simi @smiledtothedog - Tumblr Blog

Mathias and Erik

#enemies to friends to lovers (one-sided) to strangers to friends to lovers???#rykter #matherik #idek

haven’t been active in the rykter fandom in awhile, but i’ve seen quite a lot of opinions floating around on here & twt that i had quite a lot of thoughts about!

someone said the show is queerbaiting… and i genuinely cannot believe how anyone can see a character figuring out his queer identity and only see the matherik ship & dumb it down to queerbaiting.

it’s become very clear why people began watching rykter: matherik. but people NEED to remember that the show is not solely about them. it never has been. this show is about the chaotic lives of ‘sheltered’ (i can’t think of the word i’m after) teenagers who all have the capability to be stupid, immature and selfish. which yes, includes felix as one of those characters and yes, includes erik as a teenager capable of being a bad person at times.

these teenagers are also all (well almost all) capable of redemption. mathias has proved his own ability to be redeemed after his s1 antics, erik will surely have his own redemption path regarding his current s3 antics and thea is currently having her redemption this season. just because erik has been generally good in the first two seasons, doesn’t mean he isn’t prone to poor decision making & shitty actions. remember: they’re all 15-16 years old.

i’ve seen a few people suggest that the rykter writers are ‘getting off’ on or ‘enjoying’ the homophobic abuse that mathias has been subjected to, but i think that’s a massive stretch. and an extremely poor outlook on the shows writing in my opinion. many people forget that even though norway is a progressive country that homophobic shitheads still exist. and the way mathias is being treated by someone as horrible as felix & no one saying anything due to being ‘sheltered’ followers is quite real.

and when someone as jealous, hateful & spiteful as felix who clearly puts up with his own share of prejudice gets to put someone else down (someone who he also feels ‘betrayed’ by), he’ll jump at that opportunity in an attempt to make himself better and stronger. from victim -> perpetrator. i understand the frustration around this season focusing on felix quite a lot but people need to stop seeing his storyline as ways to ‘excuse’ his actions and moreso to explain them & simply SHOW his life. they seem pretty hellbent on showing you that he’s a shitty person regardless of his home life & personal issues.

anyways rant over! time to disappear again lol. feel free to disagree with anything i said. always happy to have a discussion!

#preach #rykter

Some of you don’t want to hear this but Mathias hasn’t always been uwu baby protect at all costs 🥹, in seasons 1 and 2 he actually did some heinous shit just like every other character in this show, because that’s the point. They’re teenagers and they’re imperfect and they fuck stuff up. I’m not really vibing with the collective forgetting of everything Mathias did to Sara in regards to outing her mental illness/breakdown and literal stint in a psych ward to the whole town, basically, out of spite and without her consent, and then never apologizing or taking accountability for that. The fact that she was able to forgive him for that without any sort of apology is kind of a miracle tbh. Anyway the fact that we now see Mathias in a different light and feel the need to *gently hold* is a testament to character development and seeing him as a whole person with his own serious issues that are worthy of attention, and I think some other characters deserve that same grace.

The point being that no matter how bad you think Erik and Olivia sleeping together is, that doesn’t mean that either of those characters are going to be completely irredeemable because of it.

tl;dr none of these characters are supposed to be fully “good” or “bad” they’re just human teenagers except Felix, he fully sucks and can go die in a hole

#ngl i love mathias but i’m not gonna sugarcoat or have selective memory about his past actions just bc he’s going thru it rn #that being said LEAVE HIM ALONE FELIX 🔪🔪🔪#also i’m more pissed at olivia than erik in this situation #bc erik is dumbass and (somehow?) I think still doesn’t realize that Mathias has feelings for him #but olivia fully knows and she’s gonna sleep with erik anyway?????#girl ur on thin fucking ice #rykter

This is THE edit. That’s it, I found the best one.

#i’m screaming crying shitting throwing up over this edit #😭💔#matherik #rykter #rykter nrk #mathias x erik #Youtube

But do you think the writers would make Erik or any character ace? I am all for more ace rep in television and movies but it doesn’t seem like a lot of writers either knows about the ace spec or that they don’t want to create an ace character as a lot of viewers “wouldn’t get it”, if you know what I mean..

Honestly idk. Maybe these writers would but I don’t know what they’re thinking well enough. It may not even be an intentional choice on their part or Benjamin’s, to make him have these vibes. And I’m fully prepared for it to change suddenly for plot purposes. It would be nice for his character to continue with these traits but like you said, I feel like a lot of people don’t really “get it” and there’s a good chance these writers don’t really get it either. Probably just wishful thinking on my part 😞

Can't be the voice of reason here bc I'm also ace but I definitely got asexual vibes from Erik. He just doesn't get all the sex stuff ? And doesn't seem interested even in Mathias that way

I agree. I don’t think it’s explicitly obvious yet but he definitely just seems to care way less than some other characters in the show. Like there isn’t hard evidence I can point to yet, it’s just a feeling I got about him based on his seeming disinterest. Of course this is subject to change depending on what the writers planned for his character moving forward, so I could be totally wrong idk. They’re also only 16-ish but I think by that point most allosexual teenagers are already showing a decent amount of interest in sex, but like I said, I always felt very disconnected from that so what do I know lol.

#rykter

This is my headcanon for Erik’s character and kind of how I could potentially see things going based on the story so far:

- He is on the asexual spectrum and will only sleep with Olivia out of curiosity and pressure from the bet, not necessarily attraction or desire. This is a guess for now but he hasn’t expressed any interest in anyone in that way thus far and seems kind of… ambivalent? about it? maybe?

- He does have romantic feelings for Mathias but they are buried really deeply at the moment and all jumbled up in there with his deep affection for Mathias as a friend, so I think he will take a long time to recognize that they are in fact romantic feelings (unfortunately for Mathias’ heart 😭).

I’m curious to see what others here think. It makes perfect sense to me as someone who was really confused about the appeal of sex as a teenager and realized that I am in fact ace-spec. And I kind of see some of that in Erik’s character but maybe I’m just projecting onto him. 😅 Ace representation is not that common or diverse in media even nowadays so it might just be wishful thinking on my part.

At the same time, friends to lovers is my favorite trope and in my opinion is the deepest, truest form of romance between two characters, so I’m loving this story. I’ve always been kind of a hopeless romantic and I really want Erik/Mathias to happen, but I think they both have different journeys of self-discovery to go through before they end up on the same page.

#rykter #matherik #mathias x erik #erik nielsen #rykter nrk