Folks, you can ship whatever you ship, it's ok, I'm not trying to stop you

I'm not trying to devalue your seeing queer rep where ever you see it

but over here in the world of What Humans Are Actually Like

People do all sorts of profound, dramatic, painful, hard, wild, terrifying things

For strangers, for children, for friends, for parents, for siblings, for neighbors

For co-workers, for companions, for shipmates, for people whose story they saw in a newspaper or a blog post

Romantic love does not drive the world.

God THIS

GhrelinGremlin - Right??? Romantic love is a great subject to engage with, and I get that it's a lot of fun to write! But it is not the only explanation! Other motives and emotions are possible and compelling!

People! Can Care! About People! Without Romantic Love! Sometimes there's something that feels really anti-social and atomizing to me about claiming, say, that you'd only defend someone who was accused of committing a crime against you because you were deeply in love with them. (Saw that one two days ago)

Or that you'd only try to rescue someone from drowning at risk to yourself if you were in love with them! (Although I gotta be pedantic and add not to put yourself at risk of drowning to save a drowning victim unless you are a trained professional bc if you don't know what you're doing you'll just be another victim. Throw lifesaving equipment, not yourself.)

Or so on and so on and so on.

It just drives me around the bend. Why are you diminishing this character? In the real world police often resort to harassment, intimidation, and psychological torture techniques to get the testimony they want out of crime victims, and those victims will often STILL resist and defend the person the police want to blame -

Even when they don't know them!

Even when the targeted "suspect" is from a marginalized group the victim has been culturally taught to distrust/devalue!

You expect less than that out of this fictional character you supposedly like?

They have to be in love to want justice instead of punishment?

...to the side of my original point.

Uuuuuuuuuuuugh

I love fandom! It's full of cool creativity and stuff! but come on, people!