#shrimply. Gonna be Evil for this one

[roboyomo]

just woke up. it is 6 am. and after that 57 paragraphs rantpost about the doomed guys i decided that i'm Not going to be nice to azranix today

[mackeralsauce]

'kay gonna rant ab some frustrations (very opinionated) with the cuttletavio community and whatnot. don't like it? move on! more down below:

(TW for mentions of heavy topics and similar. I'm tired of people being uncreative and diluting the ship to 'toxic yaoi yay!!!'. Oh, and mentions of NSFW in passing.)

Oh my fucking god. Can we stop with the boring-ass 'Toxic Old Man Yaoi' bullshit already? It's so overplayed and uncreative.

There's gonna be a lot of people who disagree with my takes in this, and frankly, I don't care! I'm shrimply tired of seeing the same old cycle repeat in this fandom of 'cool big artist or writer ends up making something frankly disgusting with cuttletavio'. I block liberally and whatever so there's your forewarning and whatnot.

Another forewarning is that I am very much autistic and so these issues drive me to this point because I see much more potential in the ship! This is one of my special interests.

Part 1: Toxic Tropes, Abuse, and Everything Inbetween.

Every time I hear about something in this fandom, it's someone making content of Octavio and Craig that involves abuse, homewrecking, non-con, racism, fetishization, or anything else under the shit bucket! Yeah, yeah, people on the internet can have their opinions. It's not inherently bad to represent issues like that, but it's the fact that it is ALWAYS portrayed in a romanticized light! Because let me remind you, this community is for the *ship* between these two characters. Representation of such topics need to be done tastefully. Real people are harmed by shit like that, and spoiler alert! I should fucking know.

There's so much "Craig being racist haha!" jokes from certain groups. That's primarily the fault of the NA translation of Splatoon, but it's still quite irritating. There is much more to his character than just that. Really, is that the ONLY fucking joke you idiots have? Damn. Boring as hell! Not to mention we know from interviews that even nowadays he wished for peace and tries to help any Octarian he comes across... Oh, and I won't name names, but some people just straight up BUTCHER his character. Yuck.

Then there's the portrayal of Octavio. Typically, people outside of the cuttletavio community will end up portraying him as a fascist dictator (gross and wrong). We have the opposite problem here. People straight-up infantilize him, make him woobified, etc. which annoys me quite a bit. I think we forget that, y'know... HE IS A SHOGUN? A COMMANDER? Such a government is going to be militaristic. I'm not saying that he's evil, but making him out to be an innocent 'widdol guy' is just. Eugh. Not to mention this is usually done because of headcanons involving him to be trans. I love Trans Octavio headcanons! But I hate the overfeminization and overtwinkification of him. Let him be strong and trans, is that so hard?

And these topics are the small potatas. My biggest gripe is when people make their ship to be just 'toxic yaoi' and bluh bluh boring. Look, I get it, there's people who eat that slop up. Whatever floats your boat. But holy FUCK the amount of straight-up garbage and romanticization and lack of creativity I see...

Part 2: Missed Potential and Lack of Creativity.

Oh my fucking god. We have this one ship between two queer adults who grow to old age, and you guys can't even let it be healthy? Yes, I get there was war, but it doesn't mean they were fucking toxic when they were dating. Whatever your interpretation is, you don't have to make them cruel, horrible people to each other. Even if your interpretation involves them being morally grey or complex characters, you can make them have flaws without making them abusers.

Let me explain this: Romance is very, very complicated. It's not all sex, and it's not all fluff either. Most interpretations I see of cuttletavio are often 'All or Nothing' on certain factors. The three popular topics people put their stocks in are Angst, Sex, and Fluff. This is expected in fandom, but what bothers me is that so few people actually consider the alternatives, and that its usually ALL of one trait without anything else. Angst for the purpose of just angst doesn't hit, it's just edgy and boring. All smut with no love will wear thin. Tooth-rotting fluff has no substance if you don't even show the platonic side of their relationship. A good romance is oft built on a good friendship. Why not delve into those aspects? If you need them to kiss to tell they're in love, then you're doing it wrong.

Of course, that critique is moreso a small one. Beginner writers can easily fall into those and that's alright. Why it bothers me is because there is such a drought of good content- at least from my scope of view thus far- in cuttletavio. There is potential for greatness (and I am not slacking on trying to showcase this; I am working on my own content in the meantime), but hardly anyone delves into it. Why not explore how they got to know each other? The complexities of their characters? Tropes are alright, but get to a deeper level, and find the human within the idea. Not only that, but explore the world they're in! The circumstances of why they're in war! The politics, the governments, and the cultures of the time. These are old men in a fictional post-apocalyptic society devoid of humans. The inkfish could have evolved culturally in completely different ways! Please, just explore SOMETHING!

Y'wanna know why the whole toxic yaoi shit bothers me so much? Because it lacks creativity. It's overdone. Stale bread. It's like the slop they serve in a school cafeteria. You can get toxic yaoi ANYWHERE! It's such a common, overplayed trope for mlm ships, that you'll never go devoid of it. So why make cuttletavio into it? I haven't seen anything creative enough to excuse it. All i've seen is people committing character assassination and stripping them of any of their intrigue or humanity. It's bland. I'm sick of it.

Conclusion.

I'm too exhausted to write any more of this but yeagh. Just sick of this shit. There is potential to these two old men, both in their youthful and elderly years. Let them make love, war, friendship, and peace. Don't reduce them to poor dollar-a-dime toxic yaoi tropes that have become tired and sloppy from years of poorly written BL and similar.

If you can't write/draw/etc. good romance or sex without making them abusive in ANY way (cheating, non-con, physically, emotionally, etc.) then you need to learn how to write complex characters and complex stories. You can have characters argue without it being abuse. You can have complicated dynamics without all that.