Honestly, for me, the Juno and Wuyang thing has been handled very, very poorly.
The story rushed towards that moment and it costed Juno and Wuyang a lot of characterization.
Thing is, I can’t see any scenario where confirming either Wuyang or Juno to be in ANY relationship to be a net possitive. If you have been around the fandom and social media since wednesday that the new episode dropped, you’d be able to see three groups:
- Those who think it’s cute and make fan art/celebrate it, like OP
- People who are genuinely pissed that Wuyang, an unintentional LGBT icon, isn’t gay
- People who think the relationship is boring/rushed/bad
There’s plenty of people who seem to be in camps 2 and 3, or at least the most vocal ones are. They might generate clout and engagement by making two of the most popular heroes an item, but they’re alienating other big groups of the fandom. Enter Juno and Wuyang Mains Subreddits and you’ll see that the reactions from both groups are mixed, inclined towards the negative. It gets even worse if you enter X, it’s a nightmare.
I think the best thing they could have done is just not confirming anything, making the ship teasing more subtle. Wuyang x Juno shippers lost it when they shook hands or when it seemed like Wuyang wanted to ask Juno for a walk, they could have kept that same level of teasing because it would give fodder for the shippers AND wouldn’t alienate other fans as much.
There are lots of players who form parasocial relationships with these characters, more common than you realize, and having interactions such as the ones in Undivided can genuinely push them away from the game or from playing those characters.
The way it was written, I think it’s a move to make people re engage with the web comic. If you see, it had a dry spell of readers until episode 7, and when the ship tease began, it increased. People who like it of course wants to read it, and those who don’t want it will want to engage with the comic each week to see if their fears come true. Again, they could have made the same with the more subtle interactions instead of throwing a rock to the face of those who can make loud complains.
I hope the snowball scene is the furthest they’re willing to go with this adn just keep feeding little bites that don’t officialize any relationship, but at this point they might as well start thinking who’ll replace Juno and Wuyang for the niche they’ll leave when they get confirmed to be in mutual love.
