Fandom's Come Knocking

[branchifer]

Okay, did you guys know people in this world make stuff of some of us? Apparently the yetis make toys of us on their own if none exist but also imitate ones that do exist if kids want them.

[Branch is hopping along a table of merch that is meant to mimic exactly the merch of him in stores. A lot of it is actually bigger than he is. He shows off the dolls with his tiny little wrist comm. They look even weirder at that perspective.]

Now that I know they're not ritual effigies, the toy thing is kind of funny. Weird, but funny.

Look at this. Look.

[He holds up his comm so the camera picks up some absolutely hideous toys.]

Like, who is this guy? I wouldn't even know who this was if it wasn't labeled with my name. Like, some random guy from the village maybe. I've never dressed like that in my life.

[He points the camera at another.]

This one is the closest to actually looking like me and it still has the random skull symbol hair thing. What's up with that? [A pause as his face comes back in view. It screws up in thought.] ...Okay, actually I don't hate it.

[Because even though he's a much happier person than he once was, he's still slightly an edgelord. Just slightly.]

[He looks upward and similar skull designs suddenly appear in his own hair, thanks to his ability to change its color. Maybe that explains why some of the dolls have black hair and some have blue (if manufacturing inconsistencies aren't to blame).]

[(It's actually not but he's not about to explain the subtleties of troll coloration when it comes to emotional state.)]

Seriously, you should check it out, and see if the yetis made stuff based on you. It's hilarious.

[ooc: If none exists IRL, people can make up imaginary merch, though all merch at the Pole would be for kids or teens. The stuff made purely by the yetis would largely be decent-looking and accurate, uglier stuff would be based on designs existing in the game world because well, that's what the kid pointed at in the store. Googling themselves would produce other merch for other demographics, as well as let people find out about any internet fandom. People can feel free to thread hop a lot because the point of this is probably going to be a lot of pointing and laughing.]

Comments

[bestbrotherever]

You are a hero, are you not? Laziness is hardly a heroic value.

[millenyal_pink]

[Elle narrows her eyes.]

Yeah, that's not at all what I said.

You proposed that people today aren't any more depraved than they were in the past. I agree. My point wasn't to make a value judgement about the internet, it was about the accessibility to that depravity for someone who isn't actively seeking it out.

[favoritefearlesshero]

Huh...I don't think anyone has ever asked me that before.

[Puss has to think about that. The question caught him off guard, and it's not something that can be answered with a quip or a single sentence, not satisfactorily anyway.]

I don't...no. No, I do know.

[He sits down on a lunch box. This is going to be a long story.]

You said that trolls can speak when they are born, but kittens are not so lucky. My eyes only opened a few days after I was born, and they opened...to no one. No mother's loving tongue, no mewling of siblings, no colony of cats to call my own. The winds of fate brought me to a home for orphan boys, where I was taken in and raised by the human that ran it. Mama Imelda.

The boys at that home were...not all kind. On my first day a brute by the name of Little Boy Blue saw me as nothing more than a target. Any new boy in that place was competing for Imelda's attention and what little food she could afford for us, after all. He was, however, a bit late. Another boy had already stolen my meager portion of beans.

And yet the thief -Humpty Dumpty was his name- surprised me that day. When Blue's follower had me by the scruff, he yelled at them to leave me alone. You see, I could not speak at that time. I only had a tiny kitten's mew to make myself heard. And Humpty was...an egg. Literally, he was a giant egg with arms and legs. His body made him completely defenseless against those bullies. They knocked him to the ground and spun him around. Brutal thing to do to someone who can't even roll over!

But he had stood up for me. And a cat, even a kitten, has claws. It was then I found the strength to fight back, to protect someone who had tried to stand up for me even when it was hopeless.

[If Branch notices a deep sadness tinging the wistful nostalgic fondness in Puss's eyes, he's not just imagining things. Their friendship ended far worse than it started.]

[mostdangerousbird]

There’s not a lot of moe guys in anime.

[mostdangerousbird]

I’m not debating criminal justice practices.

[composinghistory]

[Betrayal! Betrayal of the highest order!]

Mild disin-- I am very interesting, thank you! I have lived a life of adventure and romance, not to mention my very charming personality!

[Anthony how could you do this?]

[bestbrotherever]

[He shrugs]

Others on Asgard would say that no other race deserves anything that might equal or surpass the library Asgard enjoys. I have seen other mortals say claim "the internet was a mistake", though I presume that is less of a serious sentiment.

I did not think it was that much harder in the past to find evidence of mortal depravity in their stories. Their imaginings of the doings of the gods were full of it, and are those stories not ones that the common man are most likely to come upon?

[bestbrotherever]

You may not have the option of waiting until you return home to address your issues. If something else averse happens here...

I am not saying you should trust any and all of us. But do consider talking to someone, if you are having issues and they seem to understand. Mortal therapists have rarely personally experienced everything they help their patients with, but they are trained in understanding even what they have not lived through. Mortals in general are very good at imagining situations they have not experienced and empathizing with those who might have.

Including the life of predation you are used to. I would suggest reading Watership Down, to see a human put his mind into that of a rabbit, who fears death from every corner.

[millenyal_pink]

It's never been hard to find it when you try, but now I would propose that it's far easier to stumble upon them. In a library, one would hope things are sorted in some way where you can find what you're looking for. Obviously that sorting has changed over time and across cultures, but there is some order. The internet can lack that for various reasons.

I understand that your personal experience and circumstances are unique in this regard, but not everyone is used to being the focus of any kind of story, much less an explicit one. Those who are used to it are used to it in the way that fame and notoriety breeds stories. They're not talking about you, just their idea of you based on hearsay and third-hand accounts. That's different from people being familiar with the explicit details of your life and inner world and making decisions about how you would act based on their interpretation of your core self. That's a level of... intimacy that can feel exploitative in a way rumors and speculation, simply aren't.

[Boy, this is a whole lot of stuff that Elle had put time into deliberately Not Thinking About! But now she's talking about which means she'll have to eventually process how she feels about it all, and she already knows what the answer is: not great. She had been hoping to put off this particular confrontation with reality for a little while longer. ]

[millenyal_pink]

Uhhh... yeah I don't think that's true? I'm not working with a huge sample size, but I can definitely think of a few off the top of my head.

Hmmm... do you think "bishounen" would be more accurate?

[orivodika]

good. because prison is stupid

it's boring and the food sucks

[It feels nice to be able to complain about it to other people.]

[millenyal_pink]

o m g

r u jealous of the body pillow??

[She's enjoying this way too much]

text

[branchifer]

[Pure. Horror.]

Someone put you in a jail?

[orivodika]

[Panic! He has to quickly think of a good lie!]

no.

[branchifer]

You just said jail is boring and the food sucks. You wouldn't know that unless you were in one.

[He thinks about why Boba might be denying it. Branch is a cranky person but definitely not incapable of empathizing and putting himself in someone else's shoes, thinking about their fears.]

If you're worried that finding out makes me think you should be put back in one, it doesn't. I don't think you should've been put in one in the first place.

[lowercase_el]

Dude, do you know how much work being a superhero is? Like every day, you're fighting Nazi jetpack gorillas with lasers on their heads, or getting your ass blown into the past by some New God sneezing, or trying to keep the Anti-Monitor from snacking on the planet like a giant Uncrustable.

It was even worse than usual in the Legion. I get to be on much more chill teen and college-agey teams in my time. The Legionnaires are the big hero team in the future. We had to, like, save all of time and space like five times while I was there. Literally all of time. We were watching it implode from the beginning of the universe onward and only just stopped it in time.

Who has time for cult shit?

video

[lowercase_el]

[Kon looks like he's kicking rocks. It may only be half a joke.]

Man, why don't I get to have eyeshadows and lipsticks? I just have t-shirts and action figures and stuff.

You and Stacia get to go all Sephora and Tim gets to be all kawaii desu ne.

Is Kon not pretty? Is Kon not Konough?

[branchifer]

[He says it slowly and carefully.]

I don't know what a therapist even is, but I'll be fine.

[He absolutely wants this to get dropped.]

Especially now that I know the people immediately around me aren't trying to kill me. With a method I've been terrified to die from since I hatched.

And I'm not going to read books about the unpleasant bits from home. I don't see any point in dwelling. I was just pointing out that in a talking-about-feelings situation I've got different stuff going on.

[branchifer]

[Branch patiently listens. Then he nods and says:]

That was such a long answer.

[He says it out loud because he's a very rude person, so he absolutely is going to call out Puss's tendency to wax lyrical about himself.]

But...

I think I get it. A little. I wanted to keep people from my village safe, after Poppy dragged me into everything with the Bergens.

I figured "hey I'm here in the thick of it, already doomed. Might as well try to get them out even though it'll just end with all of us dying horribly."

[He did want to save them. He can admit that a little bit, especially now that all of them have become his friends, too. If they'd been left to their fate, he'd have never found acceptance and friendship with them all.]

I guess it's just...it's hard to figure out what to do when you don't have claws. Even if maybe you want to do something. A little.

You know, because apparently I'm insane.

[branchifer]

[Branch squints at him, thinking about the corporation thing and what he read about them and them being villains in what he watched.]

Okay, you don't entirely suck.

[lowercase_el]

Like I said, people get super weird about you.

[boldboimler]

Yeah, but it's usually a bit of a slight faux pas to create anything risque about real people. I mean, people still do it but it's definitely seen as a little creepy.

These people writing it don't know any better. They think we're fictional. But that won't make it any less weird to anyone reading about themselves.

[demonicmiracle]

[Crowley laughs, because he's awful.]

Romance, hm? Is that what we're calling sleeping your way around the continent?

[The perfect defense against Jaskier is to just irritate him.]

video

[branchifer]

What's makeup? I'm using the google.

[He loves the google. So useful when you're in an entirely alien world.]

Oh, that's sad. [He nods sadly.] You humans are all so beige-ey and earth-toned. I had no idea that you preferred brighter colors.

[He holds a hand to his heart.]

[Genuinely tragic. He had no idea it was that important to some of them to be colorful that they made special ingredients for it. To be born without! So sad!]

[If he looks more sympathetic they he should about Stacia's tragic state of beige-ness it may be that he over-empathizes a little bit.]

I'm so sorry.

[Clearly, it has some kind of different meaning for him.]

Re: cw: implied minor/adult shipping in the context of fan-made works

[credit_not_blame]

I'm sure I would want to commit violence. I am trying to avoid things that make me want to commit violence! Violence is not the solution to this particular problem!