Oh boy I cannot begin to explain how tired I am of the casual Tory slander on my dash every day.
People love talking about the misogyny of CK fans hating Sam, but that extends to Tory as well. Y'all love to say she's the worst character on the show because of what she did to Sam, but I will argue against that any day.
Yes, what she did to Sam was totally messed up. I would never ever ever defend those actions in a real-world scenario. But I will say that from the beginning, Tory was told (by Aisha, someone who was known to have been close to Sam at a point in the recent past) that Sam was just another snobby rich girl who made fun of Aisha. Tory also caught Miguel cheating on her with Sam, who was well aware that Miguel and Tory were together. Were her actions reasonable? No, they were outright harassment. But was the way she felt reasonable? Absolutely.
Look, I'm not saying you have to like Tory as a person. Most people probably wouldn't. All I'm saying is that calling Tory the worst character on the show is blatantly ignoring what a character is: an avenue for exploring different experiences and perspectives. Aside from a few cliches, Tory is a great character who just makes very bad decisions. She's very similar to Hawk in that way, as I would argue that his behavior was infinitely worse than hers throughout the series. I'm tired of y'all claiming to love Hawk because "uwu he's a nerdy boy with a broken heart go short king show them you can't be bullied" and then turning around and shitting on Tory. That's the real misogyny here.
In conclusion, feel free to like whichever characters you want. I know I have some hot takes that would make some people very mad. But please don't go around saying "this person is a bad character" without first examining what makes them a bad person vs what makes them a bad character. I love Sam as much as anyone else, but I don't use my distaste for Tory's decisions to articulate that. You don't need to lift one woman up by bringing another down.
This post by @torynicholsgf does an excellent job at articulating some other great points.
(P.S. What I am saying about Hawk is that he is a fantastic character & my favorite in the show, but that doesn't mean I agree with most of what he does or that I would want to be friends with him irl. It means that his arc is, imo, the most interesting out of all the characters. I love him and Tory because I'm excited to see where the next seasons take them, and I ship Hawk/Demetri because of the way their dynamic is set up to go in the future, NOT because of Hawk's poor decision-making skills. Separation of morals and objective appreciation.)
(P.P.S. I would argue that neither Hawk nor Tory are bad people, but my point still stands that bad people can be good characters. Take Kreese, for example. He's an awful person, no matter what happened in his past, but it's generally understood that he is a good character because he fulfills his function as the villain in an interesting way. I don't see y'all posting about how much you hate Kreese.)