Prince Erik

People of Wakanda trying to fit this happy go-lucky child with the murder-baby he grows up to be. [Bonus Points for when they realize the transgressions of their actions led to murder baby]

Auntie Ramonda (happy to have a baby in the house|sad because of the circumstances of his childhood) takes him under her wing.

“hey auntie what’s that-”

“erik that is not a TOY ITS A WEAPO-”

“okoye said brave warriors knew how to do both”

we’re reaching the point where fandom has reached near-religious levels of devotion by many people, to the exclusion of everything else. nothing should come before your ability to treat others with basic respect. this falls in line with what many of us have been saying as this has ramped up: if you don’t like something, don’t talk about it. fandom is not activism. and when you pretend it is, you open the door to a state of being that’s honestly horrifying.

we’ve had people feed artists needles over a ship. we’ve had the entire cast of a major series have to withdraw from fandom almost entirely due to death threats over a ship. it’s now typical that a fan needs to consider before posting something: am i ready to receive death threats for this? this is a level of absurd that at first blush is hilarious and at second is terrifying. so often i tell myself that these people will grow up and grow out of this behavior, but will they?

i never acted that way at that age and i can’t imagine i ever would have. i think my mother would have been livid if i’d tried. for many artists, fandom is a part of their livelihood, and the gall to come up in public and insult that livelihood to their face is both disgusting and the slippery slope to–demonstrably–much, much worse. so if you’re at a con and you see people act this way to an artist? don’t make a scene, but do something. try to talk to them. most cons have a zero harassment policy. if it comes to that, gently alert someone with the con that a fan is acting out of line, because artists are in absolutely no position to speak up and start an altercation over that and this is now common place and unacceptable.