July 2024

tboy-perpetua:

divorced-tournament:

Round 2: Goldenheart vs LonelyEyes

FIGHT

Goldenheart

LonelyEyes

See Results

i need lonelyeyes to lose. i don’t even know who the first guys are but i need lonelyeyes to lose. something about the way the tma fandom treats elias is honestly homophobic—istg when people call him a twink, 90% of the time it sounds like what they want to call him is a fruit or a fairy. the jokes about him being Peter’s sugar baby all horribly mischaracterise him. WHERE does everyone get this idea that he’s so prone to overspending and frivolous luxuries. no seriously where!!

and Honest To Fucking God the repeated divorce jokes are just frustrating. on a factual basis, do we really think they got married and divorced that many times in the 3 and a half years between first gay marriages in the UK and elias’s arrest. on a characterisation basis—it kind of treats elias being gay as a joke? i cannot put my finger on it but GOD. okay. okay no I will shut up.

anyway. yeah. i hate lonelyeyes a lot of the fandom homophobia (/srs) towards elias ties in there. if this is incoherent that may be because I have covid

no, you’re so right. I was so excited to learn that they are a popular ship within the fandom because I thought they were interesting – two villains with conflicting goals but who stick together nonetheless (To An Extent. they do not hesitate to go against each other which I also really liked). the way they talk to/about each other was also really compelling to me: “He played you like a cheap whistle”, “Poor Peter. He really should have left well enough alone. Or just done what I’d asked in the first place.” <- doesn’t that sound Good? they have a History together, and even more than that – Jonah has a history with the Lukases in general, dating back to Mordecai. aren’t you curious why? how Lukases became involved with the Institute? why does this relationship still exist? what does Jonah give them in turn? turns out that nobody gives a fuck. all they are interested in are weird, genuinely homophobic jokes about Elias. this ties into the general treatment of Elias by the fandom but this is another can of worms that is very relevant here, but I don’t want to ramble even more. I got into the fandom too late to tell if lonelyeyes are to blame in that treatment or is it just a symptom of a larger problem (probably both in some capacity), but the point is that there is a problem and almost no one stops to think about it.

there is a good post by elias-rights on it:

user elias-rights, november 26, 2023:
first post: Truly burned out on Lonelyeyes for good.
in a reblog to the previous post: "Ooh, Elias dresses and acts like a caricature of an effeminate gay man and gets all his money from his sugar daddy Peter! He is gay and homophobic and spends thousands getting married just so he can divorce in spite of the fact that nothing in the podcast points to a penchant for excessive luxury! And everyone in the archives hates him before it comes out that he's a killer because he's just so obviously evil and weird and other! And he's a slut as a foil to Jon who doesn't fuck men like Elias does (unless I want him to be sexually available to Martin)!" Shut up, my God.
ALT

I feel like if you have spent any amount of time in the fandom, you will know what this post is about, even if you never engaged with it critically before. do you see the issue? the wild mischaracterization of one of the central characters of the entire podcast just to make a bad joke?

also, the divorce thing is not even real, as prev pointed out. but even more than that, it does not fit their characters. why would they do that? it is expensive (Peter might have the money, but Elias does not. contrary to a ridiculously popular belief, he is not a capitalist – he runs a non-profit organization. he told Jon off for pissing off Naomi because she is connected to Lukases and he’s worried about the budget. he is not as rich as everyone seems to think), it is a lot of unnecessary fuss (do you think they don’t have things to do aside from going through the divorce-marriage cycle for 10 times a month?), and it draws a lot of attention to them. and, a more personal pet peeve, it takes the complexity out of their relationship, I think. it’s not that they constantly argue and make up, they are simultaneously allies and enemies, and which one is it right now depends on the circumstances. and an even more personal pet peeve – I don’t think Jonah would ever marry. he simply doesn’t care enough.

and what about Peter? I was talking about Elias because he is my favorite, but what about him? well. you tell me. does Peter really exist in the fandom outside of sugar daddy jokes? maybe this is a me issue, but I never see him being talked about properly when it comes to lonelyeyes. which makes a… very interesting picture. neither of these characters are themselves whenever they are “discussed” in the context of this ship. fascinating.

I do like the version of this pairing that exists in my and my friends’ heads, but they really shouldn’t win this.

goldenheart, though, are canonically together and broke up at some point, so that’s closer to the divorcecore than what those two have, I think.