Bryony's fandom blog

Thank you, anon, for your permission to keep shipping what I ship, albeit with an implicit threat attached. Very generous of you. :)

Guys, genuine question: is this viewpoint actually gaining traction?? Last I checked, I thought it was just one person on a solo crusade, but while this very much sounds like them, I don't see how it actually can be since I, y'know, have them blocked. But if it's not the person I'm thinking of... have they shouted so loud they've actually convinced people? 😬

I like to think I'm pretty open minded about ideas I don't necessarily agree with; I try to give people the benefit of the doubt and give their arguments a fair hearing. But there's no argument being presented here and I very much disagree with the "fact" that 6x9 is "abuse". Labelling their relationship that way just feels to me like a cheap rhetorical device trying to justify dislike of something by making it a moral issue.

Am I going to hold up 6x9 as model of a perfect, healthy relationship? No. But are they any worse than any other potential Gundam Wing ship? No! (Well, I suppose they might be worse than some, say if you're shipping a pair of characters who never actually interact in canon. But as for the main contenders?)

To list a few examples off the top of my head...

Heero threatens to kill Relena; Quatre almost kills Trowa; Dorothy almost kills Quatre; so many instances of pilot-on-pilot violence; Catherine has an overprotective controlling streak; Duo cracks jokes about how Hilde should just worry about cooking him a nice steak dinner; Treize claims singlehanded responsibility for Une's mental illness...

If you are thinking, hang on that's not fair [x] is forgivable if you consider the context or you can't judge AxB's entire relationship based on that one incident - I agree! I'm simply trying to make the case that singling out 6x9 for condemnation is not really tenable.

Moreover, just on a human level, I think it is important to recognize that not all examples of bad behaviour are examples of abuse. A person can be a bad partner, or a bad friend, without being an abuser. (They can also be having a hell of a bad year what with fighting a war and teenage hormones and all.) Trying to elevate something much more mundane to the status of abuse is harmful in its own way.

This might say more about me and my personal biases than anything else, but I also feel like there is something almost...infantilizing towards Noin in this claim, which leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Like she's reduced here to this poor victimized woman who is either too browbeaten to stand up for herself and leave, or possibly too blind to even recognize that she's in a bad position. Either way, I'm offended on her behalf.

...Typing that, I'm further realizing this message doesn't actually specify who is the alleged abuser and who is the abused, I've been making assumptions here. Maybe anon is trying to point out that Noin's aggressive flirting in Episode 4 is actually an example of workplace sexual harassment.

In which case, all I can really say is, look, I would gladly read the fic of Zechs's letter of complaint to OZ's HR department, okay?

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