#i’ve honestly grown so tired of mlm ships

[chronic-cynic]

Watching the AO3 top ship finals go down (here it is), and the amount of people talking about how the mlm ship (not naming it, in case I get dragged for having an opinion) deserves to win because it’s a part of Tumblr history is just… ridiculous.

Like, that is absolutely correct, but why exactly did it become a part of Tumblr history? Why has Tumblr had an obsession with non-canon (this particular ship is canon, though, but it seemed like a last minute decision from the writers) mlm ships, whilst ignoring any potential wlw ones?

Think just a little, guys. I promise you that you’ll get there.

(Dropping my favourite video ever because I can)

[haydeetebelins]

hi seeruh the salty questions all odds for modern warfare

kadian salts the earth. ll accepting.

What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?*

Ghost/Roach. I don’t get the characterizations that fandom provides for them, and as time goes on I’ve come to appreciate them more as a BROTP than any of the typical boxes that fandom fits them into. I also don’t get Toarcher unless it’s Kelly and Sass’s brand tbh.

Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion?

Nah in this fandom we ride together or you die a pedophile or their apologist. No inbetweens.

Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?*

Soap/Ghost. Don’t get me wrong, I ship it with Chals and I ship it hard, but there’s a lot of disgusting rape fic out there, and I fucking despise it. It’s soured the more mainstream ship for me to the point I only appreciate it as a facet of shipping my Soap muse.

Is there anything you used to like but can’t stand now?*

I used to like Shepherd bashing but tbh it’s so on the nose and flies in the face of canon in most fics that I just... stop. Stop making him an obvious mustache twirling villain, stop making characters dump on him as C.O., stop having characters suspect he’s evil or untrustworthy just because you know what happens in Loose Ends. It’s lazy. I hate Shepherd as much as you but this is a shitty trope and you all know it.

Most disliked character(s)? Why?

I actually kind of love what everyone brings to the table in canon? MW is one of the few COD games where I don’t have particularly strong feelings of loathing towards any one character -- I can even write Shepherd and Makarov as multi-faced in my fics despite how loathsome they are, because I do think they are well-rounded and fascinating as characters in terms of the narrative.

Honestly it’s Makarov’s mooks here. Not the Inner Circle but the likes of Volk, Waraabe, Rojas, etc. No character, no purpose but to move the plot along and build levels around... So much more could have been done here, and we get none of it.

Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

Hi have you met my sons Kamarov and Yuri? I love them. They’re my children. Yuri is my absolute darling, and Kamarov is a former muse of mine. I’ve sene lots of bashing of each, and even more sympathetic Yuri portrayals tend to oust him as a side character or wildly OOC. It’s at the point I only trust Tin and my fellow COD RP veterans in writing him because no one does my baby boy right.

Unpopular opinion about XXX character?

U didn’t list a character u HECKIN nerd.

Unpopular opinion about the manga/show?

if you mean tinmeshi’s shitty, shitty rape doujins then my unpopular opinion is that we need to burn them all and make the original artist pay for the cost of clean up.

Instead of XYZ happening, I would have made ABC happen…

Hey what if Soap’s death wasn’t a cheap cop out to tug at the player’s heart strings and he got to be more than the sacrificial lion designed to make us hate a character we already hate even more and motivate Price to kill Makarov even though he’s wanted to do that for two games? What if Yuri got more of a character arc? What if Makarov and Price had a real showdown instead of Dust to Dust? Man I’d do so much don’t test me I’m already writing ten canon divergent fics at any one time.

What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom?

The constant infantilizing of Roach, a grown ass man and special ops soldier who kills for a living. The constant character assassination that is Ghost as an aggressor or predator, especially sexually. The constant fetishization of mlm or the use of gay relationships as a punchline or to highlight how a villain is a deviant. I am so tired. I am so tired of so many tropes the fandom uses and how long they have stuck around.

What are your thoughts on crack ships?

Everything is a crack ship. For fuck’s sake. The characters are 2d paper dolls we can project anything on to, including preferences and headcanons. Ship away, everything in here is a crack ship.

Unpopular character you love?

YURI! AND! KAMAROV! MY! LADS!

How would you end XXX/Would you change the ending of XXX?

Motherfucker I would completely scrap MW3 and rewrite huge swathes of that game, do not fucking start with me. Starting with more villainous Price, an American campaign divided between Team Metal working to help the still on the run as criminals Soap and Price and the Rangers taking the war to Russia and hunting down ‘terrorists’ like Soap and Price, Yuri having more important things to do in the story, Soap living but being out of commission, Makarov not going down without a fight just LET ME WRITE THIS YOU ASSHOLES I WANNA WORD GOOD.

Least shippable character?

They’re military grade paper dolls idgaf. Viktor mb? I don’t want to imagine him shipped. I’d sooner imagine Papa Imran and his wife starting some revolution and thus ‘ship’ Imran with whatever partner he has in canon than consider Viktor with a shipmate for a single instant.