Tag: fandom

robo-cryptid:

Obviously sometimes we write things because we just like them, and sometimes to explore an idea that’s not possible to explore in the real world, and sometimes to test our own boundaries, and so on. Anyway, I like to write about assholes in love, and while some of it is one of the above things, it’s also because I believe really, really strongly that even assholes deserve to be loved, heh, because that means that even when you’re at your worst and think of yourself as a garbage person (hello, mental illness), you’re still worthy of it.

When my partner and I got engaged, I was still on the fence about getting married at all – insert political rant about the treatment of LGBTQ+ people here and my discomfort with dialoguing with the State and its myriad oppressions – but the thing that convinced me is this: J listed all the reasons they wanted to spend the rest of their life with me, and probably without them even knowing this, everything they listed was something someone else had told me was wrong with me. Every single flaw I saw in myself, those imagined and thrust on me by someone else’s definition, but also those that are very real and that I continue to struggle with, got to be something worth loving.

And I absolutely carry that forward into my storytelling. Because it’s literally the single most romantic and affirming thing that has ever happened to me, and for several years now, J has consistently proven that these weren’t just words. We still argue and complain about each other and get on each other’s nerves, and we had to learn how to “do” relationships and that’s a lifelong process of growth and negotiation and sometimes even stumbling back into bad habits. But I never have to doubt that I’m loved. It literally never factors in. I like people working through problems – internal and external – together, and I like knowing that it does take work, and I like knowing that even if you think of yourself as kind of an asshole, you still deserve to be loved. 

Obviously in fiction, we can stretch this and make it more surreal, make those flaws bigger and the asshole moments much more over the top than they often are (for the everyday person, anyway), but it’s still the same kind of story. I think you can – and I often try to – even write fluff this way. So when I see the insistence that relationships in fan-created content always have to be healthy or wholesome or pure, or characters can’t have certain flaws, or there’s only one way to get to a healthy relationship, I get a little defensive, because I think everything I described above is way more wholesome than any flaw-free, conflict-free portrayal of a relationship could ever be.