sunflower

(Incoming rant, sorry 😂 I've just been thinking about this for a VERY long time now)

You can ship what you want and hate whatever characters you want. But what I would urge is self-reflection on the reasons you use to justify that hatred of the Solangelo ship or of Will, because so many of the arguments against them are rooted heavily in biphobic narratives.

Will comments in TSATS how he finds Persephone pretty, and he comments in TCOTD how he finds Arielle pretty. Both of those instances have been used as evidence of Will's "disloyalty" to Nico, and while I think there is likely something to be critiqued about how Will's bisexuality is written, I urge people to reflect on what made them assume Will was being disloyal in those instances. Was he actually flirting with these women and considering them as potential romantic partners, or do you assume that because on some level, you have some unchecked biphobia and assume that's what must be happening? There have certainly been times where Nico has admitted to finding a god attractive to Will, so what makes that different than when Will does it?

I've spoken about this before as well, but while I agree that Rick and Mark don't always handle Will's bisexuality in the best way possible, I can't help but ask why Will seemingly always the one to blame in these situations. I've talked about how it makes me a bit uncomfortable that whenever Will mentions an attraction to women, Nico gets irritated and calls him a "bisexual disaster." I say this because though I'm not bisexual, I've seen how gay people in queer spaces use "jokes" like that to police bisexual people into behaving the way that they want to. Again, I am not trying to hate on Nico here, and I don't think that Nico the character is biphobic. Just that it bothers me that Nico, a gay character, is "allowed" to talk about Will's bisexuality in a way that seems almost degrading, and he doesn't get any backlash for it because he's gay.

As a proud member of the chaotic bisexual community, it really upset me how the authors decided to characterize Will's bisexuality. Like you said, I feel like Rick and Mark wanted to push the whole "hey he's bi, not gay" like yay okay sirs. But there is so many better ways to showcase it other than a random shouted out thought that lasts for 2 seconds before being promptly ignored. Not to mention they repeat the same scene in TSATS & COTD? That's just lazy but whatever🙄. Don't get me me wrong, there's plenty of times where I've pointed out people to my fiance and been like "DAMN" but just the way mark and Rick do it is so...idk:/ there was just way better ways to write it in.

Also I'd like to talk on the point mentioned with other character's flaws. I've always wondered why Will is constantly torn apart and shredded for every single mistake he makes, but Nico is made out to the perfect boyfriend like...honey, he is also a mess!

Will mentions a few times in TSATS how insecure and upsetting it is when Nico just disappears whenever without telling anyone. Nico also lashes out at Will constantly for stuff Will didn't even know was bothering Nico because he doesn't tell him anything! Nico can be insensitive, rude, and cold-hearted—and that's okay! It's called ~character flaws~. But to this fandom, those don't exist for him, only Will😮‍💨

I also i think people forget that these are literal 15/16 year olds? Like girl, I just know you weren't a perfect, well-adjusted emotionally adept person at that age. We were all a little terrible and thats okay<3