hi. i wasn't originally going to comment on this because i believe that people can express their opinions on the internet freely, but this got on my nerves and i want to address it.
to be clear. i do not hate fun nor do i hate whimsy. i only point out the prevalence of bloodymary not because "i hate crossovers" or "i hate that they're kissing". firm believer in ship and let ship. i only point it out because there is such a thing as "internalized bias" that can manifest in things like "ableism", "misogyny", "antiblackness" and an even rarer "aro/acephobia" believe it or not.
what i've found with bloodymary is that a lot of the time it exists to the exclusion of rocky (stated to be on the spectrum), for the opportunity to villainize stratt (woman), and to the complete removal of carl (black man). Beyond that, there seems to be a wider trend of disregarding grace's own opinions on romance, even if the aroaceness is a widespread headcanon.
yes shipping is fun. yes fandom is fun. yes fanfiction is for fun yes fanart is for fun yes headcanons are for fun. yes yes fun, i get it, i'm right there with you. fuck, i make fanart. i write fic. i'm there.
however, let's take a look at a couple of numbers here, pulled from ao3 as of today (5/27/2026).
wow! bloodymary almost has the same number of fics as gracerocky!
why is the instinct to ship grace with a man jumping to a character outside of the canon of the story? why is the number of grace/carl fics so low? why not ship grace and rocky? why is there even a need to ship grace with someone at all?
why does a lot of the fan content for bloodymary involve demonizing stratt and getting simon to hate her? why do people almost entirely remove rocky from these storylines? is it really that hard to write stratt? is it really that hard to write rocky??
when you act like these trends "aren't that deep" you make fandom unsafe and deeply unfun for people. Shipping isn't the end of the world. Hell, your carelessness and refusal to engage constructively with the community isn't the end of the world. It's really just a drop in the bucket of how to make a community that isn't fun to be in.
i say these things because we can definitely do better. all of us. i get it. we're all hyperfixated on project hail mary. but let's not let that get in the way of thinking about how to make this an actual community, rather than just a social media fad. making this a community starts with us being aware of how trends in fandom can hurt people, and take these criticisms into account when we continue to make fanworks and interact with each other. so yeah, maybe i do hate fun, but if making a shallow, influencer-content-farm community is fun, then i definitely don't want it.
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