#THEY'RE LITERALLY PAIRED OFF WITH THE LIKES OF JANCY & JOPPER LIKE. HOW MUCH MORE OBVIOUS CAN IT GET 😭😭😭😭

[strangertheories]

the people in your ask box giving their reasons for not liking ronance is like. yes, you do you, but they are literally proving your point because what is it about a random f/f ship existing that makes people wanna argue against it ??? but yeah the anti ronance tag is truly a wild place.

This response is quite long, hence the read more! I kinda got off track and it goes into a discussion of canon vs headcanon and speaks a bit about Byler too.

If I were to be generous to Ronance antis, I think a lot of people are frustrated that there is a new canon bisexual character who's been introduced to the show but a lot of the fandom are ignoring her for a headcanon. And in general, members of this fandom and Ronance shippers are quite harsh against Rovickie and I don't think they'd be as harsh if it was an m/f pairing. Because it's the only canon gay pairing so far (I know it hasn't happened yet but it clearly will), people are expecting it to be this perfect romance like Jopper or Lumax but in eight minutes of screen time which is just impossible.

However, I think turning this defensiveness of people who ship Ronance is a bit unfair. So far, Vickie is just not an established character; she's barely had any screen time and she exists only to be Robin's girlfriend. At the moment, it feels a bit like pandering/fan service (although a lot of people make that criticism in bad faith because they view queer relationships as inherently woke or political which is bullshit). I can see the potential in the pairing and I guarantee I'll love them by the end of S5, but I've just not seen them interact as much. I am allowed to think that without it being problematic; just because a queer ship is canon representation doesn't mean I have to like it.

I also think it's quite obvious a lot of people in this fandom haven't had any fandom experiences before. A very frequent response I get to shipping Ronance that I don't respond to (because I can't be bothered to reply every time) is that Nancy canonically likes Jonathan and that Robin canonically likes Vickie. Or that there's no proof that Nancy's gay.

The thing is, I'm not shipping Ronance because I think they're going to canonically get together, I ship them because I like their dynamic both hypothetically and in many on screen interactions they had. I just prefer rivals to lovers than two very similar girls (I know talking a lot doesn't make them the same person but it's all we've really seen of Vickie so far) getting together. When I ship a ship, it's not because it's the most canon, it's because it's the best dynamic.

I see this response to people who ship pairings like Will and Lucas where people will get annoyed because they act like Will hypothetically liking someone other than Mike is erasure which is so odd because I doubt anyone shipping that pairing actually thinks it will be canon, they just think it would be an interesting pairing to explore.

Or how when people try to convince you to ship Byler, they try to convince you why it'll be canon and not why it'll be good (I'm not talking about responding to Byler antis who tell you that it won't happen or talking to fellow Byler shippers, Byler proof and analysis is very valuable). This also applies in reverse when an anon tried to prove that Byler won't be canon...in response to me saying I like friends to lovers.

TL;DR: I'm not gonna ship Rovickie over Ronance just because it's the canon queer relationship. I ship based on whatever pairing is the most interesting to me instead of which one is the most attainable. I understand that lots of people like it and I'm cool with that, but sending me long asks explaining that Rovickie/Jancy are canon isn't going to change my mind on Ronance.

Also a lot of Ronance antis are Nancy antis and that's a whole thing that I've responded to before (check my post index under the Ronance section and go to Ronance and boy drama or the follow up or just click the words there).

[miharuhebinata]

how did we all watch this on july 1st & come out of it thinking byler was dead 💀💀