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malereader-inserts · 4 years

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The Setter’s Boyfriend

Fandom: Haikyuu!! Pairing: Kageyama Tobio x Male!Reader Summary: Kageyama has a boyfriend, though the team don’t really believe him Word Count: 1,470

“Tobio?”

Kageyama looks over your way, he sees you sitting at the end of your bed looking confused, tilted head with puppy eyes boring into his eyes.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” He says quickly, closing his messaging app and locking his phone. Though that movement causes you to look at him suspiciously.

You weren’t concerned about in the matter of cheating, you know your boyfriend Kageyama Tobio has difficulty in making friends that him cheating was very unlikely, but Kageyama spends weekends with you and he has been suspiciously off.

“Sure, Tobs, and I’m going to be benched during nationals.”

“You’re what?”

“I’m being sarcastic, dumbo,” You teases, kissing his nose, “Tell me, Tobio-chan, what’s the matter?”

Kageyama sighs knowing that you’re just concern and you want to know what’s bothering him. After youth training camp, in which you had met him there as well as you were invited, Kageyama went home to Miyagi and you going home to the city Yamagata, the prefecture next to Miyagi. Kageyama was confessed to, Hinata had spilt out his feelings to him when the two of them were closing up.

Kageyama respectfully declined, saying that he only saw him as a best friend though Hinata blinded by rejection took it the wrong way. It causes a small rift in the team but Kageyama had to explain, which he was unable to do so when he was lightly rejecting Hinata, that even if he did reciprocate the feelings he wouldn’t pursue a relationship with Hinata as he was taken.

You and Kageyama have known each other since you were little toddlers, you grew up together as you both lived next door, you even went to the same elementary school and junior high school.

But, before you about to enter high school, your dad took a promotion to the prefecture over. You had to move school halfway through your third year in junior high when Kageyama needed you the most. Taking time to adapt to the new city, making friends and settling without Kageyama.

You had started dating Kageyama when you were thirteen, it almost felt silly really, because you two were so young but both families had already approved of the relationship and had thought that both you and Kageyama would never split.

Now, that it was slowly nearing the last few months of their first year in high school, you guys have been together for three years. Despite the distance between and going to different schools, nothing seems to tear you two apart.

You went to a powerhouse school for volleyball, you were even on the starting team as you were up and coming as one of the best wing spikers.

So, when Kageyama said that he was already in a relationship the small rift seems to relax, though there were some sceptical people in the team thinking that Kageyama was giving an excuse, no one could force a relationship to happen.

“They don’t seem like the best teammates, you know, Tobio,” You say after Kageyama had explained the situation.

The small rift in the team was manageable, he only had to deal with Noya, Tanaka, Tsukishima and Hinata - but when the news was spread out through the powerhouses, that’s when it got a bit out of control.

Miyagi’s powerhouses kept in close contact with each other because of practice matches, though the big group chat was more used as a gossip centre rather than planning. So, Kageyama got a lot of messages from old shares “friends”.

“You know I could tell Kindaichi and Kunami to fuck off for you,” You offered as Kageyama chuckles, shaking his head.

“Don’t worry, I’ve already told them to.”

Kageyama hoped that Nationals would come soon, he has been itching to show the team that his boyfriend was real and that he was happy in the relationship, it wasn’t just a shitty excuse he made.

The rest of the team was acting normal, they were happy for Kageyama to be in a relationship. Sugawara had been more nosy than others, asking Kageyama who was this lucky person, even defending him in the setter group chat, the big setter group chat that had Akaashi, Kenma and Atsumu. Atsumu was willing to spill details of Kageyama’s lover, though Kageyama got very defensive to the point of threat in the group chat, which blew up the chat that the topic of Kageyama lying was soon of the past.

Daichi had Kageyama’s back, he told the second years and Tsukishima to knock it off and that the team won’t tolerate bullying. Asahi, bless the third year - Kageyama thought, tried his best to divert the topic if Sugawara or Daichi wasn’t present.

“Next time I’ll see you will be in Tokyo,” You exclaimed with a smile that Kageyama loved so dearly, “Can’t wait to see you play again, it’s been a while.”

“You’ve seen me play?”

“I mean competitively, Tobio.”

Nationals was surreal, they were surrounded by so many talented players. The team knew that Kageyama was a mellow person in public, he doesn’t have many friends because he refuses to make them.

So, it came as a surprise to the team to see the national’s best libero come waved down Kageyama and greet him as if he was an old friend. Kageyama looked so relaxed and happy to be conversing with the libero, even waving Sakusa in the corner.

When they had won their first game of the tournament, they had some free time to watch games and get some shirts. Hinata had met with Hoshiumi and was asking Kageyama if he was better after the interaction, almost forgetting that Hinata was supposed to have a grudge, though when they got into Tokyo, it’s almost as if the anger had disappeared right away.

Kageyama felt a bit down as he hasn’t been able to spot his boyfriend among the crowd and they were about to leave.

“Tobio!”

The team stopped as Kageyama turned, there he sees someone running down to him, Kageyama started to smile and it wasn’t the terrifying kind - it was the soft loving smile that’s reserve for his love.

“Kageyama is that?”

“Tobio!” The figure latched himself on Kageyama.

“(Y/n), you’re sweaty,” Kageyama complained as you chuckle, “Did you finish your game?”

He looks at your attire to see that you were still in uniform, haven’t even given the chance to change out, you nodded as you separate yourself from him. There was a bright gleam in your eyes and a wide smile upon your face.

The team looked in awe at this new individual, someone who has been lurking in the volleyball news.

“You’re (L/n) (Y/n),” Sugawara spoke out as you turn to look at them, “Uh, did you two meet in training camp?”

It was safe to assume that since all the players that Kageyama was talking to were met from training camp, but you chuckle and shake your head.

“Ah, no, I’m Tobio’s boyfriend.”

Boyfriend, the word echo in the team’s head, the realisation had settled as you smiled so bright.

“I’ve known Kageyama since we were little, I used to live in Miyagi as well but I had to move because of my dad’s job but yeah I was at Japan Youth as well,” You explained, it was natural how you acted with Kageyama.

Kageyama felt at ease with you, even if your sweaty arm was draped over his shoulders, Kageyama expressed his disappointment that he couldn’t watch you but you shrugged your shoulders saying there’s always tomorrow.

“I best get going, don’t want to break out a fever at nationals,” You say, before turning to Kageyama, “See you, Tobs.”

You give him a kiss that Kageyama happily takes as he watches you walk off and get teased by your teammates. Sugawara slings his arm over his kouhai’s shoulder with a teasing smile.

“So, Kageyama, when were you going to mention that your boyfriend is one of the best volleyball spikers?”

“You never asked,” Kageyama responded, “If anything, you guys would be more angry if I were to talk about him.”

Sugawara nodded, giving the boys a pointed look as they shrunk in embarrassment.

“How long have you and (L/n)-kun been dating?” Daichi asked, also curious.

“Three years, sometime this month.”

The team pestered Kageyama for more information and details, even Hinata couldn’t be mad at his best friend anymore because he was more in awe that this guy that Kageyama managed to bag, was elite level.

So, when Oikawa mention shit in the setter group chat, Tobio sends a selfie of him and you flipping Oikawa off. Causing Oikawa to have a tantrum in the group chat and when they won a game the next day - the team was more than happy to watch your school thrash your opponent.

#kageyama imagine #kageyama x male reader #tobio kageyama x male reader #haikyuu #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu x male reader #x male reader

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dem-obscure-imagines · 3 years

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Second Chances

Ben Hargreeves x Reader

Fandom: The Umbrella Academy

Summary: With new threats about, the Umbrella Academy is looking for new members to (potentially) help save the world and your healing abilities make you the perfect candidate to join.

Note: Idk why I’ve been in a Ben Hargreeves mood these past few days, but have some fluff. Set in a no time travel no apocalypse au?

Warnings: Very mild mentions of death

Word Count: 1.2k

Reader is: Gender Neutral

When you’d called the Umbrella Academy claiming to be gifted like they were, the others were, admittedly, skeptical. Several times throughout their childhood, the Hargreeves had met countless parents with children they claimed to be special, and none of them ever actually were. But, with Reginald dead and world-ending threats lurking around every corner, the remaining Hargreeves siblings were a little more…open to having more help around.

So, you arrived at the house, with little more than your messenger bag, your laptop, your favorite mug, and some clothes. You figured you shouldn’t bring too many things in case they kicked you right back out, but they wouldn’t have any reason to. You really were gifted.

The monkey butler, named Pogo, welcomed you in, and a nice woman named Grace made a cup of tea for you, and in the meantime, the rest of the siblings slowly assembled in the living room. The first of whom was Klaus, who, as usual, was bored.

“So you’re the one who called, huh?” He asked, sizing you up.

“Yep. I’m (Y/N).”

“And what’s your ability?” Klaus asked, plopping down on the couch across from you.

“We’ll let them show us when everyone else gets here.” Luther asserted, entering the room. “Nice to meet you, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, too.” You said politely, sipping from the mug of tea. Off in the corner of the room, you felt a…presence. You looked over there, your eyes narrowed, and sure enough, there was a bundle of energy concentrated there. Almost as though…

Huh. Odd.

You caught Klaus staring at you when you glanced back that way and he smirked a little to himself, although he didn’t explain why it had caught his attention. Given your faint knowledge of the Umbrella Academy members, heralded as heroes while you were growing up, you were fairly certain he was Séance, which could only mean one thing…

It only took the others a few more minutes to get to the living room, and so once everyone was assembled, a man who had introduced himself as Diego said, “Alright, so what’s your thing?”

“I’m a healer. I have healing powers and they’re…kind of ridiculously powerful.” You told them.

“Healing powers are great, but we’re going to need you to prove it.” Luther crossed his arms, focused on you.

“Okay.” You shrugged. There was a dead plant sitting in a pot on the coffee table, so, you concentrated, green energy manifesting around your fingers. You flicked them onto the plant, and when you did, immediately, it perked up, its brown and withered leaves filling out and returning to the green color they had been weeks prior before it had died.

“Woah.” Allison smiled, staring at the now, very much alive plant. “That’s…incredible.”

“Thanks.” You chuckled. “It, uh, works on people, too. Obviously.”

“Right. Well, next time one of us is injured, we know where to find you. Welcome to the team.”

“Thank you.”

***

And so, you moved some more of your things in, which included a large amount of books. You liked reading, so a lot of your time spent at the school was in the living room, curled up with a book and a mug of tea.

It was on one of those occasions that Klaus approached you.

“You can see him, right?” He asked, motioning to the…presence that was lingering next to him. It migrated swiftly to one of the chairs in the living room, and Klaus looked at it, seemingly listening to it before turning his attention back to you. “When you first got here, you looked right at him.”

“I cannot see him, no, but I can feel him. I don’t know if that makes any sense…It’s like a magnetic field, kind of. There’s a pull to wherever he is.”

“Ah. Makes sense.” Klaus nodded. “This is Ben. My dead brother. Our dearly departed.”

“Oh, uh, sorry for your loss.” You said, unsure of how to respond to such a statement. “And nice to meet you, Ben.”

Klaus looked to Ben before repeating, “He says it’s nice to meet you, too. I have a question, though, are you into spirituality? Like witchcraft? Or is this part of your gift?”

“I’m…not sure, actually. I collect rocks, but more because they’re pretty than any other reason.” You thought for a long moment about just what he was insinuating. “Huh…”

“What?”

“Hold still.” You told the empty space where Ben was supposedly sitting, calling your power to your hand and watching as the green light flickered around your fingertips. Then, you flicked your wrist forward, sending the energy in that direction.

Then, suddenly, a young man in a black hoodie and leather jacket appeared in the chair in front of you, staring at you dumbfounded.

“Holy shit!” You jolted, gasping and staring at him. “I did not expect that to work, honestly.” You admitted, giggling.

“You can see me?” He asked, looking down at his hands and then pressing them to his cheeks to feel his skin.

“Yeah, and I can hear you, too.” You told him.

“Am I…?” Ben murmured softly, feeling the fabric of his hoodie. He pinched himself.

Klaus walked over and poked him a few times. “I mean, you feel pretty real to me.”

“How did you…How did you do that?”

“I have no idea, but I guess we can add necromancy to my list of powers.”

“Is there something going on in…here…?” Allison was standing in the doorway, looking into the room. Her eyes landed on Ben. Immediately she teared up. “B-Ben?”

“In the flesh. I think.” Ben chuckled, still not positive he was really alive after all of his years as a ghost. Tears brimmed his eyes too. “Been a while, huh?”

Allison rushed into the room and hugged him tightly, tears streaming down her cheeks, and once she was done, she went to gather the others while Klaus took his turn, giving his formerly dead brother a hug.

As soon as Klaus let go of him, Ben walked over towards you and knelt down in front of where you were sitting, taking your hand, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Thank you. So much. You have no idea how much this means to me.”

“Of course.” You said softly. “I’d say anytime, but I don’t want you to die again anytime soon, alright?”

“Right.” He laughed. “I’ll try to stick around a while longer this time.”

“Good.”

***

With Ben alive again, the occasion called for celebration, which meant some family bonding and drinks and music, and while you didn’t really feel like part of their mismatched family yet, the Hargreeves welcomed you quickly as one of their own, especially given that you had returned their brother to them.

And once the party was over and the others were slowly but surely going up to bed one by one, Ben made sure to single you out, approaching you with a smile brighter than the others said he’d ever smiled during his first life.

“I don’t mean to be too forward, but, um, second chances and all that…” Ben rubbed the back of his neck chuckling to himself and blushing for the first time in about a decade. “Do you maybe wanna go to the movies sometime? Or like out to dinner? I’d like to do something to repay you, and also…get to know you a little better? If that’s alright? If not, it’s totally cool, I just—”

“I’d love to, Ben. That’d be great.”

“Awesome. Cool. Um, Friday at seven?”

“Friday at seven.” You nodded, smiling. “It’s a date.”

#ben hargreeves #ben hargreeves x reader #ben hargreeves imagine #the umbrella academy #the umbrella academy imagine

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theangryjikooker · 2 years

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Dunno why I’m sharing this but I guess I’m frustrated today. I’ve been in the fandom for a little over 2 years, and a "jikooker". I don’t really like the label tbh, it sounds silly to me. To put it simpl, Jimin and Jungkook caught my eyes first and became my biases, and with time I came to the conclusion they might very well be dating (to which I have no certainty, obviously). Anyway. So I’ve been lurking here and there for about 2 years and I find it concerning how some Jikook-centered blogs are moving lately… like, it’s getting weird… As much as I love Jikook and tend to be over-fixating when I’m into something, some bloggers are so overly obsessed I don’t think it’s healthy. Like writing super long post overanalyzing every tiny little details, over and over again. As a grown ass adult, there’s something about it that makes me a bit uncomfortable, especially knowing those bloggers are adults as well (and no I’m not saying you shouldn’t have hobbies or be a fan of someone when you’re an adult, just the obsession pushed that far is weird imo but I guess that’s a me problem). I came here to see some cute gifs and edit and just crack jokes and I’m still a bit appalled by the shipping community. To each their own I guess. But what really confuses me these days is how weird some bloggers have become when they use to be quite level headed for what I can remember. I think jikook are a thing but these people are seeing signs e v e r y w h e r e Like just yesterday with the new Run Bts episode, so many jikookers who usually scream at other shippers about the importance of context and knowing Korean langage are interpreting Jungkook’s remark when they were by the Han river as a ramyeon joke (which he definitely joked about in the past) when it wasn’t one (he was referring to a certain type of ramyeon he wanted to it) or saying that he plucked his lips as if he wanted to kiss or blow a kiss or whatever when Jimin got close to his face when he was just pouting and about to speak… I dunno, it’s examples after examples just like this and it’s getting ridiculous. I used to enjoy reading some bloggers, now they’re not logical and down to earth anymore. Which is even more weird to me considering how Jikook have been acting lately. The more I see those two together, the more I think they’re "suspicious", or at least there’s plenty of moments that speak for themselves so why the need to interpret everything and see things where there’s nothing to see? I was very wary of shipping accounts when stepping into the fandom, and the more I observe shippers the more I come back to this feeling. Some people are way too much obsessed and involved, it’s just weird.

I only follow one other blogger whose posts aren't quite ship-focused, so I'm mostly in the dark about what's being said within the Jikook blogger community, but this is a common sentiment among my anons as of late.

From what I hear, it's a little insane. And on the rare occasion I go through the tag, I almost always regret it. From what I've collectively observed over the last year, a lot of these bloggers cater to like-minded fans, and there are certainly people who enjoy theorizing to that level of delusion (sorry not sorry). It’s not that I think I'm better than those people who want to engage with Jikook content in that manner when I say that, but I'm just not on their wavelength and I doubt I ever will be. I think a lot of that has to do with my long-standing aversion to RPS.

So I don't blame you; I understand how you feel and agree to an extent.

My feeling is that anyone with a platform should be careful about what narrative they're choosing to dig into because at the end of the day, these analyses are about real people. These aren't fictional characters we're dealing with, and to be frank, I think people’s approach to shipping fictional characters vs. real people can get blurred for some.

Real life isn’t as formulaic as fiction, but some people will analyze real people as though there are these cut and dry rules about how relationships work. I mean, yes, in real life there are some basic “if A + B, then C” type of equations with regards to interpersonal dynamics, but there will always be people who are exceptions to a common perception and shouldn’t be dismissed.

#TAJ asks #anon submission #jikook #kookmin #bts shipping #bts fandom #jikook tumblr

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voltagesmutter · 4 years

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Obey Me: Diavolo - Wrapped up in ribbon/bondage

Fandom: Obey Me Pairing: Diavolo x MC (F) Prompt: Wrapped up in ribbon - Day 13 from @voltage-vixen christmas list. Warning: Ribbon bondage. Notes: For my love @theinariakuma a small thank you and token of appreciation for everything you do for me.

Diavolo was the ruler of all demons, a prince of the realm, and soon to be king with a powerful stance that could bring down rival kingdoms with a simple glare. He was known for his power and strength, sending people cowering to hear he was displeased with them. Rumours and legends however failed to praise his kind heart and almost boyish features. How a heart of pure gold was beating beneath thick layers of taut muscles and nothing but joy seemed to spread wherever he went.

They also failed to mention the prince's undivided love for a human girl, a human girl who was tiny in comparison to his frame. A girl who came as part of the exchange student program only to capture the heart of the Prince - she also gave him her heart in return for his. He would anything, anything, for her. Renounce his title and throne, part ways with his powers, even give up the luxuries of his name and lifestyle just to be with her.

But that was never the case, the girl instead giving up her life in the human world to stay by his side when the time came for her program to end. Effectively pledging herself to Diavolo and his service.

“I love you so much.” A clawed hand with jet-black nails cradled her face, his forehead resting against hers with his eyes shut.

“I love you too Dia…” Her face mirroring his, her arms wrapped around his neck as she straddled him on the chair beside the fireplace. This being one of the only ways for them to be at eye level with each other.

“Are you sure? Because I can’t change it once I do, are you sure it’s me you want to be with-“ Anxiety taking over him as his fingers quaked against her skin, the nerves he felt at his question shining through his champagne orbs as he opened them.

“Yes, yes, a thousand times yes,” She smiled, pressing a kiss to his lips, admiring the handsome features of the face before her. “It’s you Diavolo, it’s always been you,”.

The night blended into the day, the couple rising from their slumber. Everything had changed. A mark now rested upon her skin, Diavolo having made a pact with her during the night binding the couple together for eternity. And from that day on they became the prince and princess to be of the realm. Trust, love and passion growing fiercer with every passing day.

Christmas was settling fast, it was her first Christmas as a couple with Diavolo. And in all honesty, it was more overwhelming than the festive spirit she was used to at home. Whilst technically demons didn’t celebrate Christmas, they still indulged in the festivities. Lucifer claimed it was a “waste of time” but Diavolo was mad for it. He had black Christmas trees imported from the human world, decorations of gold hung from every street post and the castle was covered head to toe in glitter, baubles and anything else that screamed Christmas.

Every night for a week leading up to Christmas was a different themed ball or celebration - and while they were great fun, the human girl was exhausted. Demons were built to handle huge amounts of drinking, gambling and partying with little to no sleep. Whilst she often retired early. Diavolo found her on day four passed out asleep in the kitchen, resting her head on her elbows in front of the roaring open fire. He’d also caught Beelzebub scoffing at ginger-snake cookies but he left that slide for now, picking up the girl and carrying her to bed.

But tonight was Christmas Eve, she only had to listen for a few more hours about bitter matters, war strategies and other uninteresting things. Everyone in the kingdom wanted to speak to Diavolo, and being his partner meant she had to endure it all, smiling at his side and nodding courteously like she understood the topic. Truth be told, all she wanted was some alone time with Diavolo, with preparation and the festivities they rarely had a moment alone together. And for over half of the week she had found herself going to bed and waking up alone, no need for sleep as Diavolo continued to party from dusk to dawn.

“You look so beautiful,” Diavolo pulling her out of her trance as he stood behind her, pressing kisses to shoulder and moving up the base of her neck. Letting out a content sigh, she relaxed back into his embrace closing her eyes. She’d missed him, everything about him from his scent to his touch to the way his eyes light up when they talked about their day over a glass of wine.

“Thank you, I’ve been saving this all week,” A deep smile on her face to feel him grin against her skin, pressing kisses against her jaw line. “I’ve missed you.”

“But you’ve been with me all week,” He teased, turning her in his arms. The satin red dress she wore held her cleavage perfectly up, her waist pulled in by the gold ribbon and the material of her dress settled midway between her thighs.

“Diavolo,” She whined, wrapping her arms around his neck. Admiring the beauty of the creature before her, dressed head to toe in his finest clothes and jewellery, his looks would make a god jealous.

“I know, I know.” He chuckled, pressing a kiss to her nose. “I’ve missed you too, even though we’re together it feels like I never get to see you.” He throws her a cheeky grin that threatens to make her knees buckle, “Not in the way I want to anyway.”

Used to his flirtatious ways, all she does is giggle in response. A week of not being intimate was unheard of for them, normally their day starting off with her riding him, a cheeky blow job under his desk when she visited him for lunch (more or less everytime ending up with Diavolo eating her out or fucking her over his desk), a teasing filled time in the shower together before making love in their bed for the rest of the evening. It was a routine, a routine they both loved.

“I mean.. we have time now, we could be quick.” Red tinted her cheeks as she spoke, curling tufts of hair against her fingers as she intertwined them at the base of his neck.

“You know very well, us and quick doesn’t work well,” Laughing as they both reminisced over the time in the throne room. “We’ll be quick” he told her, letting her ride him on the throne in the empty hours of the morning. Only for Lucifer and the rest of his council to turn up just when they were both reaching climax, Diavolo having to keep her seated with his cock buried inside her for just short of an hour as they discussed plans. “I promise as soon as this evening is over with, I shall be yours, my princess,” Diavolo took her hands from his head and pressed a few delicate kisses to her knuckles. He always was a man true to his word.

The ball seemed to last forever, lavish guests drinking copious amounts of demonus, sharing and swapping stories over finger nibble food. It was all great fun, but the way Diavolo kept a tight grip on her waist and the smouldering look he would shoot her every now and then just made her want to run upstairs to bed with him. Or anywhere they could be alone for that matter. It only grew worse as they were encouraged to dance, subjects demanding to see the royal couple be the first dance of the evening.

“This ball was a stupid idea,” Diavolo whispered as he held her close, one hand around her waist whilst the other took her palm in his. The height difference made it difficult at times, she had to gaze up at him in order to speak with him. Although watching her doe-like eyes focus on him, her face glowing with a smile that was brighter than the stars, he grew to love their size differences. She was his tiny human and he was her beast sized prince.

“Then next year don’t host so many.” Letting him guide her as the music began to play, waltzing slowly across the ballroom.

“It was the council's choice, normally I wouldn’t mind.” He grinned down, a smile she knew all too well. “I can’t wait to just take you back to our room,”.

“Someone’s impatient tonight.” Her turn to tease as he pulled her flush against him, her eyes widening to feel the press of his erection against her thigh.

“Can you feel what you're doing to me? Dressed so beautifully… looking like this, I have half a mind to tell everyone to leave so I can fuck you right here.” He practically growls in a low tone. The gaze that bore down on her was enough to speak the words he couldn’t say in the moment, desire written across his eyes.

“Oh my prince, you have no idea what you do to me,” She winked as he spun her, pulling her back to him to keep her enclosed in his hold forever. “Want to wait until everyone’s dancing and sneak back to the room?”

“You read my mind princess,” He dipped her down, her back only a few inches off the ground but pure trust as Diavolo held her. He followed her down and pressed a fleeting kiss to her lips, the crowd cheering them and raising glasses to the beautiful couple.

“Mmh!” Muffled moans echoing off the twisted stone stairway, Diavolo pressing the girl against his with mouth against hers. Sneaking off hand in hand as the crowd began to fill the dance floor, only managing to get past the wooden oak door to the staircase when he began his attack.

“Diavolo! Please, let’s make it up stairs at least," She giggled followed by a sweet gasp as his lips moved fiercely over her neck. “Or I mean we could just...“

“Another time.” He smirked, they were currently on a mission to defile every room in the castle. They hadn’t gotten very far, it was a bit difficult when Barbartos was lurking, seeming to always be one step ahead of them and ruining their fun - although part of Diavolo thought he did it to try and be part of the couple's activities. Which would never happen, she was his soon to be queen, Diavolo would not share her with anyone. “I have a surprise for you.”

“A surprise?" Her hands toying with his suit jacket, popping buttons one by one until she reached the bottom. “I really hope it’s,” She undid the button of his trousers, feeling his teeth scrape over the pulse over her neck. Her hand diving beneath the material of his boxers, “Hot and thick.” His half hard cock becoming instantly erect from her hand as it wrapped around him.

“Princess…” He groaned against her neck, indeed he was hot and thick. Weighing heavy in her hand whilst her other came to cup his balls, softly kneading as her other hand stroked his shaft. Her hand barely wrapped around his inhuman size.

“Come on my Prince, what do you say?” She teased, squeezing him in the palm of her hand as he licked the exposed side of his neck. Her tongue leaving a wet trail as she sucked up over his pulse, a loan groan rumbling off the stone walls. “We tick the stairs off the list.”

A squeal bounced off the stone, Diavolo removing her hands hoisting her over his shoulder as he pulled his boxers up, his erection poking out of his open trousers. One hand slapped her behind as he began his trek upstairs, running two steps at a time whilst using his other hand to hold up his trousers, desperate to reach their bedroom.

“Dia…” She rested naked on their bed, legs stretched out on her elbows. Diavolo having made quick work of undressing her before dashing to their bathroom, telling he was going to get her surprise ready.

“I’m coming my love,” Chuckling as he opened the door, taking in a few steps to stand before. Red ribbon wrapped around tanned skin, Diavolo bare as he wrapped himself up. Glitter reflecting off his abdomen, solid v-lines curving down to his erect cock, a wisp of ribbon in a bow placed against his flushed head. In his hands he toyed with more ribbon, almost blushing at the way she hungrily devoured him in her sight.

His cock twitched as she crawled to him, resting up on her knees and running the flat of her palms up his chest. Slender arms wrapping around his neck, pushing herself against him as she hummed against his lips.

“Surprise!” He grinned, his hands moving to hold her waist, fingertips drumming against her behind. “I know how we haven’t had a lot of time lately, so this is my gift to you for tonight,”.

“It’s perfect, you're perfect.” Tongue darting out to swiped across her top teeth, finger tips tickling back down his chest to run along the red ribbon. “And, it’s *all* mine right?” Her question followed by her hand gripping tightly over his cock and tugging it. Diavolo cursed heavily, unable to stop the buck of his hips as he rutted against her hand.

“All yours, princess.” Jaw dropped as he growled, sending excitement tingling down her spine. His reaction sent a gush of heat between her thighs, arousal thick in the air.

“Well then,” Tracing the ribbon with her other hand and pulling the satin to unwrap from his body, leaving it limp in her hands. A smirk gracing over her face, the ruler of Devildom at her completely and utter mercy.

A deep groan, one that shook the bottles of lube on the bedside table onto their sides. A noise leaving Diavolo that made her thighs clench tightly and the desire to stop her teasing, the rumble purely demonic and utterly erotic.

“You're doing so good baby,” She teased, the tight grip on his cock releasing which has caused the noise from the Prince. He was close to shattering, tugging harshly at the rope but the knots she had tied proved to be a match for his strength.

“Princess please,” Thrusting his hips up into the air with wild abandonment, teeth gritting to feel her hand pull away.

“What’s wrong my Prince? Can’t handle a bit of teasing?” Her smug grin peering down at him, his face redder than the ribbons around his wrists. Pressing her hands to his chest she leaned down, letting her slickened folds rub against his aching cock. Head buried between his shoulder and sinking teeth in gently making him roar out, rutting his hips as best he could against her to gain some friction. But the clamp of her thighs over him as she straddled him stopped his actions, whining heavily with a mixture of pants as all he could do was fall victim to her motion.

“Tell me what you want.” A sly grin over her face, ghosting her lips above his whilst her fingertips gilded up back of his cock. Throbbing and twitching, too sensitive from how she’d been edging him all night. Little regard to how much time had passed, each time his release would build up and he throbbed in her hand, she would pull away. Over and over until his thighs quacked and he’d throbbed instantly when her hand wrapped around him. When Diavolo didn’t reply, too desperate to feel her against him, his lips chasing hers desperately unable to thrust up. Liquid tears filling in his eyes, never had been so vulnerable - a side that was only and forever for her.

“Please…” It was so weak she barely heard it.

“Hand or mouth?” She teased, finally kissing him for the first time since she’d tied him to the bed. He kissed so eagerly, tongue instantly darting out in her mouth as she wrapped her a hand back around him, pumping slowly. “Come on baby, tell me,” All he could do was groan in response, weak words falling out of his mouth in a foreign tongue. “Want me to suck it? Suck your cock?” Grinning against his mouth, as he nodded, the headboard creaking under the strength of he was tugging at the ribbon at.

Wet open kisses moved down his chest, one hand cupping his balls while the other held the base of his cock. The first tongue of her tongue against his chest sent him reeling, pushing his hips up desperate for more. “That’s it,” She cooed softly against him, “Such a good boy for me Dia.” Her lips wrapped around him, pushing her tongue on the underside of his shaft as she pulled him deeper into his mouth. Until the head hit the back of her throat, her hand stroking the wide base that didn’t fit in her mouth. Shallow but quick movement, throat constricted around his length that left her slightly light headed.

Diavolo panted heavily, the air from his lungs burning - an almost fear that she would stop once more and leave him on the cusp on the edge. But instead she twisted her wrist, hallowed her cheeks with more pressure and hummed as he filled her mouth. A strong string of curses leave him, his throat parched as he gasped out. Spilling down the back of her throat with a force, the girl unable to take it all as thick spurts coaxed over her lips and chin, dribbling down her skin. Her hand continued to stroke him gently, ensuring to ride out his high until he was shaking in her hold.

Tongue darting out she licked her lips as his cock jolted in her hold, the sensitivity making him tremble as he whined loudly. His breathing still ragged, unable to find his voice as throat felt hoarse. He shifted as best he could, keeping eye contact with her held as she swallowed what was released in her mouth, wiping the dripping semen off her chin and sucking her finger clean. Her other hand squeezing his cock as she did.

And that was when he snapped.

The sound of the headboard breaking came first, the snapping of splintering wood filling the room, a scream followed. Diavolo having used every fibre in his sensitive body to snap his hands free from the ribbon, running the bed in the process as he pinned the girl down beneath him.

“My turn,” He growled, bringing the tattered ribbon up as he pinned her hands above her head and tied them in a fierce knot. Hunger, power and lust clouded over his orbs, a low growl resolving over his glowing, sweating body.

And before she could even make a squeak, Diavolo had flipped her over, pulling up her ass as spread her cheeks to get a sinful look at her glistening folds. His effect on her had arousal slicked all down the top of her thighs.

“Might not even need to prepare you, look wet enough to slide right in.” He teased, two fingers pressing straight into her core as they sunk in with ease, knuckle deep as her cunt sucked them in.

“Please.. please.” Grasping at the sheets as she bucked against his hand, clenching purposely over him.

“Hands or cock princess,” Hand coming down on her ass in a short slap, chuckling at her as she pulsed over him. The needy whine that left her was made his cock re-harden and pressed against her reddening cheek.

“C-cock.. fuck me, Diavolo, please.” Pushing herself backwards as an offering, the slope of her back pressed her chest against the bed as her hands fisted the bed sheets.

Leaning over her body, Diavolo pulled her fingers from her as she ran them over her chin, leaving a slick trail of her own arousal on her skin. His teeth biting her lower lobe but refusing to push his cock into her. “Anything you want princess,” His voice husky in her ear as he finally pressed himself into her, burying himself to the hilt as he thrusted in one solid movement.

Sending her clamping down and instantly climaxing, Diavolo biting into her shoulder as he rutted against her, fingers sinking into her skin and forming bruises. “That’s it, good girl princess.” Cooing the words she had used on him. He stilled his thrusts, pushing himself as deep as he could, tilting back his hips to angle himself perfectly inside her. Hitting exactly where stars flooded her eyes and her skin boiled hot.

“Please… please!” She begged, turning her head over his shoulder and feeling herself whine in an inhuman sound. Diavolo in demon form, his muscles rippling as it took all his strength to keep still inside her. His revenge for how much she had edged him. “Please move…”.

The tears welling in her eyes spoke a thousand words, glossed over with nothing but pure lust as her flushed lips parted in gentle breaths. The sight of her breaking him as he pulled back until his head was the only part inside her. “Hold tight princess,” He groaned before slamming his hips tightly against her, her hands gripping tightly to anything she could find in the restricted movement of them being bound.

Her Christmas present left her ruined that year.

Like my work? Send a donation of support here ‘Tis The Season For Smut Masterlist here (Bottom of the page)

#‘tis the season for smut #tis the season for smut #obey me diavolo smut #obey me diavolo x reader #obey me diavolo x mc #obey me dia #obey me diavolo #shall we date diavolo #obey me smut

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maraudererasmut · 3 years

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Life Update and All That

Hey all!

It’s T here!

I know it’s been a very long while since I’ve been around, and I figured I’m finally at the point where I can pop by and give a bit of an update, in case anyone was curious.

I left Tumblr and Discord for a bit to get my bearings and re-evaluate things. I needed some time to myself to sort through my mental health, figure some stuff out, and get to the point where I was finally at a better place to be able to come back.

A few things have happened since I’ve left that are actually kind of neat!

I published a book and wrote another manuscript!

I’m not going to share too much information about my book here, because I still do want to keep my smut-writing-pseudonym separate from my professional life, but suffice it to say that I published a novella, which got me started on the strange journey that is publishing!

I’m currently in the process of querying my first full-length manuscript, with the intention of getting an agent and publishing it. Hopefully that will be able to go somewhere, but if not, at least I have learned a lot while on my journey!

I realized that I am trans!

To the shock and surprise of absolutely nobody, the person who wrote gay romance and focused on a storyline that predominantly featured a transmasc character is actually, in fact, gay and trans. Shocking, I know!

It took a bit of thinking and talking and self analyzing that mostly occured during the many, many hours of alone time provided by a global pandemic for me to realize that wanting to be a boy does, in fact, make you probably a boy. Who would have guessed.

Anyway, I’m going by he/they pronouns these days. And uh... I guess my descriptions of dysphoria in all of my fics were a bit closer to home than I was ever willing to admit. Funny how these things work.

I bought a house!

I finally did something that I never thought would be possible in my entire life: I actually purchased a house in my city, which is notoriously expensive. It’s the perfect home for me: a large backyard; my very own shop space, which will soon be filled with tools; a sunroom with tons of windows for writing; a roof that I can climb up to and sit on... It’s really such a great home, and I am so excited to start this new chapter of my life here.

One door closed and another opened!

When I first left, there was a job opportunity that was a bit up in the air that would’ve involved me uprooting my life. While it didn’t end up panning out, I was ended up stumbling upon a different job in my field. I almost forgot how much I love what I do, and I am so glad to be back into the thick of it!

I figured that I should probably also try to pre-emptively answer any questions that you may have while I’m here and typing this all out. So... here goes!

Will you be continuing *insert fanfiction*?

I’m honestly not sure. The best answer that I can give right now is: Maybe?

I definitely want to try to continue some of my storylines, tie up some loose ends, and actually put together those plots that I had swirling around my mind.

That being said, I also have other projects that are currently on the go that might take precidence. Most importantly, I have several original stories that I plan to eventually query (or even publish, if I can!).

If I find that I am inspired to go back and write more Wolfstar, rest assured, I absolutely WILL. These boys will always hold a special place in my heart, and I honestly don’t know if I will ever be truly rid of them, even if I tried.

Will you still be making art for the fandom?

Again, I’m not sure.

I’ve been doing a LOT of fanart, on a different account, just to keep up my skills while I was away. There are quite a few fandoms that I have been making art for, and I don’t know yet if I want to merge these two accounts.

That’s a decision for the future. :P

But you can always try to pop into my ask box and send a request, and if I can get to it, I will try my absolute best.

You and I have unfinished business!! Will you be getting to that?!

Ah, yes. I remember now. I left the fandom while I was in a very BAD place, and most things fell by the wayside while I worked on my mental health. I’m sorry.

If we do have any kind of unfinished business at all that you need to talk to me about, please do! I want to try to resolve things and make sure that everyone is satisfied with whatever solution we can come to. Feel free to reach out, and I will try my absolute best to respond and rectify.

Rest assured, if we have had any kind of negative interraction in the past, I have absolutely spent the past year and a half allowing that to eat away at me. I’ve been feeling guilt up the wazoo, a ball of anxiety so tight, you could probably play baseball with it.

I’m trying not to let these kinds of things bother me anymore. I’m trying to learn to let things go, and focus on the present and the future. I am truly sorry for things that I have done in the past, but I am finally at the point where I am ready to put my effort into making things better instead of dwelling on what was.

Will you be active on this blog now? Are you back for good?

I think you already know the answer to that question...

I don’t know.

I haven’t made any decisions yet about whether or not I’m here to lurk and like and reblog or if I’m going to be actually producing content again. I have no idea yet how active I will be here. That really depends on how I’m feeling, how I’m doing mentally, and what the reception to this post looks like.

So... Maybe?

DID YOU MISS ME WHEN YOU WERE GONE?

Yes. Yes, I did.

If you are actually asking me this question, chances are that I did miss you. Yes, you specifically. Yes, I thought about you a lot. Yes, I wished that I had the courage to go back and just say “HI, I MISSED YOU, PLEASE CAN WE BE FRIENDS AGAIN!”

I am not great at reaching out, though. I’m not great at handling my emotions period. Hopefully, if you’re wondering if I missed you, you’d be interested in reconnecting, knowing that I did, in fact, miss you a lot.

Are you okay now?

I will be.

Even when I’m not okay these days, I at least have the wherewithall to be able to say “while I might not be doing great right now, I know that I will be okay.”

And isn’t that what we all want? :P

Anyway, if you made it this far, thanks for reading. I hope this was interesting and/or informative.

And... I’m glad that I wrote this. It helped.

With love,

#maraudererasmut #writing my thoughts out #T Talks

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callivich · 1 year

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Just a reminder for anyone new or anyone who has been lurking:

I know it’s difficult coming into a new fandom but everyone in the Gallavich fandom on tumblr is very friendly and kind, so don’t feel nervous - just jump in and say hi.

Make an intro post and check the #gallavichintro tag to find fellow fans! Here’s the general Shameless version!

Like seriously just send a message or reply to a post. We’re here to have fun, the idea of new people is great because it means more engagement.

When I say people are nice, I mean it. I’ve been in so many different fandoms over 20+ years and this is genuinely the kindest group of people I’ve ever encountered online in a fandom space.

Give your blog an icon. People tend to assume that ones without are spam blogs and may block immediately. Here are some great icons you can use with credit: here / here / here

If you’d like a Gallavich banner for your blog, send me a message - I’d be so happy to make you one! I’ve got ones free to use here / here.

Please don’t steal gifs and repost them, here’s a great post explaining why. And another one explaining the gif search function.

Reblog content you enjoy and write in the tags or reply to the post - how much you liked something or if you have other thoughts…..creators love to hear this!

Use the tags. They’re the best way to get your posts noticed if you’re new- #gallavich #ian gallagher #mickey milkovich #ianxmickey any or all of these will work. When you make a post, you should see a little grey box that says something like add tags to help people find your post, just type in there. (You don’t need to use the # symbol. Tumblr automatically does that.)

There are so many brilliant active communities that you can take part in - I’ve done a roundup post here & I will update it with new communities

If you feel creative? Got for it. Don’t worry about what people think, just share your work. Write that fic or headcanon or meta, draw that art, create that gifset, design that aesthetic piece, share that playlist. Chances are that a lot of people will enjoy your work!

Recommend what you’ve enjoyed! There is no time limit on sharing links to fic, art, headcanons, gifsets, posts of any kind…..reblog/share what you love and keep sharing it. Whether it’s brand new or years old, sharing the work is great idea.

Go back and explore things. Older fics on ao3, gifsets and art from years past, moodboards and headcanons that are years old. None of these things have an expiration date. So reblog them, share them, let people experience them for the first time and allow people to enjoy them for the 2nd/3rd/4th time.

Share your ideas. Whether it’s headcanons or meta or fics or art, share it. Feel free to explore your ideas. There’s always room for discussion, analysis and creativity.

Keeping reblogging posts. Not just once or twice but again and again. The queue is there for a reason. And each time you do? You’re sharing it with your dash.

Remember, pretty much everyone starts out as a lurker and when it comes to being creative - everyone starts at the beginning. Those writers and artists and creators that you are in awe of? They all started out at square one. Everyone practices and creates over and over again, that’s how it goes. The more you write or draw or create, the better you get. And fandom loves to see it.

This is a relatively small-ish fandom but it’s active and there is nothing nicer than new people joining, so don’t hesitate - jump in. It’s so much fun and we’d love you to join us! 💖

If anyone has any tips or encouragement they’d like to share, please reply to this post! 💖

And if you have any questions about using tumblr, send me an ask!

#gallavich #mickey milkovich #ian gallagher #ian x mickey #mickey x ian #calli talks #encouragement post for lurkers

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nickywhoisi · 2 years

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I just realized...that so many of my posts are getting...noticed? By other people? And it’s all been such a massive change from the isolation I had “gotten used to” and it’s so...wonderfully positive and nice? Maybe it’s dumb that I’m noticing so late, but...I would like to mention a very important factoid about me.

I have this new account, but I’ve actually been on tumblr for many years before. There was one account I used to have that I worked so hard to make so I could do what I’m doing now. But for some reason, I was never able to get traction going on it...like, at all. Nobody came around. Not a single notification had ever popped up in the whole two years I had that. It was as if I were all alone in a ghost town. I knew there were loads of people online, yet nobody ever seemed to reblog the things I was most passionate about creating, the posts I worked the hardest on. I was doing it for me, true, but I was also doing it for others too, and I considered that important. Yet I grew pretty upset that nothing seemed to be working for me to finally be a part of things, live the experience everyone else seemed to be getting and have an audience to call my very own, so I could finally share myself with the world in a meaningful way. And for many years afterward, I would be lurking, just looking at others’ blogs that I still liked, but it was pretty bad because I was always wistfully longing without using an account to talk to anyone. I was pretty convinced there was nobody who ever wanted to talk to me, or like me. It was as if everyone who ever said “there’s always someone who’s going to be there for you” was being proven wrong...and that’s how it stayed. You can imagine the bitterness that was arising from that kind of treatment. I worry that’s still coming out sometimes, as I type now.

But finally, all it took was finding the right fandom, just trying one more time at doing the exact same thing I wanted to do for myself, and letting whatever happened happen. I legitimately thought this new blog of mine would suffer the same fate as my old one (in fact, I wonder if it’s still the same as it ever was, nobody even knowing it exists) and I was ready to feel impossibly isolated again. Then maybe I would have just...sworn off any kind of trying at social media. It was my last shot, and I would have let myself get swallowed by the void of loneliness if nothing improved. But then it did. Because I guess I forgone all my past gripes and allowed myself to obtain even a little bit of happiness in the TTTE fandom. How ironic that I thought I would have been treated badly and cast out further by identifying as part of this group and so had never posted any of this on that old blog, and there was never this much activity, excitement, and genuine moments where I’ve gotten to talk to others and even achieve friendship. Now on this one, I’ve done the opposite, and it’s all been happening. I cannot begin to say how even if I really do wish I had gotten this ages ago, before this new climate has happened...it’s so great that I am getting this now, instead of never at all.

So I am trying my hardest to hold onto all memories of the good things that have been coming to my life lately, and to not let the bad things cripple me out of being positive. I hope that what...this is, this atmosphere, just stays as is and continues on. It’s beautiful to finally, after toiling for this long, be allowed to belong somewhere. I hope you’ll all reblog and talk to me often, I’ll always be eager to chat, or lend an ear. Please don’t be afraid to dm, leave a message, whichever. It’s all so exciting and I am ready to interact always, no matter what mood. Come in!

#thank goodness I'm feeling a bit better #I'm already getting my positivity back just by remembering #feels great #^_^#ramble brambles #boy I really want to be able to post more of my art too...so much I want to do #not under read more because I finally have more positive things to say and it's so relieving

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bigskydreaming · 4 years

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Alright a noob's question to a veteran fan, when do you think the blatant hatred for Dick started? I've heard from old, 50+ years old fans that he was the best, he was badass, better than Batman A lister. What changed? I know DC can't stand their legacy characters and they've always put abuse in their books, but I want to know about the fandom. When I joined I fell for the Tim Drake Best but Underrated Robin thing until I realized that was polar opposite of the truth. When did That start?

Okay, well it took me forever to get back to this ask and finish like I promised, but I kept my promise, huzzah! Long as fuck theorizing on this topic below:

So here’s the thing. I’ve been fucking around fandoms since the 90s, and I can 100% confirm that Everyone Hates Dick Grayson absolutely was not always a thing. Its a large part of WHY I’m so convinced that modern fandom is just fucking WEIRD about him, because like....I actively have something else to compare it to. I can absolutely remember what Bat fandom was like in regards to him back in the days of the Bludhaven yahoo group and squidge.org and other random URLs that mean absolutely nothing to 99% of you, lolol.

Like, there is very much, distinctly, DEFINITIVELY, a difference in how the majority of fandom views him and interacts with his character now, as opposed to like.....the first decade or so I was in fandoms.

And if I had to trace it back to a specific time period where there was like...an actual, visible sea change....the only thing I can come up with is around the Battle for the Cowl era, the start of the Morrison/Dickbats run. Not so coincidentally, this was the precise time I moved away from Batfam fandom after having pretty consistently being in it for a good ten years by then, BECAUSE there very clearly IMO was this change in how people were writing about Dick all of a sudden.

Like, there had been tensions building towards Dick’s character for awhile, probably ever since Jason’s return because like....in a sense, Dick’s too far removed from say, Tim, to be directly in competition with his character. What I mean is, there’s too little overlap in what people like about Tim and what people like about Dick for them to ever be like...a threat to each other’s fanbases in that respect, and push people to make a choice there. But with Dick and Jason, there’s enough overlap in them and what draws people to them - even just purely in terms of positioning within the Bat franchise, as an older Bat-sibling and former Robin that nevertheless is no longer Robin himself - that like....ever since Jason came back, you could start to see ‘fractures’ in how people viewed Dick. Because now there was another alternative to his character who occupied a similar......not sphere, but perhaps ‘level’ of the Batfamily franchise, and so people kinda started....picking sides, even though no actual sides had to be picked in the first place because its not actually a fucking competition.

And this isn’t to say the view of Dick in fandom and how he’s interacted with is the ‘fault’ of Jason’s return, not at all, just.....this is just me talking analytically, in terms of patterns and causality. Not trying to assign blame here, more just kinda explain the way it appeared to me anyway.

But then things all came to a head in the Battle for the Cowl era, and ignited stuff that had been lurking under the surface in SEVERAL different areas of fandom, and brought into direct conflict long-held assumptions and views and biases that had only never been in conflict before because they didn’t NEED to be in conflict before.

Basically, my Big Thesis about why fandom is the way it is about Dick, is that I feel its not so much that fans of other characters hate him, its that I think many of them RESENT him for very specific things and how those things like....make him a narrative obstacle to the kinds of stories they want to read and write about the Batfam specifically.

With the biggest examples here being Bruce fans, Jason fans and Tim fans.

See, my take is this:

1) I think a lot of Bruce fans resent Dick on some level because he’s actually the biggest obstacle standing in the way of the Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent view of things. As much as people have always liked to claim and take for granted that Dick is Bruce’s favorite or whatever, the truth is there is a far longer and far more VARIED history of Bruce and Dick being at odds than there is between Bruce and any other of his kids.

Essentially, in order to really sell Bruce as CONSISTENTLY being a good parent, regardless of what canon says or does at times.....DICK is the character you MOST have to rewrite or write around, change or ignore his stories, reframe his past interactions with Bruce in order to make this stick.

I know people are probably going “Umm what about Bruce and Jason though?” But the difference is, Bruce and Dick’s conflicts cover a lot more ground than Bruce and Jason’s. Its not that Bruce and Jason’s clashes aren’t epic and that Bruce’s behavior with Jason in stories like UTRH hasn’t been massively shitty....its that in terms of Bruce and Jason, these things are a lot more....confined, than they are with Bruce and Dick.

Basically, most of the major conflict between Bruce and Jason CAN be rewritten or avoided by simply addressing three or four definitive things: the Garzonas case and aftermath, Bruce’s actions/response in regards to the Joker killing Jason, Jason’s return and his wants and needs in regard to Bruce in UTRH, and Bruce’s view of Jason’s actions and ideology post his return.

None of these are small things by any means. But they are FINITE things. They’re concentrated into specific stories, specific areas of canon....and thus, more easily navigated around by anyone who wants to avoid engaging with these things in the form of Bruce being a shitty parent, and rewrite and reframe Bruce and Jason’s dynamic in the vein of Bruce is a Good Parent.

In contrast, with Dick and Bruce, to rewrite and reframe Bruce and Dick’s OVERALL dynamic in the vein of Bruce is a Good Parent......you’ve got a LOT more ground to cover.

There’s Bruce firing Dick as Robin, there’s Bruce not reaching out to Dick and being content to stay estranged from Dick for all the years they barely interacted, there’s the effect Bruce’s adopting Jason and making him Robin without a word to Dick in advance had on Dick, there’s Bruce still not using the conflict between them over that to make changes in how he interacted with Dick like say adopting him now, there’s Bruce’s actions and behavior towards Dick in the aftermath of Jason’s death, there’s Bruce’s inconsistent appearances in Dick’s stories in all the many times Dick very much needs help or comfort juxtaposed with Dick’s consistent appearances in Bruce’s stories any time he so much as calls him and asks him to show up due to the fact that canon writers can consistently be counted on to prioritize Bruce’s needs as more pressing than Dick’s needs, narratively speaking. There’s Bruce’s clear judgment of Dick in Last Laugh and failure to reach out and help Dick through its aftermath. There’s Bruce’s non-involvement in the extended greatest hits album that is one of the lowest periods of Dick’s life, encompassing Blockbuster, Tarantula and the destruction of Bludhaven, and Bruce’s non-helpful ‘fix’ in the wake of all that, which can be summed up as him yelling “suck it up, buddy.” And in the New 52 you’ve got Bruce’s shitty handling of the Court of Owls revelations and his treating the effect of these revelations on Dick as a total non-issue, there’s the aftermath of Forever Evil, there’s Bruce’s failure to say anything about why Dick went to Spyral even after seeing the effect it had on Dick’s relationships with the rest of his family, there’s the absolute disaster that was his handling of the Ric Grayson situation.....

See what I’m saying? Its not that Bruce doesn’t have plenty of fodder for being a shitty parent in stories with Jason, its just that the times and the ways he is are more isolated and contained, relatively speaking....thus more easily ‘treated’ by anyone who wants to FIX those parts of canon in order to realign it all in the framework of Bruce Wayne Is A Good Parent.

Its nowhere NEAR as easy to do that with Dick when you ACTUALLY engage with the full extent of how shittily Bruce has been written interacting with his eldest over the course of decades....

And so for fans of Bruce who very much WANT Bruce to be a good parent, that’s what they want to read, that’s what they want to write, that’s what they’re HERE for and stuff OUTSIDE that is stuff they (understandably) do not want to engage with....

This makes Dick actively an OBSTACLE to all of that. It makes him a Problem. Dick and his stories and his dynamics with Bruce, in order to truly align with Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, have to EXTENSIVELY be tackled and rewritten and reframed, and this is no easy feat or no small process.

And for fans of Bruce who are here for BRUCE first and foremost, not Dick, and who thus don’t want to and aren’t thrilled to be confronted with a need to PRIORITIZE him and his stories to such a large degree in order to ACTUALLY ‘fix’ canon - which for the record has nothing to do with Dick being more important of a character or anything to do with character preferences whatsoever, but rather is simply symptomatic of the ROLE Dick occupies in Bruce’s life, and is an extension of the fact that in any scenario in which Bruce Wayne Is A Good Parent, Dick, as his son, logically MUST be as much a priority at least some of the time as any other of his kids because THAT’S WHAT A GOOD PARENT DOES, HE MAKES HIS KIDS A PRIORITY.....

Like, its honestly understandable (even if thanks, I hate it) that people who really just WANT to focus on Bruce and his Good Parent-ness and don’t want to be forced into HAVING to make Dick and fixing or rewriting how Bruce has screwed up with him into a priority when writing fic that ultimately, for these fans, is still supposed to be ABOUT Bruce.....like, its not exactly rocket science, grasping how this could easily lead to people being even less keen on the guy, because he complicates so many stories they want to write without remotely being one of the characters they’re inspired to write in the first place.

So I mean, yeah. Dick very much became an object of resentment for a lot of Bruce fans, I think, for that reason specifically, and for the narrative obstacle he innately presents to anyone who just wants to write Good Parent Bruce and doesn’t want to have to write Bruce Actively Fixing His Mistakes With Dick in order to do so.

And again, this is pretty much JUST Dick in this particular role (especially as of the time I’m talking about) because much like how even though Bruce has his fuck-ups with Jason, they’re more finitely contained to specific narratives and TYPES of narratives....the same is true of Bruce’s interactions with his other kids. Yeah, he has his fuck-ups with them too, but again, they’re more isolated, more traceable back to singular sources and stories that are a lot more easily sidestepped and navigated around by anyone who just does not want to engage with Bruce Being a Bad Parent and the EFFECTS this has had on various of his kids throughout their stories as a result.

So you have this thing, about Dick, narratively speaking, not even a matter of character like or dislike. And its been there all along, slowly building story by story....

With it all coming to a head, I feel, in the Battle for the Cowl era, where Bruce is shuffled off-stage for a time, and REPLACED by Dick as Batman.....while at the same time Dick is cast in the same role of surrogate father figure to newcomer Damian, that Bruce was cast in with Dick when he and Dick were of similar ages to Dick and Damian now.

And Bruce was absolutely celebrated for how good he was with Dick back then - and with reason - BUT, I think this period with Dick and Damian, and the stories it told, brought front and center the fact and the awareness that it’d been a LONG TIME since Bruce was so uncritically celebrated for being a Good Parent, and with Dick specifically. And then additionally it made and kept front and center at this exact same time....people celebrating Dick for being a Good Parent (in essence) in much the way that they HADN’T celebrated Bruce for quite some time. And add to that the fact that Dick was doing this WHILE in the role of Batman himself, the same role Bruce had occupied in the parallel situation....so it made all this into a parallel that couldn’t easily be dismissed or discounted by saying things like “well Dick didn’t have the pressures of being Batman to deal with, being a good parent throughout all of this and STAYING that way would have been innately easier because of that.”

And thus....long-simmering resentment of the obstacle alleged favorite son Dick poses to actually writing Bruce Is A Good Parent content without significant revision or ommissions....ignited. With kinda the insult added to injury that now Dick was getting the same kind of praise and attention that these particular fans came to the franchise to see BRUCE be the focus and recipient of, not Dick.

2) At the same time, you have another large segment of fandom by this point, Jason’s fans. Or to be more accurate, you have a select but EXTREMELY vocal subset of Jason’s fans.....

Who come to Jason’s fandom with a very specific angle: they LIKE Jason as the misunderstood outcast of the Batfam, the black sheep alone and apart from the rest of the family who Just Don’t Get Him And Never Will, thus making him eternally sympathetic in this specific regard. But with that specific regard, in order to STAY eternal…..requiring that….nobody in the family gets him or cares or ever has really.

Thus once again, Dick just by the existence of him and his actual past dynamics with Jason, is a narrative obstacle to writing THIS specific narrative.

And so of course it had to be reframed and EMPHASIZED that Dick had always been a jerk to Jason, barely a brother, heck they barely even knew each other apparently - even when Jason came back and one of his first interactions with Dick post-Return was to clearly express that he’d always seen Dick as family, which very much does not mesh the idea that Jason and Dick barely knew each other or barely ever interacted before Jason died.

It also, of course, does not mesh with the idea that there’s nobody in the Batfamily who understands Jason, or is capable of seeing things his way instead of Bruce’s, or who cares enough to avenge him……because Last Laugh very much DOES exist, and puts the lie to all of that. Dick’s not only killed at least once (actually more than just once) and still remained fundamentally the same Dick Grayson he’s always been, but on top of that, it was the very person Jason desperately wanted to see dead as some kind of evidence, some sign that he had MATTERED to his family, that him being taken away from them hurt them enough that they felt driven to DO something about it, beyond the usual toss ‘em and lock ‘em.

Dick actually did that, ‘gave’ Jason what he wanted, and for the very same reasons Jason wanted it, to know that it was because of him, because of the loss of him, because he MATTERED and his absence HURT….and while of course, Dick was never the person Jason most wanted to see do that deed, want to see that evidence from….nonetheless, it very much does remain as significant evidence towards the fact that Jason mattered a great deal to Dick, enough even that having differing beliefs about killing would still be unlikely to ever stand between Dick having some kind of relationship with his returned-from-the-dead brother - because not only was it because of Jason (and Tim as well, admittedly, I’m not trying to gloss over the fact that he was part of the story and part of Dick’s motivation, this is just a matter of topical focus at the moment) not only was it actually BECAUSE of Jason that Dick crossed the line that so often he otherwise rigidly adheres to…it was never that realistic that Dick would judge and condemn Jason for killing, at least not by any narrative that took Last Laugh into consideration.

Because not only has Dick done the same thing himself, and MORE than wanted to do it on many other occasions as well thus he very clearly understands both the temptation and the arguments made for it…..BUT just as significantly IMO, is the AFTERMATH of Last Laugh. Where Dick very clearly was shown wrestling with and being affected by Bruce’s implicit judgment for what he’d done. Meaning not only was Dick never actually likely to condemn or judge Jason….he also is one of a handful of people most able to empathize with being judged or condemned by BRUCE for crossing that line. It never made sense or was realistic that there’d be this great divide between Dick and Jason after his return, that Dick was unable let alone unwilling to try and bridge, even for the sake of spending time with the brother he thought he’d never have a chance to spend time with again.

(And yeah yeah, its not like he was embracing Jason with open arms in Brothers in Blood, but I maintain that had more to do with Jason’s approach than Dick innately being predisposed to being stand-offish with Jason. Like, when you announce yourself by impersonating your brother and getting him a rep as a manic killer being hunted by the police, instead of just like…ringing the doorbell, its kinda like, well, you may have to shoulder some of the blame here. Not to mention there still was the specter of what Jason had done to Dick’s other little brother Tim, with this still unaddressed between the two as of that time).

So yeah, for the above reasons and many more, Dick once again presents a narrative obstacle to a specific KIND of narrative that happens to be the one a lot of Jason’s fans most want to tell. The one where Jason sticks it to all his uptight family and rides off into the sunset with his NEW family, one that appreciates him and holds him in proper respect and positioning, the one where Jason will always be at least a somewhat tragic figure, forever apart from the family he does still very much love, because THEY can’t reconcile who and what HE is and believes.

Cuz once you take Last Laugh into consideration, AND add in Jason’s own words at the end of Brothers in Blood and the fact that they DIDN’T hate each other back when Jason was Robin, nor was it just one-sided on Dick’s end of things…..well, with all that taken into account, it becomes a lot trickier pulling off the above narrative, doesn’t it? When the in-character behavior of Dick according to THAT characterization of him would never accept any version of events where Jason was cast out for good (and yes, yes, RHATO and Bruce exiling Jason from the city, I know that in the New 52 that’s pretty much exactly what happened and Dick didn’t do anything about it, but he was kinda busy getting shot in the head right around that same time, so, y’know. That cuts into the ability to intervene on Jason’s behalf).

But basically, this is IMO why Last Laugh barely gets acknowledged by a lot of Jason’s fans, even though on the surface, you’d THINK its exactly the kind of story that would appeal to anyone who wanted, well, a story where someone in Jason’s family showed that they actually gave a damn the damn dumb clown still wasn’t dead. Its an in canon story that showcases and even highlights very clearly Jason’s place in that person’s family and memories, and the importance and weight with which he was regarded by that family member. Isn’t that exactly what Jason - and thus by extension his fans - have always wanted?

Well….yes, except it was the wrong family member. To have the weight, the significance that a lot of fans TRULY wanted from that story, from that outcome, it needed to be BRUCE that did it, not Dick. There’s no real place in that particular narrative or dynamic for an older brother who does actually give a damn. Like yeah, its great that Dick cared and all, but when its viewed as being more of an all or nothing situation, like, it has to play out with Bruce in that role and no one else, or it doesn’t count, doesn’t mean ENOUGH…..once again, this positions Dick to be more of a narrative obstacle to a certain (popular) kind of story than a benefit.

And so Dick has to be repositioned, reframed, rewritten…..to be something and someone writers can actually work with when writing the kind of story where Bruce’s acknowledgment is the only one that ultimately matters. Him being likely to WANT to help and support Jason from an in-character standpoint, simply doesn’t help writers for whom this just becomes an unwanted plot complication that inherently bumps Dick a little higher up the Priority Ladder, because his status as a Rare Ally rather than Yet Another Antagonist pretty much inevitably paves the way for more screentime for his character, and again….he’s just not the character these writers want to write about (and yeah, again, this part is totally understandable), and they’re really just not interested in allotting him that much screentime, let alone a role that could feasibly steal focus at times from Jason, edge the narrative into being more of a co-lead than the single protagonist it was definitively intended to be.

So. Fandom subset number two is equally predisposed to resenting Dick simply for the narrative obstacle he presents to one of their preferred stories to tell - with again, this pretty much taking off right around the Dickbats era, fueled in no small part by Morrison’s shitty take on Jason, which, while I maintain it was Jason that was most out of character in all of that….DOES still very easily play into that take on him, where he’s misunderstood and eternally at odds with his family.

And which also, I suspect, is why Morrison’s run tends to be weirdly popular with a lot of Jason fans who in most other places are quick to point out earmarks of Jason’s usual characterization that are entirely at odds with Morrison’s take on him, like that he’s extremely against the idea of younger sidekicks in general at this point (especially pre-Reboot), which uh, makes him taking on a younger sidekick a very….Strange Choice.

3) And then lastly we come to Tim, and a lot of his fans’ issues with Dick Grayson - which I think are heightened by a kind of feeling of betrayal that ties in here, and emphasizes the fact that just a year or two prior to Battle for the Cowl, most of these same fans would have sworn they loved Dick’s character and he was a great big brother to Tim.

See, the problem here, I think, lies in the fact that Tim is THE definitive Robin for an entire generation of readers. He’s who they see in the role every time they close their eyes, because he’s who’s always been in the role as far as they’re concerned. Back issues are just that - back issues. They’re about the history of Robin. But in the present, the here and now, for the solid twenty years or so before Battle for the Cowl, for all intents and purposes there really was only one Robin and it was uncontested that it was Tim.

And again, on a lot of levels I totally get this. I’m somewhat similar when it comes to Kyle Rayner and Green Lantern. Kyle was ‘my’ Green Lantern, the one I grew up with, the one starring in the stories that were current and ongoing for me as I aged. I was pissed as hell when they brought Hal Jordan back and he resumed being front and center in the GL franchise…..not because before this I’d had any real strong feelings about Hal one way or the other, outside of how I felt about him in the individual stories he popped up in…..but simply because Hal front and center happens to coincide with the starring GL of the solo title I personally would consider the definitive GL run….like….pretty much getting shoved offstage entirely, most of the time. I get that. It sucks.

Except that’s not QUITE the situation here.

Like the thing is, I do believe that for a lot of fans, Tim IS Robin and Robin IS Tim. That’s how its always been for them, that’s the way they like it, that’s how it should remain until his character is ready to launch into a new persona and identity of his own character’s volition. And its not like it was ever a secret that other Robins came before Tim, and that Dick was actually the creator of the mantle, the guy that all the other later Robins, including Tim, were literally the legacy OF. And its not like Dick wasn’t around in Tim’s stories, and wasn’t a familiar presence to Tim’s fans….its just that for almost twenty years, the WAY Dick appeared in Tim’s stories only added to them. There was no angle from which he took away from Tim’s stories, or the fact that they were Tim’s.

Like yes, he was a reminder that Tim was not the only Robin and never had been, that there were others with just as much claim to the title, if not more……but in a very background way. Not in any way that presented any kind of ‘threat’ to Tim’s actual status as Robin. Dick Grayson’s days as Robin were way in the past, and there was no real likelihood that they were ever going to put him back in that role, so his ‘claim’ to the Robin mantle was never at any point one that potentially contested Tim’s own. It was simply a non-issue. Instead, Dick’s status as the original Robin juxtaposed with his current roles of doting big brother and secondary mentor figure….like, at the time, this actually ADDED to Tim’s own wearing of the mantle. Dick’s presence was less a reminder that he was the one without whom the mantle wouldn’t even exist, and more just a kinda embodiment of the Robin LORE, the fact that Tim’s superhero mantle came with history and the prestige of past accomplishments accomplished by the Robin name, and the gravitas of the dangers and downsides that potentially came with the cape as well. It gave Tim an additional angle that even most of his friends and teammates in various books didn’t have, made him stand out even more.

And it didn’t hurt that pretty much any time there was a guest appearance from Nightwing in Tim’s stories, he was firmly slotted in the supporting character role, there to help Tim but not overshadow Tim, to support him but not claim credit for Tim’s ultimate victory in any given story’s climax. And there weren’t many occasions when things went in reverse, where it was Tim guest-starring in Dick’s stories and thus him clearly slotted in the supporting character category, the B character role….simply because the older veteran hero needing to call upon his younger, comparatively inexperienced ally just was never as likely - and thus, occurring as often - a story as one where the younger, relatively new hero calls upon his more experienced predecessor for help or even just some advice or someone to listen to whatever was troubling the younger hero at the time.

Thus there’s the additional angle where for almost two decades, Dick Grayson’s presence in a Tim Drake narrative was for one reason and one reason only - to support Tim in whatever endeavor he was in the middle of, and to be what Tim needed, when Tim needed.

But then of course, once again we reach Battle for the Cowl….and all of that gets upended, not even because of Dick making Damian Robin per se, IMO…..to me, its always felt like the bigger issue has always been many of Tim’s fans resenting just….the reminder, the newly centered awareness that no matter how long Tim had been THEIR Robin, he wasn’t the only Robin and never had been….and that supportive, helpful older brother whose presence had previously only added to Tim’s stories and their weight, never threatened anything that was ‘his’ narratively speaking…..not only did he also have a claim to the Robin title, he has literally the biggest claim possible, the one none of the others can match due to the mere fact that they are quite literally HIS legacy characters.

Which, not at all incidentally, is IMO the reason a lot of Tim fans are so vocal about dismissing or minimizing the impression/association of Robin with Dick’s first family. Always quick to emphasize that it being his mother’s nickname for Dick was a later addition to the canon, because it ties Dick to the Robin mantle in a way none of the others ever will be. But of course, like I’ve always maintained…that’s besides the point. Whether or not Dick named himself Robin because it was a cherished nickname, because he was a fan of Robin Hood, or for any other reason, its still equally true that he’s the creator of the mantle, plain and simple. It doesn’t exist without him, it was his aims, his intentions, his DEEDS back when he wore the (clearly circus themed and inspired, no matter what else is said about the name’s origin BUT I DIGRESS) costume originally…..like, those are literally what Robin WAS because they were what Dick created Robin to be. It was only something for others to take up later, let alone to even WANT to take up, with it coming with a weight of history and past heroics that later Robins were proud to embrace….all of that’s only because of what Dick imbued the mantle with in the eyes of the world, not to mention his own successors….via what he DID in the costume, while wearing it, coupled with the fact that there’d never really been anything like him before, a kid kicking bad guy ass alongside the more intimidating specter of his mentor.

Dick being the first Robin isn’t just a matter of linear progression, like its not just a matter of him EXISTING ahead of the others ‘in line,’ so to speak. Rather, being the first Robin is a matter of…..its literally HIM and HIS actions that every later Robin is the LEGACY of. He’s the SOURCE of the legacy. And you can’t really go…’how dare the guy I’m literally part of the legacy of, like, think he has the right to decide what happens with the mantle he and he alone created, long before I ever came along’…I mean….y’know? Boiled down to that, that doesn’t really….work, like its pretty plainly evident why the originator of a legacy mantle would think its his place to be the definitive voice on what’s done with his own damned legacy. Regardless of why he named it what he did and what specific associations the name had for him originally.

But there’s always been a determined focus on kinda…..shifting attention away from the question of who actually DOES have the right to say who wears the Robin mantle and when, because I think there is generally an awareness that like….Dick wasn’t out of line to think that his own damn creation was his to give in the name of adding to their circle of family, the same way as it did twice before. Its not that there’s NO angle from which even Tim’s fans might admit that who created a legacy matters in the question of who gets to decide who carries that legacy next. Its more that like….just the reminder, the newly centered awareness that yes, Tim is not the only claimant to the Robin title and never was, like…I think that grates a lot of people, tbh.

It may have been something that there was always SOME awareness of, the whole time, but previously it was in a way that was supposed to be ancient history, not something that could ever end up ‘taking away’ something they strongly identified with being Tim’s and Tim’s alone. Especially when the character suddenly exerting a prior or greater claim on that mantle just so happens to be one that a lot of Tim’s longtime fans had long-since internalized as being part of TIM’S supporting cast, not another protagonist in his own right, one whose decisions could have a shaping effect on Tim’s narrative rather than the other way around, the way it felt like ‘its supposed to go.’

And bringing it back to the overlap with the first two fandom impressions I talked about, I think again, yeah, this resulted in a kind of resentment of Dick’s character and the narrative obstacle he presents to…..well, keeping Robin associated with Tim and Tim alone, practically speaking. Its not so much giving Robin to Damian in the first place that’s the problem, its the fact that he COULD. That within the actual canon narrative, this was acknowledged and supported as something that ultimately, Dick did have the right to do whether individual characters liked it or not, and no, that didn’t make him the same as Bruce when he’d taken it from Dick originally (assuming they acknowledge that version of the story at all in the first place).

Because due to the fact that its not something NEW that was introduced to the story that led to Dick being ABLE to do this, but rather just him choosing to exert an option he’d had the entire time and just previously chosen not to use……inevitably, this creates a slight shift in the framing and context of even previously consumed stories. Suddenly Dick’s presence in many of those previous stories ISN’T incidental, because now they couldn’t help but be viewed through the lens of….remembering what had been kinda hand-waved away as inconsequential the entire time Tim was Robin. The fact that ultimately, Tim was only Robin because Dick endorsed him. That if Dick could give Robin to Damian later, then Dick COULD have, by the exact same token, the exact same claim and association with the mantle he’d been the one to create….he could have stuck by his initial stance, which was that Robin died with Jason.

In all fairness, as I’ve said many times before, this NEVER had anything to do with whether or not Tim became Bruce’s PARTNER, specifically. I’ve never been of the opinion that even Dick’s status as the originator of Robin had nothing to do with who ended up Bruce’s PARTNER after him - that was always going to be between Bruce and that person, and no one else. But whether, as that partner, Tim went by the name Robin….with everything it embodied and signified and carried with it already….that, yes, Dick had always had the option of saying no, I’m not okay with this, I do not give you permission to wear the SPECIFIC mantle I created, what my brother died wearing.

I mean, granted, Bruce and Tim could have done what they wanted anyway, but much like people try and dismiss or invalidate the version of events where Bruce fired Dick as Robin and stripped him of the mantle precisely BECAUSE there’s no real way to go with that version and NOT get that Bruce looks like a douche in it one way or another, simply because that was never his to take….like, same deal here. They could have powered on without Dick’s approval of someone else wearing the Robin costume, but ignoring the wishes of a mantle’s creator, to let it rest given that someone had literally died carrying that very same legacy, HIS legacy….like, that was never going to look good and would have stained pretty much Tim’s entire career as Robin.

So yeah, I think the third corner of this Isosceles of Suck is that I do believe on some level, a lot of Tim fans resent Dick’s character simply for where and in what ways it exists in any and all Robin narratives…..as the one who ultimately CAN NOT be overlooked as inconsequential, because its literally HIS legacy that Tim and all other Robins took PRIDE in embracing. And everything with Damian simply hammered that point home and made it front and center and impossible to avoid confronting, no matter how much a long time fan wanted Robin to belong to and be associated with Tim and Tim only…..with the ironic part being that I truly do GET why this would bug….because again, if you’re here for Tim, if its his stories you want to read and write, if HE’S the one you’re a fan of, and if for whatever reason you just don’t like Dick Grayson all that much even if you don’t actually hate him…..

Yeah, its likely going to lead to resentment if you yourself feel, purely from a narrative standpoint, like….’pressured’ to write Dick being afforded more respect or importance in the other characters’ eyes than you personally feel like writing. But that its hard to avoid or becomes something you actively have to write AROUND any time your own story backs you into a corner where the origins of Robin are directly relevant to the plot, and logistically, and given there’s really no plausible angle from which Tim would have embraced or taken up (let alone taken pride in) a legacy belonging to someone he DIDN’T look up to or view as worthy of respect….like…in this kind of specific plot tangle, it could very easily feel like if you want to keep things feeling in-character, you have no CHOICE but to have Tim talk up or speak positively of a character who, if it were up to you, would never command that kind of respect from Tim, a character you happen to think is just plain better than the one you feel like your story is MAKING you say is so great. Bam. Once again, you got yourself a recipe for Instant Resentment Ramen.

(Again, not at all incidentally, I think the above also has a lot to do with the pretty prevalent trend in Tim-centric stories of having him pretty much ONLY fixate or focus on Jason’s time as Robin, citing him as ‘Tim’s Robin,’ not just as like, a preference but almost to the exclusion of Tim having ever had any kind of interest in, let alone appreciation/respect for, Dick’s version of Robin before Jason stepped into the role. A lot of people would rather the respect/admiration that would normally be afforded by any legacy hero to the person whose legacy they’ve chosen to carry, like, go solely to Jason instead of Dick, just because they like him better and would rather Tim was just his successor, no one else’s.)

And with all three of these angles/elements coming to a head at the exact same place and time in the comic books and fandom……it IMO created kinda the perfect storm right around the Dickbats era, where suddenly all these totally disparate sections of fandom all felt weirdly in agreement on one thing and one thing only….Dick Grayson was really just kinda bugging them, and what’s so great about that dude anyway?

And from there I think they all kinda just fed into each other and grew exponentially, with the individual ‘workarounds’ used by each other characters’ fans to get around the narrative obstacle that Dick represented, like…..I think these all became so prevalent and widespread throughout fandom because even these totally separate corners of fandom that had very little else they agreed on, were more than happy to take each other’s ‘rewrite’ of Dick and his place/depiction in the overall narratives and canon and just run with it….because not at all coincidentally, each other ‘group’s’ revisionist take on Dick Grayson made their own even easier to sell within their own stories. And thus you also ended up with correlating trends like Jason and Tim being besties and bonding over their resentment of Dick, because why not, both their fanon narratives now predominantly shared the same deliberately unappealing depictions of their eldest brother.

With the New 52 and post-reboot storylines then doing absolutely NOTHING to negate or derail all of the above, but rather just reinforcing all of it. Because as Bruce kept being written behaving worse and worse with his children, including Dick, it only added to and expanded upon the problems Bruce’s fans already have with Dick’s character, even if just in terms of how big a plot/characterization obstacle he presents for the stories they want to write.

Just as the way Lobdell wrote Jason equally fed into and built upon the issues a lot of Jason’s fans have with Dick’s character and the tangle he creates for a number of stories. And then with the frequent conflicts over how two of the characters Dick’s historically been closest with had been practically cut and pasted from Dick’s stories and history into Jason’s stories and history instead, like, that just threw more fuel on the fire, particularly when it happened to ignite defensiveness among fans of the Roy/Jason/Kory trio who additionally resented having to defend their usage/embrace of a trio that canon threw together, not them, that they just happened to like. And that in turn hardly making them any less predisposed to resenting how complicated Dick’s character makes things for certain key narratives.

And then lastly, DC’s just complete and total fuckery with Tim’s character in the New 52 as a whole, but specifically in his issues with trying out various personas post-Robin but never finding/creating anything with a truly firm sense of its own identity, the way Dick has Nightwing and Jason has Red Hood, and thus give fans of both characters no REASON to mourn the loss of Robin or wish for them to go back to it….whereas without ever settling into something similar, that was both strongly and uniquely Tim Drake in premise and execution, there was no reason for his fans NOT to begrudge the loss of the Robin mantle and wish for him to go back to it/to have never left it, at least not until he’d found that other persona to actually ‘graduate’ into.

Phew. *wipes brow*

Anyway, that’s my big theory on why fandom as a whole is the way it is about Dick’s canon vs fanon. Am I right? Probably not completely, and even if I am its not like this is universal or that there aren’t other reasons for why fans engage with Dick’s character in the ways they do, including but not limited to “I just don’t like the guy, so what.” And its not like there’s any way to know for sure, or to get a sense of how much of fandom this theory IS on the right track with, at least in some ways. But overall, I do think there’s at least some of the above present in various ‘parts’ of fandom or with various specific fanon trends. *Shrugs* YMMV though.

#me @ me: wow shut up already #me @ @ me: Im not wrong tho #me @ @ @ me: yeah but still. jeez. take a breath much?`#okay Im gonna stop now

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thetaoofbetty · 4 years

Text

Hello love!

And you’re right, the hate has ramped up and anyone who says they love bughead but don’t like Betty doesn’t actually like bughead, let’s start with that. They love Jughead and self-insert as Betty and are upset she, uh, was written badly by mediocre men for a plot device. Trust me, Betty fans have been through this for years. There is nothing that Jughead can do that some people won’t defend.

(goes for the actor who plays him as well)

(i’m not shitting on any actor, i’m making a point about sexism and the prevalence of it in media and fandom)

(also not shitting on self-inserting, i just think people should be honest with themselves about it)

If the shoe had been on the other foot? I think we all know these same people would making posts like, “jughead did nothing wrong, betty should have been supportive of him and he wouldn’t have had to do it 😌” or “are you saying mistakes can’t be forgiven??? wow, what about the stuff betty’s done???”

(especially when you consider how many betty fans feel like they can’t defend her or be attacked. which, y i k e s when you consider that fandom, in general, is made up of women who would be intimately aware of what it’s like to feel like you can’t speak up for fear of retaliation)

So, I don’t listen to that noise to be honest because here’s the thing: Betty has been getting shit since the start. I lurked for a long time before I wrote fic, btw, so I’ve seen a lot.

Let’s walk it out: Betty stands in the way of what? Multiple ships while having the audacity to be a woman.

She’s the wall, in people’s minds, between b/archie because they decided that Archie is in love with her and always has been and that she keeps choosing Jughead is indicative of...something, I don’t know, I don’t go near their theories tbh. She’s also the problem standing in the way of j/eronica. Jughead, according to the last time I got a troll (which was about mid s3 after they were convinced jug was going to kiss veronica and declare himself in the noir episode—that self own was delightful, thank you past troll for that one), was pining for Veronica and clearly in love with her but damned that Betty Cooper! Making him feel guilty for something? I don’t know, I also stay in my own lane and don’t go near their blogs either because I’m not an asshole who harasses people.

I do know enough to know that it’s never really about the fact that Jughead isn’t in love with Veronica, it’s Betty keeping him from being happy with her audacity to exist. Or it’s Betty keeping Archie from being happy. Or, in the case of j/archie, I think she might just be in the way with that wayward vagina of hers, causing chaos between true love of that crack ship (ship and let ship i say, sail your j/archie ships, y’all).

She’s also currently in the way for some people with Veronica and Archie (tho i think we can all agree, it’s just going to a be a cringeworthy plot device for when jughead and veronica stroll back into town)

Betty has the apparent bad taste to do two things: have the love of a male fave and be a main character herself.

Which, in essence, isn’t about Betty. It’s about the perception of how a female needs to act in the minds of people who were always going to hold her to standards she was never going to be able to meet. Jughead, from the word go, has been a fave. The fave, prob. I’ve seen Betty get hate for throwing him a birthday party, where her biggest crime was trying to do something nice (i’m sorry but misguided mistakes made in good faith aren’t an attack on your fave male, betty haters) and other people turning it into chaos. She’s been called a cheater for kissing Archie while single in s2.

Funny. I don’t recall anyone saying that after Jughead did the same thing. With a much shorter timespan between break up and kissing, do you? Or Archie, for that matter, with Farm Girl. Huh. I wonder what the difference is?

(and yes, i’m aware they’ll flip it to she didn’t tell him right away which is still just a plot device. literally, the whole thing existed to make 2x14 happen)

Anyway.

Years ago, reading s1 fic, I noticed a theme in a good amount of stories. Betty messed up. Constantly. It was almost always her fault and Jughead was magnanimous enough to overlook her multitude of flaws and wasn’t she lucky for it? That changed with s2 and I think a lot of us know why. Even now, when I write fics, if Jughead does something stupid, I can get comments about how Jughead had good intentions and Betty should forgive him.

I mean, I know she will. I’m writing it, ha. But that’s not the point. The point is that they’re both capable of messing up and forgiving each other. The difference is that only one of them has a large support of unconditional loyalty while the other has loyalty that hinges on a checklist of appropriate behavior.

Look, I’m not here to tell anyone how to love a character. If people wanna stan, go ahead. I don’t care. I think some self-awareness of bias is always a good thing. I can always tell which character I’m biased towards and I’m okay with it. I own it. I love bughead, I love both characters but if you don’t think that being harassed and targeted and having people I respected in this fandom come out and say some incredibly hurtful things hasn’t affected it, well. Sigh.

And this is before we even get into the fact that b/archies are obsessed with forgetting about Veronica’s existence. Which drives me nuts.

In the end it’s really about one common issue: Betty Cooper dared to be human. And as a woman on top of that, she must be punished for it.

So, take care of yourself, curate your online experience, make edits (and link me pls!), and remember: the b/archies are most likely big, big mad that they were duped. Again. And that always makes them really loud for awhile.

Thank you for the kind words and the ask, lovely!💜

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heloflor · 2 years

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Ok, so I haven’t been active like AT ALL for the past 4 months. The main reason is because I’ve been busy with personal stuff (gotta try my hand at steaming video games incredibly soon).

And the secondary reason -that kept me offline because there’s another computer at home that at that time was faster and more convenient than my laptop so I used it instead- is that back in february I started getting back into South Park, lurking around and reading meta posts. And there’s TONS of meta about this show so it took a while.

Tl;Dr : While my blog is still going to focus on kids’ cartoons, there’s going to be a few posts talking about SP before going back to Mi//lo because I need to get some stuff off my chest. If you don’t want anything to do with it but still follow the blog, you can block the “South Park” and “SP” tags. Those posts will be put early (for US time at least) so it’s easier to avoid depending on how much you scroll. And while I won’t talk about SP much past those few posts, I will make more as answers if I get sent questions about the show.

Long explanation including my experience with SP under the cut

For context, I’ve known about this show since I was a kid (had an older sibling who thought it was a good idea to show a literal 9 years-old such a show. It wasn’t. Like, I’m not traumatized or anything and my sibling actually forbade me from watching specific episodes on top of me knowing swearing was a big no. But still, don’t show SP to freaking kids).

Then during my teenage years I had fond memories of this show but was too afraid of its potential sexual content to get back to it. Eventually, I stopped being sex-repulsed when I turned 18-19 and, around two years ago, had the time to watch the whole show and made that one post about “Buddha Box” (pretty sure I also lurked around the fandom and looked up some meta back then as well). As of right now, I watch whenever new episodes come out.

Why am I talking about this ? Because reading some meta made me want to say a few things about the show.

But the thing is, my blog has been focused on kids’ shows for a while now so I’m well-aware that part of the people reading my posts are minors. And while I know that the SP fandom has many teenagers in it, I also know that the idea of getting back into this show as a teen myself made me uncomfortable back then due to the fear of what I could end up stumbling across. I mean, the show has quite the reputation for a reason.

So this post is basically a warning for my younger audiences, along with any adult who’s understandably uncomfortable with SP : I only intend to make a handful of posts + a few oneshots, and all of it will be tagged as both “South Park” and “SP” so block those tags if you don’t wanna see it (or block my blog as a whole if you don’t want to follow someone who likes such a show; I’m in no place to judge people for wanting to feel comfortable while scrolling through Tumblr)

Tbh, I’m kind of a closeted fan due to its reputation. So as a result, know that I don’t intend on reblogging any post (as tempting as it can be because the meta of this fandom can be so good sometimes !). I’m definitely going to follow some blogs focused on SP meta but you won’t see any of it on my blog. Also, I intend to post my stuff early and then bury it under other stuff I want to reblog. And given how long I’ve been offline, there’s plenty of other stuff to reblog.

Although, if you want me to talk about South Park, you can send asks and I will answer them. My askbox is open to any question about any piece of media that is part of my fandom tags list or my PFP, even if it includes stuff I never talked about before or stayed distant from the fandom of. SP is no exception to this.

Another thing I wanted to say : if you’re interested in watching but is afraid of what you’ll end up seeing, I’d advise you to look up lists of trigger warnings if that’s a thing or ask someone who knows the show like the back of their hand for a list of episodes you might like (don’t ask me about it tho. I haven’t watched the full show in almost two years, which was also the first time I saw 90% of the episodes past season 8, on top of making the mistake of binge-watching to see one season per day/2 days). One thing for sure, though, is that pretty much every episode contains delicate stuff.

Btw, as someone who watched the show in French and only recently watched some scenes in English, I wanna point out that the English version uses the R-slur a LOT. Or at least, it wasn’t as noticeable when I watched the French version.

But I think that might be due to the fact that, in French, we have the word “con” which means “fucking stupid” and I wouldn’t be surprised if many occasions of the R-slur being used was replaced in French with this insult, hence why the word doesn’t seem to appear as much (they do use the French equivalent of the R-slur at times tho. Just like for any other slur the show uses).

In general, you can expect a lot of slurs and stereotypes from this show so be wary of that. Best example I can give as a NB transmasc : I’m definitely bothered by “Board Girls”, though I’m more bothered by the way transphobes used this episode to be assholes.

Ultimately, when thinking about SP and trans rep, I try comforting myself by thinking about the episode “The Cissy” that talks about “separating transphobes from the normal people who don’t care”. It’s sweet how they call trans people and non-transphobes cis people the “normal” ones.

Plus, you have “Fractured but Whole” with an incredibly large sexuality and gender selection that shows that Matt and Trey really did their homework, giving out the hope that “Board Girls” came from a place of ignorance on top of a lack of a recurring trans character as part of the main/major cast, rather than them being mean-spirited towards trans people. Hence why the reception bothers me more than the episode itself.

Also, just as a small note, I watch the show for the characters first but also for the entertainment, and by characters I mean the kids. I’m not American, don’t know shit about American celebrities and I’m not invested in politics. So when it comes to the message of an episode, I either understand it or doesn’t, in which case I don’t really try to get much info on what was to understand.

Like, taking for example an episode from S25 : in “City People”, I could tell the show was making fun of realtors and people from big cities but, since I don’t know shit about either of those, I have no idea how accurate the portrayal was and didn’t think too much of it.

(So basically, I watch the show the wrong way but at least I’m getting some fun out of it)

On that note, there are also times when I completely miss the point of an episode, which actually makes me think about how the show is probably liked by “dudebros” because they’re able to close their eyes on what the show mocks about them or twist it in a way that validates them.

But yeah, when I say I can miss the point of an episode, I’m mostly thinking about Matt and Trey spending years not believing in climate change. But I didn’t know their position on this while watching.

For example, with the episode “Two Days Before The Day After Tomorrow”, I thought the joke was that people are freaking out about climate change like it was one huge catastrophe that was about to suddenly happen, when in reality climate change is a really slow process, hence why we’ve been talking about it for years (or at least was a slow process back then, it’s gotten quicker nowadays).

So yeah, I completely missed the point on this one and it’s only later on that I learned what Matt and Trey wanted to say with this episode. Guess I was too optimistic about the duo on that one ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. At least they learned from their mistake and apologized with a two-parter later on (and I kinda love how they’re like “Yeah this guy was right about climate change. He’s still an asshole tho”, this kind of stuff is great !)

But anyways, this post is getting way too long and rambly. Long story short : blog is gonna get active again.

#Flor talks #Other #Long post #this post is WAAAAY too long for what it is #not even sure why I ramble so much in it #anyways I'm back !#again...#and here I told myself to stop disappearing for months like that >_>#I haven't even gone back to Discord yet...#also sad I missed april 1st and doesn't know if the whole 'crash' thing was done and worked #oh well 🤷‍♂️#for info there will be like less than 10 SP posts #or 10 max I think ?#(unless the upcoming special sparkles some ideas)#though one of them is gonna be VERY long

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fromtheplanethexagon · 4 years

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the robot problem: a critical look at tobecky, 5 years late

hello wordgirl fandom i am back :) and i have a lot of thoughts that i never got around to expressing before i moved on from the show. so be aware that everything i'm saying is based on my experiences during the 2012-2016 era of the fandom & state of tumblr in general, and i am not familiar with more recent fan content.

it's been over five years since the show ended, and @ifbrd reminded me (along with some great analysis) that while tobecky was super popular since before the show technically started (thanks to the play date shorts), it's pretty unhealthy in a lot of ways that tend to be excused or flat out ignored in fanworks. i'd like to reflect on that a bit (a lot); specifically, how both the show and the fandom approached this enemies-to-lovers ship, and how easily this ship can slip into uncomfortable territory if we're careless about how we interpret the ship and create fan content of it.

i will admit, i'm mostly writing this as a response to past me and my old creations - though i moved on from the show as a whole years ago, i do like taking the time to reflect on old interests once in a while, and reevaluating my thoughts on them. and this ship is probably the biggest one that still lurks in the corners of my mind once in a while, so let's go.

cherish is the word: a short positive note before a much longer negative one

i wanted to start this essay off with some positivity, because i am going to be very negative after this. tobecky was, in some ways, cute. it's obvious from the very beginning that these two characters are on pretty equal ground, even if one of them isn't aware of it. and that's part of the fun - the irony of how unaware tobey is that his nemesis/crush/person that pretty much always wins against him is someone that he completely dismisses as incompetent. i want to point this out because honestly, in general i don't like enemies-to-lovers because a lot of them use a power imbalance within the dynamic, and i hate power imbalances, especially when it comes to actual life-or-death scenarios (at least, as much as cartoons can do that). in most episodes, becky is never actually forced to go along with his wishes. she's not held in a 'date' against her will, nor is she ever really outwitted by him. i bring this up because there is one huge, uncomfortable exception, which i will get to later.

another big plus to the ship is the fact that they just... get along? even when fighting? of course we get brief moments where they just hang out and talk about paintings or whatever, but i'm talking about how much they get each other, even if they don't realize it. like the word banter, for example. been there since day one. becky loves words, and while most other people in her life don't really care (ranging from 'eh, that's cool i guess' to her brother calling it annoying), tobey gives her a chance to show off and thus treats her as a worthy adversary as herself, not because of her more generic superpowers - something that we've seen in canon that she feels self-conscious about (see: her motivation in patch game). one of the less noticed examples, to me, is "it's your party and i'll cry if I want to", because it's just - okay. they both are excluded from a social event, and while it's obvious that tobey deals with it by destroying the city, it's also pretty obvious that becky also deals with her frustration by fighting in that battle. like, yes, realistically it's just objectively bad that he's destroying buildings. but they're also providing each other with a way to work through their frustrations, first by fighting and then by talking things out, and finally by hanging out together instead of dwelling on being excluded from the party.

so it makes a lot of sense to me that many tobecky fans gravitated towards writing far-in-the-future fic, usually by implying that some growth had taken place before starting to write the ship. (there are, as far as i'm aware, 2... maybe 3 exceptions, that take the time to attempt a real redemption for him, at least when i left the fandom.) because if you take away his worst moments, either by reasoning out that he was 10 years old and a mess, or that he was a cartoon character in a cartoon world where everyone's actions are over-the-top, or by just flat-out pretending that certain episodes never happened, there's some pretty solid ground to start a ship on.

go gadget go: we all do not see it, we simply close our eyes (review of canon)

when the show began, i was the same age as the characters. a lot of other people were, too - at least in my cohort of the fandom. i think it's pretty safe to say that many of us have fond memories of the show's earlier seasons, and held on to that interest as we got older, for whatever reasons. so like, not to be all 'as an OG fan...', but i remember seeing the shorts air for the first time in 2006. i have a diary entry in july of 2009 about how i, a 12yo with no concept of the idea of 'shipping', was disappointed in the new tobey episode because i wanted more tobecky interactions. (that was robo-camping, btw, lol.) and so i remember how exciting their rivalry felt, watching them as someone literally their exact same age, and then watching that again as a nostalgic 17yo, and then uh... growing up, to put it frankly, and realizing just how unhealthy most of their interactions were.

okay what i meant to say was, this section is an overview of the relationship's canon portrayal throughout the years.

first, we have early tobecky: this includes the shorts and the first few seasons. this is their classic relationship: he likes her and takes robots on rampages to get her attention, she majorly disapproves and has fun taking him down. we've all seen the show, you know what i'm talking about. his backhanded ways of trying to find out her identity often feature prominently in the episodes, which - sigh, i've mentioned this whole issue before, but it's kind of a grey area in the whole uncomfortable-factor thing, because while trying to find out her identity is VERY invasive, it's something that like... everyone in the show tries to do, even her canon crush (scoops). on the one hand, it's really not a great look, but on the other hand, this is a cartoon meant to parody a genre in which this trope is extremely common. so i just wanna say that i have Issues and Thoughts on this aspect of their relationship, but there are other things i find more important to discuss here.

second, we have late tobecky: this is seasons 7-8. this is... a very strange and huge shift from the previous dynamic, though it's not necessarily obvious. what i mean by that is that for some reason, the show writers made it so that half of tobey’s rampages have nothing to do with his crush on wordgirl, even though that used to be the sole reason for his villainy. seriously. we have the birthday episode, where he's upset because he feels left out; wg vs tobey vs the dentist, where he's mad that he has a cavity; and trustworthy tobey, where his robot goes on a rampage... after becky accidentally makes it malfunction. the two outliers are ‘guess who’s coming to thanksgiving dinner’ and ‘patch game’, but they still differ from previous seasons because 1) his destruction is isolated to a forest far away from the city, and 2) his motive is still to impress wordgirl, but his methods are relatively tame. also he completely gives up on the secret identity thing??? i may have missed some things but i think he straight up tells her 'yeah there's no way you're wordgirl, lol' and the subject is just dropped for the rest of the show.

i also want to include 'the robot problem' here, because it's one of two season 6 tobey episodes, and follows the 'doesn't destroy buildings to get her attention' pattern: in fact, he teams up with her to try and stop someone else from going on a rampage (even if his reasons are selfish, lol).

and finally. the other season 6 episode. we have go gadget go, the bane of my time spent in the fandom. because GGG is the single episode where tobey truly manages to take away her autonomy, and proceeds to abuse that power for an extended period of time, for his own amusement. it's bad. it's Very Bad. put in the context that it's a white boy doing this to an (ambiguously) brown girl, it's REALLY REALLY BAD. and the more i look back on it, tbh, the more weirded out i am that the show not only made it seem like she wasn't affected at all within the episode, it just... forgot about it (which is not unusual for shows and especially children’s shows, but WG does make some efforts to either retain continuity or create canon reasons for why things are forgotten about). it's the kind of thing that you can't excuse and honestly you can't redeem (like at this point, you gotta ask yourself why you're spending so much effort trying to redeem this guy when becky has several other possible ships that are nowhere near this unhealthy - violet, scoops, honestly even victoria if you want another hero/villain ship, my absolute fave rarepair rose, etc).

so if you want to still ship it you have to just pretend that it never happened. (i remember trying for weeks to write something exploring the aftermath of this episode, to try and make myself feel better about it, but the more i wrote the more i realized just how traumatic this event should've been, so i eventually just dropped it.) and i brought up my own timeline of experiences earlier to point out that this episode aired eight whole years after the show started. which means that when i saw it, even though i was a huge stickler for canon at the time, i'd built up my own idea of the show and characters strongly enough to go 'yeah, no, this episode sucks and i am going to pretend that it doesn't exist'. and i think a lot of other people did too, because i really saw like... no one mention it, ever, except for some rogue fanfics over on ff dot net that already liked dynamics like that.

because here's the thing, and i don't know if people nowadays are aware of it? but i'm 80% sure (cannot find a source, so the other 20% is that it was just a rumor) that the show was originally supposed to end after season 6. and even if it's a rumor, it makes a ton of sense, because we get 1) an 'ending' to tobecky, which is a bad one, 2) a permanent wordgirl identity reveal that significantly changes one of the major dynamics in the show, 3) an episode where TJ gets to work with wordgirl and get a nice potential ending for their sibling dynamic, 4) an episode where we see Two-Brains explore life without his henchmen... the list goes on, and idk how many of these are just major stretches. but the point is. if the show had ended there, that would've been a pretty solid ending for many things, including their relationship: aka, it would prove that it was only ever heading somewhere bad, and when tobey finally has his moment of triumph, he is truly evil about it. and this provides us fans who HATE go gadget go with an easy reason to dismiss it - we can say that it was an attempt to conclude things in a way that wouldn't have happened if the writers had known they'd get more time. but despite that... it is still a canon episode.

it is odd to me how dramatically the dynamic shifts after that, though, because we seriously go from 'worst case ever, tobecky is toxic, your ship is dead' to 'no actually they get along and hang out and get ice cream together and tobey isn't even pressuring her into it, she's happy to go along with it :)' like, immediately. i never knew much about the show writers, so i don't know if the writers changed in between these seasons, but i would absolutely not be surprised if they did.

the earlier episodes are definitely problematic as well (though they pale in comparison to GGG) but i think everyone who ships it is aware considering that tobey is, yknow, a villain. from memory, he destroys buildings to get her attention, lies to her about the level of danger that people are in to trick her into spending more time with him, blackmails her into reading his poetry, and he creates a robot based on her that’s supposed to be devoted to him (but of course, all of these things backfire). not great stuff of course, but like... he’s a villain, that’s the point of his character. and considering that he’s a child these are things that can be redeemed, if done thoughtfully.

anyway, to sum up this section, the show starts off with a pretty standard 'enemies with an unrequited crush' setup, takes a really dark turn for a single episode, and then for the rest of the show takes their dynamic in a direction that makes it much, much easier to ship. as long as you ignore a lot of previous content.

wordbot: where's becky's autonomy in all of this? (misogyny)

we've finally gotten to the fandom. i recognize that a lot of this is going to come across as hypocritical considering how active i used to be re: this ship, but like... i'm a very different person now. anyway. disclaimer i guess - i don't write this to accuse all tobecky shippers of being like this - i know a lot of us aren't/weren't! but boy do i have things to point out, so without further ado:

it is very hard to ship this without allowing some bit of misogyny to slip into it. very, very hard. the entire premise of the ship involves a girl falling in love with a boy that repeatedly pressures her to date him via threats to the safety of herself and people she cares about, which... it's 2020, i shouldn't have to explain why that's terrible & a terrible example to set for children (which is why i am glad they never made it canon, tbh). best-case fan content has tobey stop pressuring her and start working to redeem himself out of an actual change of heart, which leads to becky seeing him in a new light. worst-case fan content treats his incessant pressuring and sometimes outright threats as something romantic - and even worse, romantic to the point where he deserves her attention and love as a reward for not giving up or whatever. i did see this pretty frequently for a while, especially in the earlier 2010s (didn't read much, Not My Thing At All), but i don't feel like going into detail here because of how obviously problematic it is. one medium (but still bad) case is where the fan content makes him start his redemption, but treats her liking him back as a reward for not knocking buildings over anymore. another not great case is where she tries to fix him with her love, which is a very common and very dangerous romantic trope. both are just... so incredibly unfair to her.

in content where she tries to 'fix him'... yeah i feel like it's really obvious how misogynistic that is. girls and women should not feel responsible for the evil actions of men, plain and simple. idk what else to say here i just really hate that trope and hated it back then and it just sucks! so can we not do that anymore, thanks.

in content that treats her like a reward for good behavior, there really isn't much of an explanation for what she sees in him. if she just goes 'oh wow, you're good now, i am going to fall in love with you for it' the whole thing falls flat because it makes NO sense whatsoever. we get to hear so much about tobey and his feelings and why he likes her and how he feels about it, but where is that energy for becky? why does she choose to trust him, to spend time around him, what does she enjoy about his presence? where is her getting over scoops in the process of falling for tobey? where is her telling her friends about this, confiding in them, asking them for advice? where is her choice in the matter?

win a day with wordgirl: do you guys even like becky or do you just like the idea of her (misogyny... 2!)

it was pretty standard for all fandoms the early-mid 2010s, but that's still not a good excuse for why so many tobecky fanfictions centered specifically around tobey's feelings while refusing to give becky the same level of empathy and nuance. it is true that to ship them comfortably you have to redeem him to some degree, which means spending time figuring him out and trying to find ways to pull him to the light without feeling super OOC. but ships take two people??? and there was so much potential for fanfics to explore becky's complex feelings on the matter - because she is! complex! she's heroic and kind but she's petty and has a competitive streak, she easily befriends villains but also doesn't trust them and doesn't believe they can ever really change, she's the savior of an entire planet but has feelings of inadequacy as her civilian identity and struggles with feeling like she can be successful without superpowers, she's great at the straightforward meanings and uses of words and loves reading but struggles to write passages that aren't dry as hell, it can be easily headcannoned that she's neurodivergent (special interests, issues with fitting in with her peers, taking things very literally, etc)... seriously there is SO MUCH to explore about her character, and a lot of it comes into play when you add tobey into the mix (literally ALL of the things i mentioned are explored at some point using tobey as a parallel or foil), but i rarely saw fanfiction that explored her thoughts on things further than 'he's evil but... maybe good?' or 'he's evil but... i kind of like him anyway?'.

if you want her to fall for him while being a villain, explore it!! why does she go against her morals? does she lie to herself about it to feel better? does she feel like she has to 'fix him' as part of her superhero duties to the city, and if so, how does that affect her as she tries and fails to help him? does she fall for him when she believes that he's turning good, only to feel betrayed when he starts acting worse because he feels like he can get away with it? it's such a shame that fanworks spend so little time even considering these questions, and it is absolutely a product of how deeply misogyny is/was baked into how we approach media (especially back then).

tobey goes good: but wait, i thought this show was progressive (a conclusion, i guess)

ifbrd wrote a great meta recently about how the show is a bit misogynist, despite being progressive in several ways. honestly i don't have much to add, but i'd really recommend reading through this; it makes a lot of great observations about the ways that male and female characters are presented differently through the show

i have little to add, so i'd just like to conclude with a reflection on the ship from my current viewpoint. i do think part of the reason so many of us latched onto the ship, despite how obviously problematic it was, is that the show treats a lot of things that would be serious in real life as normal or even comedic - which is fine lol, i'm not going to pretend that it's not a show for little kids, so they have to keep the tone light.

but if we, as teens/adults, decide to engage with this content in a more realistic manner, we have to be prepared to confront how messed up so many of the things going on really are. and if you still want to ship it, there's nothing inherently wrong with that! there's a lot of interesting things to explore in this ship, no matter what stage of enemies-to-friends-to-lovers you write them at, and it can be really helpful to have a space where you can explore a dynamic such as this in fiction. (speaking from experience here tbh, writing some fic for them helped me deal with complicated feelings about some ex-longtime friends.)

so to write this ship at all means that there are canon issues that you need to deal with if you want to have them end up in a healthy relationship in any manner that makes sense (unless you create an AU where none of that is applicable, which, power to you then). and i’m not saying ‘write them with a healthy endgame or you’re Bad’, not at all lol. but at least please, please take a step back once in a while to examine the dynamic that you’re writing, and please be careful about whether you mean to be romanticizing whatever behaviors you end up portraying as good.

#wordgirl #becky botsford #tobey mccallister #tobecky #tobecky critical #has anyone ever used that tag before LMAO #anyway: i may come back and reword the ending because i am not totally happy with it #but wow this is so many words. so many. send help

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