originally drafted 15 september 2024.

anyway, the other thing that's been kind of on my mind these days has been my history as a m/f writer n hanging out in Het™ circles. like, i'm pretty sure you've figure out that this is like, a major point of sensitivity to me by now, since m/m shippers were mean to us when i was first in fandom, and then m/f shippers started getting Weird and homophobic after i got a bit older and started to feel the need to essentially Reject their tastes in fanon due to my own queerness.

which is kind of to say, "i bit you on purpose the other day." which is also why i made sure that you knew that's what i was doing.

even now, it feels kind of stupid for me to talk about this. bc there is also an extent to which going on a rant about it would just be utilizing a strawman, except that it's also not a strawman bc i've seen it around before, but that doesn't make it fair to you to be on the receiving end of it bc i know you'd never really be mean to me about it.

it's just hard to talk about sometimes bc if i don't sit down n address it to a particular audience, i can't really express it at all. but when arguing an opinion or justifying my feelings, of course i can't just address it to my most sympathetic audience who innately understand how i feel bc that's not true communication. an understanding is shared, yes, but it's not a new understanding— do you get what i'm saying?

it still doesn't wash away that ugly feeling, though. like oh, boo-hoo, the poor straight shipper feels fucking oppressed for ~*daring*~ to think a man and a woman should kiss for once! how subversive; how brave! how does it feel to be the first straight girl ever to think that maybe the two men SHOULDN'T kiss?

^^ that is, of course, a strawman. but the amount of eye-rolling i remember seeing from m/m shippers when we m/f shippers complained of the hate in our tumblr tags (usually from the rival m/m shippers) was… a lot.

but it is true that i have some kind of feelings about being dismissed for my interest in a m/f ship, esp when you're the only one to not indulge my nonsense in the slightest. or even make fun of me for it, which i had been Excitedly Anticipating so that i could do the Ritual Self-Flagellation in regards to ~Perhaps~ having an iota of care towards a ship that is not overtly queer in some way, despite being A Queer myself. I Will Have You Know that i had a whole overdramatic speech (or at least its vibes and maybe main talking points) planned out!!!!!!!!!

maybe it's bc i grew up witnessing Ace Discourse on tumblr. maybe it's that thing i do where i feel to not turn my back on my origins, no matter how they may reflect on me in the eyes of that imaginary audience looking for any reason to invalidate me. maybe it's even the ~Deeply Christian Upbringing~ showing its face again!

but anyway, i'm getting kind of distracted here. what was i trying to get at again?

"mostly i feel the need to defend myself bc i don't feel like i write m/f any differently than i do m⁠/⁠m or f⁠/⁠f."

but what does that mean?

well, there's this impression amongst queer shipping circles that people who write exclusively (or at least heavily favor) m/f are often writing from a place of hetero­normativity.

and also that the shippers are lowkey homophobic about their ships but will get so mad abt it if you call them such an refuse to reflect on their homophobia to the point that it basically proves said homophobia. n bc it's like the subtle "yer dad" kind of homophobia, they all validate each other's hurt feelings abt it until eventually, fandom as a whole finds itself polarizing btwn these two camps.

which isn't to say that m/m (and arguably f/f) shippers don't also sometimes write their gay ships with Extreme Heteronormativity (less sample size for f/f, so harder for me to say for certain), bc god knows that people have also complained abt people (usually generalized as "fujoshi", meant derogatorily) doing that shit for all time too. but it's frustrating to have heteronormativity assumed in your interpretations and portrayals of characters and their rlshp w/one another!!!!

i've been very stubborn about getting into ships based off canonical themes and interactions, examining them through those lenses to study any potential chemistry they might have when given careful thought, rather than developing and growing my interest based off tropes they may fall under or could easily fulfill. from the moment i had my internalized homophobia unpacked enough to accept queerness in fiction, the gender of the characters involved has never been a factor in whether i liked a ship or not.

we met years after my Het™ phase had ended, so we've never really bonded over any m/f ships the way i have with star and blaze, bc the m/f pickings in genshin are pretty exceptionally slim. but we, of course, trust one another's tastes in shipping by this point; even when we disagree on pairings, i trust your tastes and sensibilities enough to know you have good, compelling reasons to ship something i don't. sometimes even for the reasons i don't ship them!!