forever falling in love with fictional ladies. +

why do some people who claim to love santana want her to be hateful/awful toward everything and everybody for the rest of her life?

i seriously cannot wrap my head around this. why would anyone want her to stay a one-dimensional character forever? why can’t she grow and learn and not be defined by her bitchiness? why is she this ball of hateful energy in some people’s minds, just waiting to explode? and why, WHY should she only be kind to ONE person in her life? (doesn’t that give you gross co-dependency feels? it gives me gross co-dependency feels.)

santana lopez loves glee club. she loves the people in glee club. that doesn’t mean she’s not annoyed by their actions from time to time or that she won’t call someone out if he or she is being an idiot. but santana isn’t motivated by hate anymore, and she’s a better person for it. one could even argue that she’s never been motivated by hate. she doesn’t hate rachel, and as much as some would probably like for it to be true, she doesn’t hate finn, either. (n.b. i am not excusing problematic behavior.) it baffles me when people relate to her and love her solely because of the mean things she’s said to everyone.

anyone who knows me knows i adore santana, but in the episodes leading up to mash off, where she was a straight-up bully, she was honestly borderline unbearable to me. (sure, we could chalk that up to shitty writing, but few people seem to afford certain other characters the same privilege, so let’s talk about canon.) santana isn’t my favorite character because she’s a bitch. she’s my favorite character because in the moments when she isn’t, in the moments when she lets herself be open and vulnerable, she has such emotional depth and potential. she becomes a dynamic character. she grows. she shines. she becomes someone i desperately want to root for.

two years ago, during the summer after season 1, i was writing a lot of words about santana lopez because i had a lot of feelings about her character being deeper than what most gave her credit for. it was fun for me to imagine, but someone took issue with it and sent me a butthurt message about how santana was nothing but a bitchy cheerleader with no purpose but to follow quinn around, and she would never be anything more than that.

well, look at babygirl now.

why would anyone want her to go back to who she was when santana’s entire character arc has been about her coming to terms with herself and being unafraid of loving the people and the things that she loves? why would anyone want her to keep hating everything and be eaten up by negativity when that negativity was a direct result of her being closeted and unhappy? why would anyone not want her to have friends?

if you relate to santana lopez because you hate everybody too, i’m sorry to say, you’re probably nothing like who santana has become. SANTANA LOPEZ DOESN’T HATE ANYBODY. at least, not anymore. (except mitt romney. she probably still hates r-money.) i would argue that the opposite is true - she has too many feelings about everything. she doesn’t always want them, but she has them, and a large part of what’s drawn me to her character is how she deals with those feelings.

i’m rooting for santana this season. i’m rooting for her to learn and grow and forgive those who have wronged her. i’m rooting for her dreams, whatever they happen to be. i’m rooting for her to make new friends. i’m rooting for her to find happiness, whatever form that takes.

tl;dr - i am a santana stan first and a shipper second.