#but the fandom refuses to portray him often as anything but a sex machine

[pangzi]

THANK YOU for talking about pangzi in the tags of that post ur so right it makes me soooo happy to read fics where he's is fat and happy and hot and loved and it sucks when other people can't see that because of their bias

thanks again for bringing it up because i do think its something the fandom as a whole needs to look at more critically

<3

I'm glad it's not just me and a handful of people close to me seeing that it's an actual big issue in the fandom! ♥️

Especially because so many people will say they love him, he's their favourite but then never actually include him or just treat him awfully.

I get very fed up about it quite often because it's just so obvious to me. I see a lot of people asking "Why is this idea about Pangzi so common it makes no sense" or "Why is this Pangzi ship not as popular as this one while it makes way more sense" and then never actually thinking about it while the answer is so obvious... It's also extra frustrating because none of the actors playing Pangzi are actually fat. They're completely normal men who are just surrounded by extremely skinny boys. I don't even want to imagine how Pangzi would be treated if he were played by an actual fat man. (The closest we get is Liu Tianzuo in TLT1 and it's not surprising to me that he's fandom's least favourite and most criticized Pangzi)

Because this bias also becomes most obvious in headcanons like 'I can only imagine Pangzi as asexual/cishet/in a QPR' (because they're so so fucking common and casually thrown around) it's really hard to point it out to people without them getting really defensive about it.

I have three separate posts about it in my drafts/notes app that I wrote after spending weeks and weeks working on video lectures about diversity and inclusion, many focusing on bias but I couldn't get the tone right so I never posted them.

I just want people to understand that everyone is biased and it's not something that makes you a bad person. Nobody wants to be biased, you just are. You get taught things by the world around you and your brain learns it whether you want it or not. It's up to you to look at what you have learned and think about it at least twice and then unlearn the harmful untrue things like gender bias, fat bias, race bias. It's not easy to address your bias but it does get easier once you accept you are biased and (not to use the terms I learned in my diversity lectures) start overriding your fast brain and start listening to your slow brain. I was once told that your first thought is what you have been taught by the world around you (fast brain) and your second thought is what you, yourself, actually think (slow brain). It's hard and a bit exhausting, especially with something like fat bias that has been so deeply ingrained and normalised, but god when i tell you it makes your world so much more beautiful.

Fat people deserve to be fat and still be loved and happy and seen as sexy and a potential love interest. Pangzi is fat and hot and a wonderful lovely competent man who is strong and funny and kind. He is extremely loved by the people around him, especially Wu Xie and Xiaoge. He has so so so many good and wonderful traits but he also has his quirks and he says the wrong things sometimes and he's impulsive at moments but that's what makes him so interesting and beautiful and dynamic! He deserves to be portrayed like that more instead of just the mother hen who cooks and cleans while the rest has sex or as the wingman for his two besties or the annoying clumsy fat man who once again triggers a trap because of his greed or just the comic relief or the creepy straight man.

ANYWAY I'll shut up now! If you ever want to talk about how how beautiful Pangzi is and how beautiful other characters think he is and how sexy it is of him to be fat, my DMs are always open!

[scumbagsblog]

Loving the text messages!! Keep up the good work! Also if you don't mind could you describe darks and antis personalities according to you?

Absolutely!!! Beware though, I’m about to wax poetic because I LOVE these two characters. I’m sorry that this post is so long but I’m NOT putting it under a cut because I worked on this for over a fucking hour instead of writing my history paper and I want at least one person to actually read it. :P

I’m gonna go a little in depth with what I believe is their canon personalities according to my interpretation and then how I incorporate those interpretations into Texts From Dark And Anti. Some of you may be surprised to find that I actually heavily take their canonical personalities into account when I make my edits; it’s not all just dick jokes and memes for the sake of notes. Texts From Dark And Anti is my love letter to these two characters, and I’ve gone to great lengths to portray them in the best way possible.

But enough babbling. Let’s start with Dark.

CANON PERSONALITY: Master Manipulator and Sexual Predator

Per Mark, Dark is a master manipulator. He’s a snake in the grass, ready to tell you anything and everything you need to hear in order to get what he wants from you.

I’d argue that this often works for him. Obviously he’s a very good actor if he’s able to mimic Mark perfectly in the “Chocolate” ending, so that makes me think that he’s able to assume whatever personality and/or extend whatever favors he needs to to trick his victims into abiding by him.

But it’s also worth mentioning that Dark’s biggest weakness (arguably) is his jealousy. As Mark said, Dark’s extremely jealous of Mark, and he wants everything that Mark has: wealth, fame, success, and devoted fans. I’d be willing to believe that that last thing is what rubs Dark wrong the most.

Evidence? Mark’s fans are exactly what he goes after. Wanna know what’s freakier? IT FUCKING WORKED.

Mark took all of his fans out on a date. All of us adored him for it. Dark got jealous of this, so he infiltrated the date and tried to get us to support him instead. And when Tyler Mark showed up to fight him, Dark didn’t kill him himself. He manipulated us into doing it for him.

And what brings this home is that Dark has had the longest lasting potential out of anything to come out of this video. All of the other memes and references have lost their luster by now, but the resurgence of Dark-related fan art, ask/rp blogs, edits, and memes are still going strong. Dark infiltrated our date and convinced us to love him and worship him the same way that we do Mark, and we fucking fell for it.

So why does he do this? Is it just because he’s a jealous prick? Partially, but I think that, canonically, there’s more to it. I think it’s because he thrives on his ability to hold power over people, which is comparable to–get ready for it–sexual predators.

Dark exhibits a lot of the traits we normally attribute to these criminals. He’s attractive, charismatic, extremely manipulative, and sadistic. He says things like, “I can give you anything,” and, “If it’s dinner you want, I can provide.” Provide is an interesting word choice here, because that’s what society has dictated the man in a relationship should do. He even acts seductive: arching his neck, eye-fucking the camera, and he even blows us a kiss (see below). But the way that he grabs and shakes us periodically throughout his mental breakdown betrays his inner sadism and anger issues, also common among sexual predators. I absolutely think that based on Dark’s behavior and what we know about him, he’s totally down to fuck anyone and everyone in order to get what he wants–consensual or otherwise. And I definitely think he’ll enjoy it.

I wouldn’t necessarily say that Dark is a nymphomaniac. As an otherworldly being, it’s entirely possible he doesn’t even have a sex drive. But sexual predators don’t usually rape their victims just to get their dicks wet. Usually, it’s a power issue; they want to feel like they have mastery over something, and that they are dominant and in control. Given Dark’s obsession with taking all of Mark’s glory away from him, coupled with his violent mood swings and sadism, I would say that sexual assault is probably just one of the many ways he appeases his insatiable appetite for power and manipulation. And I’d even bet that it’s one of his go-to’s.

In Texts From Dark And Anti, I normally portray Dark as a bitter old demon who doesn’t understand memes and doesn’t want to put up with anybody’s shit. But I didn’t just do this for fun; I did it because I could see Dark being jaded in real life. Off-camera, when he’s not trying to seduce us into adoring him over Mark, I could see him being sick of being overlooked. He’s old, even by Mark’s channel’s standards, and up until “A Date With Markiplier”, he wasn’t mainstream in the fandom at all–not fun for someone who craves the adoration of others. So he’d definitely be off-put by Anti’s much younger, more erratic personality, and in a bad mood he’d bitch at him for it. But in a good mood, he’d use it to his advantage to get whatever he wants–sex, souls, and anything else his blackened heart desires, both for the reward and the thrill of not having to do it himself.

Now let’s talk about Anti.

CANON PERSONALITY: Chaotic Psychopath

Jack has been near-silent on his personal interpretation of Anti (although he’s stated that he definitely has a personal canon that he refuses to share, the little fucker), so all of this is going to come from speculation and what we see onscreen.

While Dark chose to make his debut in one long, continuous, elegant appearance, Anti showed up randomly throughout the month of October, with no prelude and no explanation as to why he was there. Also in contrast to Dark’s smooth, charismatic personality, Anti is visibly unstable, jittery, and psychotic. Both he and Dark exhibit bloodlust, but Anti doesn’t hide it. He doesn’t hold back any of his sociopathic tendencies, going so far as to murder his host on camera for the world to see.

We don’t exactly know what Anti’s agenda is, but that’s just it: I don’t think he has one. At least, not one beyond the psychotic urge to kill as much and as many people as he can. Even in “Say Goodbye”, all he does is laugh at/condemn the viewer for not warning Jack and saving him. The other times he was on camera in October, he was glitchy, with several different appearances (fangs, gauges, blood, etc.) and contorted, unsettling body movements, making me think that Anti is a supernatural being that thrives on chaos and bloodshed.

But  Anti doesn’t just want to cause havoc–he wants to cause havoc and get the credit he deserves for it. That’s why he showed up so much on camera without Jack noticing; he was there for us, not him. Then he made a big deal about us not telling Jack what was going on, condemning us for our failure to make his existence well-known. Then he crashed Jack’s panel at PAX, angry at us for “forgetting” him. He’s not trying to garner our support like Dark is; if anything, he wants us to be terrified of him.

But personally, if I had to choose between being locked in a room with Dark and being locked in a room with Anti, I’d choose Anti in a heartbeat. Because even though Anti is more obviously psychotic, at least I’d know I would be killed quickly–unlike Dark, who would torture and manipulate me verbally, physically, and possibly even sexually for an indeterminate amount of time. This is Anti’s downfall, I think; Dark disguises his true nature with seduction and charisma, but because Anti’s so unpredictable and surface-level, he identifies himself as a very obvious threat, ironically making him a little easier to understand.

Thus, my interpretation of him in Texts From Dark And Anti reflects this (albeit in a more comedic way). Anti loves memes and silly trends because he wants to stick out in a way that’ll gain recognition. He’s more up-to-date with Internet trends and slang because he’s much younger than Dark–but that also means that he’s more gullible, and a lot of simple things go over his head. Basically all of his emotions are double that of Dark’s, and he makes no efforts to disguise them. He’s also much more privvy to senseless murder than Dark. This speaks highly of his psychotic tendencies and general disregard for any order or secrets he could be bothering to keep. What you see of Anti is what you get: an easily-excitable, always-ready-to-fuck-shit-up killing machine.

So…yeah. That’s pretty much my piece. Told you it’d be long. X’D

But tysm for asking!! And if any of you bothered reading this far, PLEASE reblog or leave a reply with your thoughts on my interpretation of these two characters and how you characterize them personally. I’m super crazy interested in the lore around these two (or lack thereof), which is why I created Texts From Dark And Anti in the first place. ^_^