I'm really tired of the people that feel the need to run pr for hetships; in the past they'd just go THEY'RE NOT GAY be homophobic then move on it wasn't so much a persistent ship war it used to be widely understood that you try not to mix surface level canon fandom w queer shipping fandom. The two corners surely wanted nothing to do with each other and tried to keep it that way.
telling queer shippers their ships aren't canon is like telling kids santa claus isn't real they alr know on some level shut up? π fandom was built on delusion and making fun of authors for not understanding their characters were obviously gay and in love. Next you're going to tell me Spock and Kirk never kissed.
I think just because now there's been more mainstream rep than there was when I was young people shipping het ships think it's fair to have ship wars with queer ships... guys... it's not. Heteros still have a million times more rep than queer ships. Queer people can still not expect to see themselves in 90% of the mainstream media they engage with. So many people will say they're queer but not understand the place of privilege shipping a het ship and I really don't get it. It's very rude and tone deaf.
A common criticism I also often see is "consume actual queer media" when people are fans of non-canon ships (with people trying to claim non-canon ships are "queerslop" now despite that fandom was built on non-canon ships). This criticism is also something so tone deaf that I don't understand how queer people spout it.
Idk about you, but my queerness never turns off. Everything I engage with I engage with it in a queer way, it is always filtered through my perspective as a queer person, I always pick up on subtle cues of queerness in a narrative. This is how most lgbt+ are wired which is how queerbaiting can be a thing at all. Maybe it's because I grew up in different times, but you get used to reading between the lines because that was once the only place we were allowed to exist. And you claim characters as queer in everything you watch because you know queer people are always present in reality even if a show is written like they're not.
Telling queer people they're not allowed to engage with the media they consume in a queer way is odd, telling them it's only ok when the queerness is canon is trying to restrict a queer expression/perspective & a queer audience to a containment zone.
You're telling queer people to not get their gay cooties on everything. It's weird and you need to pause and really think about the full context of the things you say before you criticize a queer ship/queer shippers especially if it's for the sake of a cishet ship. I think we've let the concept of "checking your privilege" fall to the wayside too much because yeah, check your privilege.
