On your age gap apologist day post, you chose a quote that seems to insinuate a dynamic where one of them is a "monster". Given the discourse regarding age gaps being toxic in its entirety (which I do not agree with), what made you choose that specific quote? And if it reflects on the relationships you included on your edit? Also I'm asking this because I am just genuinely curious, I hope you don't mind! :)
oh i don’t mind at all, this is actually a very interesting question so thank you!! said post
okay so i didn’t really choose the quote first, originally i was just gonna do gif manips of which ships of mine have age gaps, but i realized two of them are established to be quite toxic (negan x mattie, jude x peter) while the other two has dynamics where one person does not want to love the other (kady x jack, amanda x russ)
so then i went to find a quote and that one pretty much stuck, but for the purpose of the edit i had to find/make another ship, which is how we now have birdie x erik!! (birdie is a variant of betty whose love interest is pietro so originally i paired birdie with peter, but idk i kinda like the idea of her and erik whsjakdj)
and then it hit me; we’ve established that age gap relationships can be (and are) healthy, but not how they can be toxic without their ages having a role in the matter, and i just think that it’s just as important!!
like so: jude and peter are toxic because peter hale is a bad person who has murdered a lot of people and betrayed the pack many times, yet jude still finds herself attracted to him and tends to defend him from her friends and family. when they get together, jude started having this mentality that peter needs her, and that she needs him, which we all know does not end well. things get worse when jude goes evil, which is a whole nother thing we won’t get into rn (also in case u wondered, jude is at least 25 when she got together with peter!)
i’m not entirely sure how negan and mattie are toxic exactly because i really haven’t seen negan in action yet, but from what i’ve seen through gifs and other people’s works, having a relationship with him is bound to be toxic, and i’d really like to explore that!
kady x jack and russ x amanda aren’t entirely toxic, but the idea is there!
russ taylor has questionable morals, which has something to do with his messy breakup with amanda. even then, she loved him so much, and when they crossed paths and he’s supposedly saving the world, she finds him pretty hard to resist. she knew better though; although he’s changed somehow, it wasn’t his morals and/or beliefs. but she stays with him anyway, and they pretty much fight a lot and are on and off
kady has done a lot of bad shit and once jack is made aware of this, he refuses to believe that that’s all she is and continues to try and prove that she’s still a good person, which kady really doesn’t believe in. jack mostly goes “see?! murderous psychopaths don’t do that!!!” over and over again, which kady really hates. she doesn’t see herself as a good person and doesn’t think she ever will, and jack forcing his point of view on her is just really annoying the shit out of her, which is where the mild toxicity comes in. this is why she doesn’t want to be with him or to fall in love with him, but jack is such a good fucking person and a total lovable dork that she ends up doing so anyway
in terms of birdie and erik, i’m not quite sure yet, but it has something to do with erik’s different way of doing things but her still staying with him all throughout
so yes, the quote does reflect the ships!! i hope that answered your question <3