People who hate over fictional characters amaze me because I don't have the energy nor the time to carry any hate for anyone. It's too exhausting for me.
I don't care if people don't like characters. You're not gonna vibe with everyone, and that's fine. I've read books and I'm like, oh no thank you many, many times.
My issue is and always has been how people use the most dogshit arguments to justify their hatred and those arguments hurt actual, REAL people. Elain isn't fucking real, for example, and has no feelings to consider because she's words on a page. You can't hurt her- she isn't a person. But people write whole think pieces comparing eluciens to rapists/red pill incels for thinking there is something interesting between those two characters does hurt REAL people.
Not even mentioning how often people in this fandom go after real ass people, harassing them for not liking their personal faves. There is someone stalking the AO3 Feyre Archeron tag and harassing authors who write anything that could he perceived "anti", and uses actual slurs against real people in defense of a character who will NEVER thank you for it.
That's my issue. Victim blaming fictional characters- they don't care (not real), but the people who identify with the abuse, the assault, the story of triumph having to read your ill-informed, frankly dumb fucking opinion that they lied about their sexual assault because there were no witnesses (they apparently trust)? Real scenarios that happen so often it's the reason I have employment.
It's like, people can't just say "I don't vibe with this pair/ship/aesthetic". They have to make it their social justice cause as if there is any social justice that is built on bullying/harassing/being a piece of shit to real people. People who can't seperate fiction from reality and think if you like a fictional scenario/bad guy character, you OBVIOUSLY support that in real life. Enough nuance to understand why their faves committing crimes are fine, but everyone else should be openly bullied, and they'll follow them from social media site/discord chat to do it.
That's what I find exhausting, personally. Same people crying about how toxic the fandom is constantly baiting the other ships trying to start shit, stalking people who have them blocked, and acting like they have any moral high ground. It's pathetic, it's giving friendless energy, and I'm happy to see more and more people just blocking these types and engaging with creators/other fans who came here to have fun.
I really hate how bioware at the beginning of this year was like "this year we'll have more updates on dragon age 4!" and the updates are "we laid off 50 ppl, most are veterans, including mary kirby who is responsible for the one character we are using to milk this franchise dry :) and we did not give them proper severance pay" and "here's a 49 second trailer telling u nothing but tune in 6 months (again) to find out whether this game is real or not! :)"
I love you hated female characters. I love you female characters who are flawed. I love you female characters who mess up and try to do the right thing after. I love you female characters who get the undeserved vitriol from fans. I love you female characters who fans completely condemn because of one mistake they made. I love you female characters who fans completely condemn because of one mistake they made as a child. I love you female characters who people blame for ripping apart their ships instead of the larger forces that be. I love you female characters who get all the hate as the male characters who do worse in canon get absolutely none. I love you female characters who get hated on because they told a man “no.”