#The whole “feminine thing is weak/bad/annoying” ect

[caterpillarinacave]

[thenightling]

Yes, kids, vampires exist in Marvel comics...

This is a story about the rudeness of a pretentious online role player.  Read on if you dare. 

Okay, this happened to some friends and I back when the first Avengers movie came out so this story is a little on the stale side now but I’ll share it anyway. 

We were doing a Marvel themed RP (roleplay) on IMVU.  We even had a 3D chat room set up to look like The Avengers Tower.   

One friend played Tony Stark, another was Captain America, another was Bucky, Cap’s player was also Hawkeye, and Bucky’s player was also Black Widow.  They also played Coulson and Thor, and thanks to Multiverse shenanigans there were two Loki(s) running around.  

Many of us were long time fans of the comics.  And I happen to love the supernatural side of Marvel, the part untouched by the current MCU- mostly Marvel’s horror comics like Tomb of Dracula, Werewolf by Night, Legion of monsters, Morbius: The Living Vampire, Monsters of Frankenstein, ect...  

So I was playing Morbius: The living vampire on the IMVU account of MichaelMorbius (a different player has the account that just says Morbius).  Morbius is a scientist who accidentally turned himself into a vampire but with none of the traditional weaknesses.

(IMVU avatar of Morbius above.)

Another friend was playing Marvel’s Dracula, and I also had Adam (the Frankenstein Monster.)  We even had someone playing Jack Russell (Horrible name, I know) AKA Werewolf by Night.

Someone with an account dedicated to “Steeb” (Steve and Bucky shipping) came into the room one night and asked us what was going on.   We told her the plot summary and she abruptly left.  We just figured she had a bad connection and must have crashed.  Most people play on IMVU chat rooms over PC but some people still attempt to use the very shoddy mobile version.  

The next night it happened again.  The night after that it happened again. And again.  And again.  This happened four or five times. Finally on the fifth or so night she came into the role play room.

First, let me tell you about her avatar.  Her avatar was an overly tall, overly skinny version of Steve Rogers.  I mean, Twig-like skinny and feminine.   The avatar looked more like Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers) dressed as Steve.  The avatar even wore heavy makeup.  Later I was to find out this player also made a pregnant Tony Stark avatar.   But we didn’t mind these sort of things. We were pretty laid back for the most part and have no qualms with shippers.

 I was, however, slightly annoyed by the stereotyping in her avatar.   That she seemed to think that a version of Steve attracted to Bucky suddenly had to be more feminine, wear makeup, and be “twink”-like instead of just letting him be himself but attracted to Bucky.   It’s an old stereotype that a gay couple needs a traditionally masculine and an overtly feminine by default.  (”Which one of you is the girl?”)     

Now, on this fifth night instead of asking us what was going on in the game she instead asked “Are you guys done with that vampire crap that doesn’t belong in Marvel?!”

Vampire Crap that... doesn’t belong in Marvel...

(Imagine from Marvel’s War of the Vampires 2019 event...)

(Imagine from the 1990s Spider-man Vampire Wars line of action figures...  Which included Blade, vampire-Spider-man, Morbius: The Living Vampire, and Morbius in Man-Bat form.)

The question took us by surprise since we were comic fans and most fans of the comics know vampires exist in Marvel.  That and the question was very rude and that whole time I had felt sorry for her, thinking she had a bad connection.  No, the truth was she had deliberately been leaving every time we brought up something in the game that she thought “doesn’t belong” in Marvel.   (Which ironically included the antagonist of the most recent Avengers comics... Count Dracula, himself.) 

I understand being new to Marvel comics and or only knowing the MCU (the current Marvel Cinematic Universe) but this was just rude.  Ironically at the time Morbius: The Living vampire had a new comic book series.  Dracula was appearing fairly regularly on the animated series Avengers: Assemble, and Jubilee (of X-Men) had been turned into a vampire in the comics (She gets better).

Not to mention Dracula, Werewolf by Night, Morbius:  The Living Vampire, Blade, and Frankenstein’s Monster were playable characters in Marvel’s Superhero Squad Online, Morbius and Blade were playable characters in Avengers: Alliance (Facebook game), Blade was a playable character in Marvel Heroes online, and Dracula is a locked box character in Avengers Academy mobile app game.   

We corrected this Steeb player that vampires do exist in Marvel and that Blade IS a Marvel character and she got defensive and accused us of “Leaping down her throat for not knowing the comics.”  Leaping down -her- throat?!   This supposedly adult woman was leaving the room abruptly every time she saw the mention of Dracula or vampires and then tried to tell us not to have the character in the game because “it didn’t belong in Marvel.”

  I was just baffled by the audacity and irony.  Someone who played Steve Rogers, not just as bisexual or gay but as a stereotype effeminate gay man, and who (as I would later learn) clearly either played or played with a “Pregnant Tony Stark” was rude about the idea of vampires... In Marvel...