toby-vents

[toby-vents]

Tell rose Damian says hi

Tell Isaac Nicole and juniper miss him

Tell Sami all her partners and family miss her

Tell Leona that Ruggie wished he could say goodbye and that he loves him (and tell everyone else ruggie says he’s sorry for causing this whole mess to begin with, he blames himself for getting the systems to date in the first place)

Tell rio her kids say hi

Tell Ollie that bill loves him more than anything and refuses to move on

Tell my loves that I miss them

We all miss you I’m sorry just please talk to me one last time- let me say goodbye to everyone please I miss you

Being a system and dating another system who weve known for 6+ years and then losing them isn’t just us losing a partner- is us losing a best friend to some, a parental figure to some, husbands and wives, siblings. It uprooted us so bad that almost all of the alters that used to be frequent fronters almost never front anymore and suddenly when they do it’s to mourn their lost family

Cabin even if you hate us if you’d just let us know if you’re ok or even tell us what made you leave

We’re so confused and everything still hurts

[toby-vents]

Being a system and dating another system who weve known for 6+ years and then losing them isn’t just us losing a partner- is us losing a best friend to some, a parental figure to some, husbands and wives, siblings. It uprooted us so bad that almost all of the alters that used to be frequent fronters almost never front anymore and suddenly when they do it’s to mourn their lost family

Cabin even if you hate us if you’d just let us know if you’re ok or even tell us what made you leave

We’re so confused and everything still hurts

[toby-vents]

I love waiting all day to eat with my family only to be yelled at when they get home leaving me to run off to my room cause I don’t want to deal with it

[toby-vents]

As Pride Month comes to a close, it’s time I spoke candidly about my experience at Marvel Comics.

To date, I’ve always been honest about the joy of writing Iceman’s journey as an out gay superhero, but I’ve skirted around the challenges that came along with it. This is partially because I prefer to give off an upbeat vibe, and there’s also a fear that my truth will affect my career. With more corporations patting themselves on the back for profit-led partnerships wherein celebrities take selfies in rainbow apparel, and with buzz that Marvel Studios is preparing to debut their first gay character in the upcoming Eternals movie, there is an urgency to discuss the realities of creating queer pop culture in a hostile or ambivalent environment. Hopefully, my takeaways will serve as a guide for people in positions of power to consider when advocating for more nuanced and rich representation. In an ideal world, embracing our stories and empowering us to tell them will yield far more profitable (and way less messy) results than what I encountered while writing Iceman.

Stand by your people

It’s no surprise that I got the attention of trolls and irate fans for taking on this job. There was already backlash around the manner in which Bobby Drake aka Iceman came out, and Marvel needed to smooth that landing and put a “so what” to the decision. After a point, I could almost laugh off people making light of my death, saying they have “cancerous AIDS” from my book, or insinuating I’m capable of sexual assault… almost. Between Iceman’s cancellation and its subsequent revival, Marvel reached out and said they noticed threatening behavior on my Twitter account (only after asking me to send proof of all the nasty shit popping up online). An editor called, these conversations always happen over the phone, offering to provide “tips and tricks” to deal with the cyber bullying. I cut him off. All he was going to do was tell me how to fend for myself. I needed Marvel to stand by me with more work opportunities to show the trolls that I was more than a diversity hire. “We’ll keep you in mind.” I got so tired of that sentence. 

Even after a year of the new editor-in-chief saying I was talented and needed to be on a book that wasn’t “the gay character,” the only assignment I got outside of Iceman was six pages along, about a version of Wolverine where he had diamond claws. Fabulous, yes. Heterosexual, yes. Still kind of the gay character, though.

We as creators are strongly encouraged to build a platform on social media and use it to promote work-for-hire projects owned by massive corporations… but when the going gets tough, these dudes get going real quick. 

Believe in the work

You may be asking if my Iceman book was any good, or if I’m just being sour grapes over a bad work experience. Believe me, I asked that, too. From the get-go, my first editor asserted that Iceman would be DOA if it were “too gay,” while also telling me to prepare for a cancellation anyway, given that most solo X-Men titles don’t last beyond a year. Never mind that my work on Iceman had gotten positive press in the New York Times (in-print), or that in spite of (since-deleted) critical sandbagging, the series nets glowing reviews on Amazon… Marvel still treated me as someone to be contained, and the book as something to be nervous about. Do you know how hard it is to not argue with a publicist when he’s explaining the value of announcing Iceman’s revival via the Marvel homepage? Sis, that’s a burial. Instead of clapping back, I just went and got myself more press from the New York Times. From there, they tightened my leash. I had to get all opportunities pre-approved, and all interviews pre-reviewed. This would be fine if it was the standard, but I assure you: none of my straight male colleagues seek permission to go on podcasts promoting their books. 

What Marvel should have done is assign me a special projects editor. They should have worked with a specialty PR firm, rather than repeat a tiresome cycle of treating the book like a square peg, and getting confused when it’s a hit. 

Give us a real seat at the table

There was a moment before Iceman was cancelled where I wrote then-editor-in-chief Axel Alonso an email, pleading for a Hail Mary arc. I explained that Iceman was landing with a newer generation of readers who focused more on binge-reading than month-to-month periodicals. The series needed time in the book market before its true strength could be assessed. To Axel’s credit, he was warm to the idea and even gave me an extra month, but when he left Marvel that idea got brushed away. Of course I was right. The first two volumes sold like gangbusters thanks to word-of-mouth, librarian love, and support from retailers big and small. 

When the series returned, no one at Marvel asked me: “What do you think landed with readers?” Nor did they ask the question that Axel did: “What matters to your community?” So when I wrote what I thought the fans would be into, a story about a man learning to be a better ally in the war against hate, editorial totally missed its value.

Seat at the table pt II: The Shade of it all

All of the weird drama I put up with crystallized when I created a drag queen mutant, first called Shade, now called Darkveil. I told my editor that Shade would be a big deal for X-Fans, and asked how we should promote her. He said: “leave it up to the reader’s interpretation.” Everyone at Marvel shrugged off two years of goodwill and acted like I’d coordinated behind their backs on an announcement that made headlines. Beyond mentioning on Instagram the queens who inspired the character, I didn’t coordinate shit. Of course, their head publicist can’t admit that my quotes were pre-approved from an unreleased interview. At this point, I stopped believing that there’d be any more work for me. There were so many shady moves on their end that I’m still having trouble putting into language, but it all aligned with an experience I had in retail where a corrupt manager kept lying and moving the goal posts in order to keep me selling in a department I didn’t want to work in. I offered to give Darkveil a proper character bio, and I walked away.  

I recognize that some of my complaints can be filed under “this is freelance life.” I am aware that it was not a queer person of color who joked to me that “it’s not a matter of if Marvel fucks you over, it’s a matter of when.” That came from a cis white male. The same-day turn-arounds without warning, the work emails on Christmas week… that’s the freelance bullshit. Truly, I don’t even think of this as discrimination, I call it general ineptness. It is my belief that if we are telling stories about heroes doing the right thing in the face of adversity, wouldn’t the hope be to embody those ideals as individuals? Instead of feeling like I worked with some of the most inspiring and brave people in comics, I was surrounded by cowards. 

Truly, I hate writing this. In keeping with Pride Month, I am proud of the work I did on Iceman… I love the book! It sucks that I may be tarnishing its legacy going public about how the cookies were made. That said, the time for self-congratulating is over, and folks should be earnestly listening when they ask: what could we have done better? 

[toby-vents]

When one of your new friends who you see as your closest friend in the friend group asks someone else to go hang out with them after they ask you and you say you can’t and so you feel so incredibly jealous and mad but then feel like a shit person cause “hey I like that person too and they shouldn’t have to drop everything they were planning for the day cause I couldn’t be there”

It still kinda hurts even if I know that I was technically the first choice- bpd thoughts will do their thing I suppose

[toby-vents]

Our plan for our anniversary was going to be going to the aquarium, now a month and a half after they’ve left, I’m going by myself and with my family I can’t stop myself from wishing they were here but I’m pretty sure that they’re happier without me and that’s ok.

I still love them and I’m not mad at them because they were the best thing I ever got the honor of having in my life

Thank you lucielle for staying in my life as long as you did, thank you for helping me grow as a person more than anyone else has. Thank you for being my first love, my first kiss, and my first everything else. I will always remember what we had together and honestly I think part of my will stay waiting for you to come back into my life even if you never do. I have never had a better time than when I was with you and I see you in everything around me. Every time I pass a rose bush I think about you and every time I see someone with the prettiest nails that I think you would love I have to resist the urge to send them to you. I miss staying up late and yapping to you about dumb stuff. I miss having someone who I knew wouldn’t get annoyed by my dumb hyperfixation rants. Thank you for teaching me what it feels like to love and be loved and what it feels like to hold someone so close that you could never let go. Thank you for showing me that life is what I make of it and that all it takes to truly be happy is to be around someone you love and to allow yourself to feel. Thank you for putting up with my annoying moodswings and random mental breakdowns. I’m sorry for anything I did to hurt you and I’m sorry that I never say the relationship the way you did. The way you do. I still love you with every molecule in my body and I hope you don’t hate me.

PS. I would love it if you came to dracula at the lab, you don’t have to stay to see me after but I would like it if maybe you came to see it

It’s totally your sense of humor and I think you would love it

[toby-vents]

I miss you my love

[toby-vents]

No problem!! And you would think with the huge boom in X-men, specifically Logan more people would get into these guys but nooooooo :(

My motherfucking watxm fanfic got 1005 hits!!!!!! Sadly I dont have my phone with my hundreds of panels of my kids hanging out together.

[toby-vents]

You want to paint me as the villain and act as if I was what made the relationship toxic that’s fine. But you can’t put it all on me when you never told me anything was wrong with the relationship or drew any boundaries. I thought everything was amazing until the day you left. If you don’t show signs or communicate how am I supposed to help. I may have been toxic I don’t completely know what you are acknowledging but you can’t blame it all on me when I told you every single one of my thoughts and you didn’t share one thing. I loved you with all my heart and believed I treated you as best as I could have. I was always there for you but I will not stand by and let you say I was the problem when you still refuse to communicate and tell me what went wrong. It may have been my fault I don’t know. And that’s the thing YOU WONT TELL ME so I will never know but I will not take you pretending I was the only one who caused the fall apart of the relationship. You made a choice to give up on the relationship all together instead of communicating and trying to work through it. It’s not fair to say I was the issue.

[toby-vents]

Almost 50 notes on one post I feel so popularrrrrr 🤭🤭🤭🤭

[toby-vents]

“Why do you always have to take it that far” maybe because my emotions make me feel like the only way to fix them and feel better again is to off myself Susan I don’t want to take it that far either

[toby-vents]

How can someone who was the first person who made you feel truly happy and loved and worth something be the same person who makes you question everything they ever taught you about yourself and question your worth to the point of feeling like you’ll never be ok again?

[toby-vents]

I hate having bpd I hate still revolving my entire world around someone who left I hate feeling like a shit person or a stalker just for asking people what they’re up to while being no contact I hate that I couldn’t be what they wanted I hate that they don’t want me I hate that I can’t move on I hate that I know they still love me I hate that I keep dreaming about them coming back or having a life with them and then waking up to nothing I hate when my phone says texts are delivered when they didn’t actually deliver i hate thinking about them in everything I see I hate that I talk about them to other people as if they were still my partner and best friend and in my life I hate that I can’t get myself to call them my ex I hate that they won’t tell me why they left I hate that I have to act as if the world is completely fine when my entire world feels like it’s still falling apart when I should be rebuilding by now I hate that I’ve just been drowning myself in hyperfixation media to ignore the void in my schedule and life I hate that I see us in every romantic video or couple in a media I like I hate that i want to grow old with them and they can’t even stand to talk to our best friend about it I hate that everyone thinks they’re the bad guy I hate that there isn’t a bad guy in this situation cause it makes it harder to deal with and I hate that their comfort is all I want and it’s the one thing I can’t have

[toby-vents]

I miss them but I’m learning to not be completely destroyed anymore. I’ll always love them but I think part of separating is learning who I am. I just wish I could take what this has taught me and be with them

I know I’m not what they want and that’s ok i mean i knew i probablt wouldnt be from the beginning. i was blinded by love and thats ok

guess i go back to not trusting anyone yeah? /hj

[toby-vents]

How poetic would it be to die on the anniversary of when we started dating so that our relationship officially ended on the same day it began

[toby-vents]

Why have they already moved on and thrown everything to do with me away while I’m destroyed and hanging onto every physical and digital piece of them I have left

Our avatars on everything still match, still have matching pfp, but it’s all only on my end

I still wear the bracelet they gave me for my birthday everyday, they have a matching one that connects to it and It may be the most treasured thing I own

I feel like I was never their soulmate but they were always mine

I love you Lucielle Tejero and I always will goddamnit

[toby-vents]

PLEASE IT DELIVERED JT DELIVERED PLEASE

(Nothing else delivered after it and everyone thinks it’s a glitch on my end)