen. In the comics, not a chance. In the MCU, not a chance. Marvel’s never going to make incest happen, especially not with Disney as their parent company. And frankly, I don’t want them to. I don’t trust them to do this right or be sensitive about it. They will never not be able to spin it as some shocking joke no matter how serious they pretend to be about it, if they ever were to do it. And with the level of backlash that would happen because of it, it wouldn’t be worth it. So I’m just content to read and write fanfic and look at fanart. I don’t need it to be canon and it’s never going to be canon and that’s okay. Sometimes that’s okay.

Theoki: Theo Bell (from Loki: Where Mischief Lies) and Loki. Theo Bell (as I’ve said previously) is gay, very snarky and is a good match personality-wise for Loki in the novel, he walks with a cane as a result of becoming disabled due to a homophobic attack, and he works essentially for Odin on Midgard (but Odin really only calls on him and his coworkers when he really needs something, like when he needs something for his younger son to do when he exiles him to Earth). This is speed-run Enemies-to-Lovers. They don’t like each other at first, mostly because Loki does not want to be there. And Theo’s basically like ‘You don’t want to be here, got it. You’re here, though, so let’s deal with this.’ And then pretty quickly Loki’s like, ‘Oh shit. He’s hot…Oh shit. He’s smart… Oh shit. Do I like him?….Oh shit. His freckles are like stars.’ (He thinks the last sentence almost exactly, it’s wild.) So I think it’s very cute and I don’t think they got enough time together. 

          Canon likelihood…….Depends on your definition of canon.

          Did they kiss? Spoiler alert: Yes. Are they together? Well, uh, about that… So this book is supposed to serve as a prequel to the events in the MCU. Do you see Theo anywhere in the MCU? There’s your answer. (Which sounds like I’m implying something different, so you should still read this book, because you don’t know what’s going to happen.) So at this point, at this time, is it likely that this relationship is going to come back and be 100% canon? No. Not likely. But in my opinion, how I define canon, has this ship been canonized? I generally define canon as requited affection that’s acted upon, so Yes, this was a canon ship to me. (Still hoping my unlikely Loki theories are true, though, so this ship can come back and be present tense canon.) I wish this could be an established relationship right now, but given the circumstances of the events of the story and the purpose the story is supposed to serve in the MCU, it’s not possible.

Lokius: Loki and Mobius, from the tv series. I was resistant to this for a little while. Mostly I was finding Owen Wilson in the MCU in general and interacting with Loki hard to believe. It was weird to me and I could not unsee Owen Wilson for a chunk of the show, and that’s partially what was preventing me from shipping it. But the tie fixing scene, while it wasn’t what got me to ship it, it did make me go Oh, fuck. This is going to end with me shipping this. And then I continued to resist it for a few episodes, and then it hit me, and now I’ve been bitten by the Lokius bug. I don’t remember precisely what was the turning point for me, but it was late. I think it was probably “You could be whoever, whatever you want to be. Even someone good.” I think they’re perfect together. I think it’s an interesting dynamic, because Mobius knows him so well. But at the beginning, he knows Loki from this clinical standpoint. He knows how Loki’s story is supposed to go and his personality, from studying versions of him, but he doesn’t know him. And then spending the show getting to know Loki himself. I think they neglected somewhat to show this on a nuanced level in the show itself, but the working relationship and budding friendship between Loki and Mobius is what ultimately gets Mobius to realize that the TVA is kind of crap and needs to be shut down because the TVA doesn’t know everything. Because he gets to know Loki as a person, that he’s not just a story or the predetermined events that have been laid out in the timeline by some higher power, just because that’s how Kang has decided that’s how he wants Loki’s life to go (or something to that effect). I think there’s something inherently interesting about taking how you understand someone from a general, macro level and thinking you know everything about that person, and then getting to know someone on a more personal and intimate basis. At the risk of perpetuating a sort of racist rewrite of historical events, it’s kind of reminiscent of Disney’s Pocahontas in a way. Where you have these assumptions about a person or group of people based on what you’ve been told by your superiors, but by getting to know a particular individual in that group, you change your preconceived notions about that person. And then taking it a step further into a romantic level. 

          Canon likelihood…….Likely

          I think they fucked up in season one. And I think they know they fucked up. I’m sorry if people ship the other thing (I’m trying not to type the ship name so it doesn’t come up in searches and people think I tagged my hate.), this is not the place for you. I think they fucked up where they were like “Look, we’re so progressive! Here’s two bisexual characters.” And then they were like “No homo. Here’s some selfcest instead.” And obviously Loki can have a girlfriend and I’d be fine with that, but making that woman love interest a variant, essentially just an alternate version of him? That feels like they only let Loki say “A bit of both,” so they could pat themselves on the back. They didn’t want to act on that. But the only woman who makes any sense to pair him with, with whom he has the most interaction with in the series…is himself. But they went with that anyway. 

So the level of likelihood is either one, they realized they fucked up and now they’re going to fix it. Or two, (and I don’t think they have enough foresight for this) they knew they fucked up before they even aired it, and are like “This is the journey that Loki is on. He will eventually break away from himself, and fall in love with somebody who is not himself.” Or three, not understand what bisexuality is and be like “We need equal! He kissed a girl and now he’s gotta kiss a guy!” [Which implies there are only two genders, but they don’t even know what genderfluidity is, so I’m not confident they have any understanding of the diversity of gender identity either.] So I think it’s likely (especially the last option, unfortunately, given their track record with representation). I’m not sure they’re going to do it well, but I think it’s possible. I think they’ve set it up well for this to be canon. I think there’s some romcom story beats that are already present in season one, despite their decision to go with a different ship. It’s just a matter of how much they’re willing to break out of this mold of heteronormativity.

Frostiron: Tony Stark and Loki. I like this because I am partial to Enemies to Lovers tropes. I think the fandom has done a really good job of taking like two minutes of onscreen interaction and making an entire ship out of it. I think they have a lot of things in common, which can help them bond. They both have daddy issues, they’re both kind of spoiled, and a little self-centered, which can cause some conflict that will eventually be resolved. And they both have quite a bit of trauma that’s ultimately caused by the same big purple asshole, so that can also bring them closer together. I have a lot of feelings about them, which has caused me to write a six-part series about them and their relationship and how they can relate to each other. (I’ve attempted a few times to write a seventh part, so we’ll see if that ever sees the light of day, but they have certainly not relinquished their hold on me.)

          Canon Likelihood…….Not likely.

          Absolutely not likely, not a chance. Comics, no. MCU, no. In the MCU they had like a two-minute interaction and that was it. It was cute, they were snarking at each other, Tony offered him a drink, but that was about it. In the comics, they have a little bit more interactions but it’s still very limited. The most I know about their interactions in the comics that are not antagonistic comes from (I believe) The God Who Fell to Earth, and there’s still not a whole lot. There is some explicit dialogue of Tony respecting Loki’s pronouns, so that’s chill. Tony knows that Loki’s genderfluid, so I like that. But again, that’s about it. Ultimately, the places were Tony and Loki have the most interaction are in Avengers Academy, the mobile game, and I don’t believe there are romance options for anybody in that game (I didn’t play that game for very long, so I don’t remember much; there was too much multitasking and it was stressing me out). And in the animated tv show Avengers Assemble, and even there it was only like an episode or two. (And in later seasons, Tony isn’t even in much of the show, let alone Loki.) So I don’t think it’s likely we’ll ever see a canon frostiron, unless we get like an episode (or issue) of What If that’s like, “What If…Tony Stark was gay” or something, but that’s both unlikely and I can think of several characters more likely to be Tony’s What If boyfriend before Loki. 

Cloudki: This is a ship name I made up on the spot, because no one else knows who this character is. (And that hurts me, deeply.) Cloud has a fraught history in the comics, and ultimately, it’s not much of a history at all, they’re in maybe three stories since their debut in 1983. Cloud is basically the personification of a cloud nebula (hence why they’re called Cloud), and they’re genderfluid! Primarily because, when they made their debut in the eighties, they crash landed to earth and then their essence combined with the dying souls of this straight couple whose car they crashed into. And the essence of the star lost their memory and decided to take on the couple’s likeness and sort of absorb their souls so they could survive on earth. And the comic, while weirdly progressive for the time, was still published in the eighties. So you have to get past the Comics Code Authority or whatever it’s called (which is basically censoring anything it considers remotely queer), and also it’s the eighties and the author was cis and (I’m pretty sure) straight. And I’ve read articles that said he had a friend who was a transwoman, so he was able to get some help maybe (if he asked her). But at the same time, if she’s a transwoman she’s not genderfluid, so it’s not exactly the same thing. So while it’s done surprisingly more sensitively than expected, there is still a lot of transphobia directed at this sweet summer child. And they don’t know any better so they kind of adjust to this shit, so it’s rough. 

         So that’s Cloud’s debut. It sucks, and we don’t talk about it. But Cloud comes back a few decades later in The Defenders (this is a new run; they also debuted in The Defenders). When last we left them, Cloud had figured out they were a nebula, and people were being kinda shitty to them on earth, so they were like Fuck this, I’m supposed to be a star, good-bye. And so for the last few decades they’ve been in space as their true self. So they get summoned by Dr. Strange to help the Defenders solve a mystery through the cosmos. (Cosmos as in I don’t get this part. So in the comics, the cosmos are like eras of existence in the universe. I think most events take place in like the twelfth or thirteenth cosmos. The Defenders travel backwards through the cosmos through this story.) In the middle of one of the battles, they’re like “Hey, by the way, I would like to go by they/them pronouns.” (Because up until this point they’ve been going by she/her pronouns.) And everyone else is like “Yeah, sure.” And then no one messes up for the rest of the book. Because Al Ewing is the best. And then like halfway through the book, they get to one of the cosmos where the emphasis is like beauty and imagination and color or something. And Cloud is like “I’m going to stay here. This is a good place for me.” And they transform their body into one that they choose, one that is no longer resembling the guy or the girl whose souls they absorbed. And Cloud’s living their best life in this cosmos. And that’s the last we see of Cloud in this book. (And I almost stopped reading the book at this point, because I read Defenders: Beyond first because Loki’s in it, met Cloud, and then read The Defenders, which comes first, just for Cloud because Loki isn’t in this one.) 

        Then in Defenders: Beyond, Dr. Strange has to call the Defenders together again. But he only calls a few of the original Defenders and the rest are new people. And one of the people he calls is Loki. And this is right where Loki: Agent of Asgard ended. (And thank God for that, because whoever took over for Loki between AoA and DB fucked him up. I don’t know who that was or what that run was or if it was just Thor, because I never read it, but I’m upset by that author and the new Loki that trashed all of his character development. Because Al Ewing did some great things. Okay moving on.) Frankly, I don’t know what the fuck is going on in this book. We’re still traveling through the cosmos, but I’m very confused. I only read this for Loki and then I met Cloud and read Defenders. So they’re going through the cosmos and they get rescued (Loki especially) by the members of the imagination cosmos, and one of the members of the imagination cosmos is still Cloud. This is similar to MCU Frostiron, because Cloud and Loki have a very important conversation towards the end, but that’s about the extent of their interaction.

        My reason for shipping these two (since this post is long as fuck, as usual), because I know nothing about Cloud and Cloud is known by nobody but I would die for Cloud I love them so much, is that they’re both genderfluid. And I think gf4gf is a great pairing honestly (I’m not super interested in a relationship myself anymore, but I think the only partner I’d want at this point would also be genderfluid, so I’m projecting a tad). And I think they would be great for each other and I love it. I think Cloud could really help the present Loki come back to himself and deal with these memories that AoA Loki wiped from him so that he could be this stupid Loki that doesn’t have any of the character development, that at the eleventh hour of this book (I think) regained all his memories and now has to deal with it all and defend the cosmos. And also, where the hell is Verity? Ya know? Like, does he remember Verity? How much did he forget? So I think Cloud would be a good help to rehabilitate him and then they fall in love.

        Canon likelihood…….Not completely unlikely, things have to happen.

        I’m not gonna straight up say unlikely, because things happen in comics all the time. And comics go back and fold in on themselves and change things all the time. So I’m gonna say probably not likely, but maybe. Here are the things that are gonna have to happen in order for this to take place: One, Cloud needs to come back. I think the last time they showed up was in Defenders: Beyond, and that came out last year. Preferably, Al Ewing needs to write Cloud, because Al Ewing is the best and I love him. Two, Loki from Agent of Asgard needs to come back. Loki as it is needs to regain his memories and become the perfect version of himself again. Preferably written by Al Ewing, because Al Ewing is the best and I love him. Three, Cloud and Loki need to be in the same comic at some point. They’re two completely different characters, drawn together by the ties of fate and tarot cards that, for some reason, Dr. Strange has. And also the cosmos (because he didn’t draw Cloud’s tarot in Defenders: Beyond). Therefore, it’s difficult to get them back together, because Cloud isn’t even in this cosmos right now, let alone on the planet, and Loki doesn’t even remember meeting them. Four, Cloud has to have some romantic capabilities. I don’t know what their romantic capabilities are. In their original run, they tried to fall in love with Moondragon, and then also with some other guy (I don’t remember his name). That dude was transphobic as fuck. Moondragon, the second she found out Cloud was genderfluid, became transphobic as fuck, because it was the eighties, and neither of these characters were gay yet. So did that turn Cloud off to romance forever? That was also before Cloud realized they were a cloud nebula; did Cloud realizing that they are technically supposed to be an insentient celestial being turn Cloud off to romance forever? I don’t know. Five, even if Cloud has some capacity of romantic inclination, Cloud and Loki have to be attracted to each other. They have the tiniest of interactions ever, so who’s to say? Certainly not me, except in my fanfictions, which I haven’t written yet, because I don’t know enough about Cloud. So possibly, but unlikely. And that makes me sad. 

This is the only ship, besides Lokius, where if it doesn’t become canon, I’m going to be a Victorian heroine wasting away on my fainting couch, because I’m very disappointed.