lostonmulholland:

1. Not going with a cliched love triangle story, especially with it’s three main characters
2. Having the main relationship in the show be a m/f friendship that is the most important relationship in both characters’ lives and that never goes toward romance and is never even so much as suggested might be romantic
3. Addressing abusive parenting as actually being abusive, using the actual word abuse
4. Showing two very different cases of a parent abusing their children, showing one where the emotions and motivations were incredibly complex, sometimes well meaning, sometimes not, and just generally messy, while the other is a much more clear cut case of a selfish, narcissistic parent abusing their children for their own needs, always recognizing that both were abusive while still being very different, and showing that people end up responding to and developing from abuse in different ways.
5. Having people of color who are heroes, villains, anti heroes, misguided villains, and everything in between.
6. Giving us a story arc about people with alterations to their bodies that frame them as very much human and very much valid
7. Writing a romantic arc that develops throughout the season while remaining more in the background, acting more as a part of character development than as a front and center plot of its own
8. Presenting sexual and romantic relationships that are very different in the way people experience those things, particularly giving us a relationship with clearly honest and genuine feelings where one character is arguable on the aro spectrum.
9. Writing women characters who are strong, driven, fragile, messy, vulnerable, scared, brave, silly, smart, wrong, petty, clever, any combination of these, or all of them at the same time.
10. Addressing religion in a way that neither raises it up or puts it down and showing the religious characters as being just as complex as the rest of the characters
11. Never putting women down, demonizing them, or infantalizing them for their choices, whether those choices are sacrificing themselves to save the universe or offering their body to the privileged class to carry their babies
12. On the same note, never pitting women against each other for silly reasons, or just because. When women are “against each other” it’s almost  always because they’re on opposite sides of an ideological conflict and their position makes sense based on episodes and seasons worth of characterization
13. Male characters are allowed to be vulnerable, they’re allowed to express their feelings to each other and to the women in their lives without it being inherently romantic.
14. Writing male characters who are allowed to mess up, make mistakes, and be wrong without being villainized for it or without it being explained away and excused.
15. Giving us a real honest, genuine romantic relationship between two women whose relationships wasn’t presented as some kind of “sexy evil” thing, despite the fact that the were the villains in the narrative at the time, and both were soon put on the “good” side to varying degrees, subverting the trope of “queer = evil”
16. Showing women who kick ass in different ways, whether it’s through their physical ability, their knowledge in things like science, their cunning and strategic mind, or their empathy.

I’m probably forgetting a lot of things even. I know the show isn’t perfect and there have been a few times where there were some missteps, but those really do pale in comparison to how much this show does right and how important those things are, especially in a tv landscape where these things are way more rare than they should be.

miss-yiay:

Shipping is essentially being in love with people being in love