Continuing to yell into the void
Part of why I could never get into Hijack or Mericup really was how toxic and misogynistic the RotBTD fandom could get
Tooth was often forgotten about or treated as Jack's mother figure which was weird considering she canonically had a crush on Jack. Even if her crush is written out for the fan plot convenience, the crush existing in the movies still implies that Tooth and Jack don't have enough of an age gap that she could be his substitute mom. At the very least, there was never any Tooth Fairy bashing from what I remember.
Astrid, however, got an insane amount of hate. Both Hijack and Mericup shippers were saying she was an abuser, writing her to be an abuser, making her homophobic, and flat out portraying Astrid as a villain getting in the way of their respective ships. Even at her worst in the first movie, she was definitely not as bad as people made her out to be. Don't get me wrong, I understand how AUs and whump/angst work. Obviously this is fanfiction we're talking about and it doesn't need to be canon compliant to be enjoyable. However there is a difference in writing a "What if this character was a bad person?" story and just flat out mischaracterization. Like I never understood how so many people would write Merida and Astrid hating eachother. No one can convince they wouldn't become besties. Maybe Merida would be jealous of the freedom that Astrid and the other viking women have, but there wouldn't be any animosity behind it. This was also pre-discovering AO3. I had Quotev, Wattpad, Fanfiction.net, YouTube, and determination.
Now from what I've seen, Modern Hijack (and Mericup) shippers have definitely chilled out. So I've tried giving Hijack another chance, but I guess my experiences from that era and the (albeit now less prevalent) Astrid bashing has put me off pretty bad I guess.
