#personally yes i like to joke about the great queerbaits of our history like destiel and others and yes there is real harm there

[irrationallyexcited]

an essential read for many 911 fans at the moment

tldr:

"...it might help to remember that ships don’t have to be canon in order to be transformative and meaningful on both a personal and cultural level. Look at Star Trek’s Kirk/Spock: that ship never became canon, but it remains one of the most compelling ships ever created, and within canon it gave us one of pop culture’s most enduring symbols of love — their hands touching through the glass.

Henry Jenkins famously said that queer fanfiction "is what happens when you take away the glass." And, sure, it’s increasingly possible that savvy creators might go ahead and take away the glass for us. But that doesn’t negate the power of fans being able to do it on their own, without anyone’s help.

Shipping is exciting, fun, and often a progressive and empowering experience. And if a ship ultimately becomes canon, so much the better. But when shipping becomes an ideology, tantamount to a religion, it makes a story’s creators pretty much tantamount to gods. In essence, even though that level of shipping may grow out of a wish to maintain parity with creators, it’s ultimately de-empowering to fans, making them dependent on creators for validation.

But fans are validated through their love for the source material; they’ve never needed more than that. Turning that source material into a game to be won only turns all involved players into winners and losers.

And when that happens, sooner or later, we all lose."