#idk i'm enjoying this shipping poll business it's fun

[sssammich]

4?

lol oh ho ho ho i see what you're doing

ask meme

4. Share a dark thought? (Go on, vent a little)

IM GONNA VENT (this is behind oh well i had to get my feelings bubbling up)

honestly i hate canon or bust. it literally kills the joy and sucks the fun out of fandom. and even the source material itself. maybe it's just me being older and having been in fandom for literal decades, but like this crusade for Canon or Nothing At All is just so fucking bad and is just overall detrimental to engaging with the source material, with fanworks, and even just each other!!!

about to just drop everything under the cut because it's long and incoherent

like, okay. yes, do i want representation? sure. do i want stories written for queer characters deserving of story arcs equal or better than what the straights typically get? yeah of course im not a monster. but like, people don't even know how to handle the representation they do get. and then have the gall to ask for perfection when it does show up. that's the burden to bear of being the Chosen Ones is that the weight of expectations is heavier than, like, side character three. so i get it. i get all of that. i want the good things also. i want the ladies kissing ladies on television etc etc

but that's not what im talking about. im talking about the people who literally will just sour the well with their desire that if their Ship isn't canon then it's time to ruin the playground because if i'm not having fun no one can be having fun. and that's literally so terrible and bad and also makes everyone not like being there any more. you shat on their sandbox, you burned down the monkeybars. like, it's not fun there anymore. but the problem there (other than it's annoying and destructive), is that it just further puts fanworks under the agenda of Pushing for Canon Truth instead of, like, a fun thing to share and do with your community.

another caveat here: OF COURSE fandoms have been doing both of those things this whole time, but it just always feels like when i see a push for "make X canon" (X being a ship, 99% of the time), it almost doesn't care about just enjoying yourself??? making a ship canon can be and is important in the larger landscape of media, culture, and representation. yes yes, i'm with you. but i think especially in fandom spaces if canon is not there, then what else is left? is such a bad take.

the rare pairs are there. the multiships. but not even just ships, but dynamics between characters. there are probably other strong contenders for the piece of media that irrevocably changed the landscape of fan/media relations, but since i *was* in the glee fandom, i'm gonna blame that one. i think the nature of how glee essentially opened access to the actors, to the producers, to the showrunners that had direct impact on the source material's canon kinda set up the groundwork for how the rest of media would evolve for the next decade. the ship wars and the ship polls were kinda insane back then. idk if it's still insane now because i've retired from my 'fandom city apartment' to my 'fandom small coastal town bungalo' and just minding my business. all that to say that even as a shipper, 90% of fandom conversations when it comes to Canon is literally just the pursuit of making their two white men (or women) kiss.

which means that we lose out on actual conversations and discussions around character development, dynamics with others as foils or as antagonists, and the larger implication in the plot of the whole thing.

i know the desire for canonifying two characters with insane chemistry and with storylines that lead to romance were they cast as one heterosexual male and one heterosexual female comes from the unfairness and frustration that if it's already right there, why not just fucking do it? listen we're all fighting an uphill battle for equality across the board, so any step forward is gonna be met with a step back, if not more. so like, i'm cognizant of this. so i get why. but when the entire persona that someone displays is just to push for wanting a ship to be Canon above all else, that's when it breaks down for me.

i doubt im making any sense at this point so im just gonna close this out by saying that yeah, i want similar things at the end of the day. i also want the two women with insane chemistry and whose storylines beat for beat match that of a heterosexual pairing had they been cast as such. but canon is not my business, i have nothing to do with that. because i don't make my fun at the doll shop where i bought my barbies. that's not the appropriate place for me to play. i make my fun in the sandbox where i stick the barbies' heads in the sand, as a treat.