I’ve Seen A Lot Of Shipping Discourse On Here For Thunderbolts* And Yes, I Myself Am An Avid Shipper.

I’ve seen a lot of shipping discourse on here for Thunderbolts* and yes, I myself am an avid shipper. But for this movie, specifically, why can’t people just be friends😭

I thought the point of the film was to not fight mental illness alone, and the power of friendship and found family. And yes, that support can come from a romantic partner. But this movie was just the beginning of the journey, no one’s paired up yet. Even though I love a good romance, I need to see friendships on screen. I need to see platonic love. People need all types of love, not just romantic or sexual. People need a whole community.

This started cause I was scrolling through the Yelena aro/ace tag, and then people arguing that “it’s just a character, I can ship them with anybody” and then “but you’re erasing aro/ace people” and then “but aro/ace people can still date, and it’s a spectrum, and what if she’s demisexual, etc” and ok: Is she aro, ace, queer, bi, straight, gay? I don’t know! She can be whatever you want! But let her have friends too😭 She’s had a history of having to kill her friends. She has trust issues. Your girl is in her mid-30s (if my calculations are correct - born 1988ish, TB is in 2027, -5 years for Snap) and has only ever had Natasha and that definitely wasn’t for long. She’s been alone most of her life. Most of the characters have been. The point of the movie is that none of these characters ever really had friends and had to work together to realize it’s better when you open up and trust people.

No one was paired up in this movie and it made me so happy because when has the MCU ever done that? Trust me. I love love. I love ships. But romance is not the end all be all.

Let Yelena (and all the thunderbolts) be saved by the power of friendships. Let them have a found family. At least for now. We’ll see where the MCU takes them.