If a g/riel comes across this, you can absolutely choose not to believe me that’s fine. But when I joined the fandom & was neutral whilst I tried to figure out wtf was going on (to be clear I thought elriel after 1st read, Internet not think that, me very confused, me investigate matter, me come out stronger elriel okay we clear) I got a barrage of tiktoks & let me tell you something. The tiktoks themselves? Hateful. The comments? Abysmal. And of the 2 tiktokers that were making elriel vids at that time, both of their comment sections were flooded with vitriol.
Saying that we’ve been harmful is genuinely laughable to me. Because yes, sure I know fine damn well that an elriel somewhere (probably Twitter) has been awful. But do not recite the deep magic to me, witch. What you are witnessing most of the time, and what g&riels moan about, most of the time is us reacting to things they have done. I wasn’t here before silver flames but I have it on very good authority that even within the elriel/EL ships, it was all very tame, nothing remotely like what’s been happening.
The past couple of years has seen an uptick in elriels refusing to bow down to this shit anymore. That is the long & the short of it. And yes again, sure there are some that take it too far. There are even some who don’t ship any of them & just like to cause shit for the love of the game. But if we were to sit down and really start tallying up? Oh goodness. You have no idea.