#if you have a otp or a ship that isnt erasure or harmful.... ship it!

[atreewithin]

In fandoms, if two boys hold hands people ship them all across the board. No two boys can be very platonically close. But if the same thing happens with two girls who have even more of a bond and it could be seen as romantic? "gal pals". there's so much prejudice against wlw and i'm not gonna go into why because uhh yeah.

there are hardly any sapphic ships in popular series. if wlw want to ship two female characters who they see romantically and who they can identify with? fucking let them oh my god.

have you ever shipped two straight people and hoped they'd be together? it's not any different apart from there being more hope because we've had to struggle with not being accepted and even thinking there's something wrong with us. having representation is important.

so before you go off on your long ass rants because internally you're upset that queer people want to see themselves in media, maybe just think about how it feels? these characters and ships mean so much to us. more than any of ur otps might mean to you.

some of these ships (mostly canon ones like haline and malec) have saved peoples lives. yet there are hardly any, still. there is the whole aspect of publishers and editors or whoever not allowing queer characters or ships into the books. that's very bad. so with the lack of queer ships, what the hell is wrong with queer people shipping non-canon queer ships because they mean a lot to us and we need to feel represented? they're just fucking ships that we're not forcing onto anyone else.

"they're not lgbt+ so why are u shipping them???2?1? thats bad!!2!1!" i don't know gemima have u seen the colossal amounts of straight people in books? we dont get that. fucking let us ship what we want. it's not harming you.

is it considered bad to ship basil hallward and dorian gray because dorian isnt canonically gay? considering the events of that book i'd say that's uhhh a wild ship but no, people embrace it. is it bad that people ship remus lupin and sirius black? no, it's not. it's fine, and remus lupin is married. so why is it suddenly not allowed for people to ship a girl who's in an unofficial het relationship w another girl? by fandom standards, that should be fine. people ship draco malfoy and harry potter, theyre both married to women. it's not sexuality erasure so that's okay too. the difference? it's only considered ok with f/m and m/m ships. it's not okay at all for jk rowling to say that people shouldnt ship remus/sirius or anyone. what people have been saying about sapphic ships is exactly the same context except theyre not the author of tsc. people ship non canon queer ships in basically every fandom. usually due to the lack of them in the first place. it's the same thing here with sapphics and f/f ships, though i'm certain that cassie would include more if she were allowed. which is why she is going to include more in later books.

the fact remains: you have to question yourself if everyone you support is white and not diverse at all. you have to question yourself when most-all of the books/movies/tv shows you like are uninclusive and unrealistically undiverse. you have to question yourself when the only ships/characters you like are m/m or f/m, or even if you have a bunch of non-canon m/f and m/m ships but no non-canon f/f ships (although if you're not into shipping any non-canon ships that's absolutely fine.) you have to ask yourself how you can do better, and listen to the marginalised groups that you're affecting.

when it gets to this point— when you're being extremely discriminatory agains sapphic characters, ships, and even people in fandoms— it's not good at all. this is why we had haline day, because they're the only sapphic ship (apart from the werewolf girl and her girlfriend in tbc, they never came up again so they don't really count sbbssj) in any published tsc books so far, and they're married, but there was little to no content of them. it was mostly sapphic people who made content for them. (which isn't okay, because straight people and sapphic people as well as mlm create content for loads of different mlm ships). but since then there's been a huge improvement, and it's absolutely great. but this is another hurdle. all we can hope to do is do better as a fandom.

it's not that you have to ship every non-canon sapphic ship— you don't. although, like i said before, if you ship non-canon f/m and m/m ships, not shipping non-canon f/f ships is a problem. and, not to subtweet or anything, but this is just an example using something i saw. it makes no sense to say "yeah sorry i don't like them much because i dont like the friends to lovers trope ://" but your main het ship is a friends to lovers ship.

there's no need to spread negativity about a ship that is unproblematic. i don't like jemma, i've talked about it because i don't like a lot of things that have happened w them, and that's my opinion. i dont force it on people knowingly. i don't ship heronchild non-platonically (i love their platonic relationship though), and i think that they're one of the male friendships that's made romantic because of the "if boys show affection towards each other they're gay" thing, but it's fine that people ship them! it's absolutely fine.

what's not fine is what has happened: sapphic people having one canon ship to identify with and feel represented by, so we ship non-canon ships in peace. they're entirely unproblematic (honestly, name one problematic thing about rosast@irs or lil/ia in canon), but people are creating anti tags for them, and saying that we shouldnt ship them or want to feel represented by them.

as a fandom this is something we need to change and do better on. there's no use in arguing with the marginalised people in question (in this case: sapphic people) especially when the majority of us feel this way. i've seen sapphic people themselves doing what i am addressing here, that doesn't justify it.

i hope you've gotten my points without feeling like it's an attack, because it's not. it's a bad thing that needs to be addressed and changed. the discrimination and erasure against wlw/sapphic people, characters, and ships is a lot. it's toxic, and if our fandom can do better, isn't that a good thing?

#the majority of fandoms hate sapphics i swear #but honestly please dont take this as an attack;m #*attack #thank u!! #you're probably all lovely people but this isn't good #people will probably hate me all over again #ndshshhdhs oh well i'll risk it if it helps #also this is okay to reblog #even if youve done what i'm addressing recently or in the past #change is v good #lgbt+ #rant #the shadowhunter chronicles #tsc fandom #lesbian tag