So, recently I've started seeing people in the wilds of social media complain about shipping characters younger than 18. Except, the only place I ever see this happening is in commentary on lgbt+ characters

Of course, they will point out that they are also against shipping straight characters who are under 18, but I've never seen them pop up until queer relationships got more media mainstreamness

sounds like repackaged, "They're just too young to know!"

or like sexualizing gay relationships but not hetero ones

yeah, all of the above

with the old bigoted scare that gays are pedophiles mixed in as well

I've literally never seen anyone make this complaint about any of the probably hundreds of thousands of straight teenage romances in media that I've come across in my life

but Luz and Amity happen and suddenly "THEY'RE LITERAL CHILDREN WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?"

Idk I’ve seen some weird “you’re not allowed to ship these under 18 characters because you’re an adult so shipping them makes you a pedophile” even with straight ships, but some tumblr circles have some wild hot takes

i mean, hasn't that always been the case tho

Jeez, there was one troll in Potter fandom who gloated about Twincest. On the other hand, I had a notation about a well-written (het) story (not mine) involving a post-graduation student and one of the professors removed from my fav. site for the bare suggestion of impropriety.

the concept that every relationship has to be sexual is getting seriously frustrating

Awootumn : yes, that.

That's my big problem with so much fanfic.

I mean the assumption that all relationships include sex, like any form of romantic shipping means that sex must be happening, and thus rules applying to sex must apply to relationships

as if asexual people don't exist, and also maybe teenagers aren't ready for it.

not everyone reads fanfic to get off. jfc

That's one thing about Miraculous fanfic - there's a LOT of non-het stuff; it's either wishful-projection (which is fine), or an attempt to interpret and deepen the characterizations we're given.

exactly

I could take or leave sex in shippy fanfic, but the assumption that every ship is having sex, no matter age, characterization, setting, sexual...it's really dumb

sexuality* I can type

Overly-hormonal teenagers.