Oh yeah, I think I represented myself a little clumsily in this post. I didn't mean that the chief, or only, reason for writing or reading about women and other non-male characters was like... because it was The Right Thing To Do. Most of the femslash shippers I know are bi women and lesbians and they read and write femslash because that's what interests them and the thought of someone gritting their teeth and writing their ships out of a sense of duty is actively repellent to them. I meant more that people who are primarily m/m shippers or whose favourite characters are all men might benefit from thinking about why that is (and, as I said, I don't think that the only explanation is that they're secretly anti non-men or that it's Problematic to like m/m or male characters) and that they are potentially cutting themselves off from other kinds of ships and Blorbos that they would really like. And that, in turn, could be good for the existing shippers and appreciators of those Blorbos because there would be more fans and fanworks for the things they liked.
I really dislike the idea that certain characters are only interesting or worth engaging with because they belong to marginalised groups, because I think that's inherently dehumanising to real people who are members of those marginalised groups. I guess what I meant was that diversity leads to a better fandom experience for everyone.
I think I definitely muddied the waters by doing such a deep dive into my own navel wrt a breakdown of numbers like I did, but honestly that was just for fun because I like this sort of thing—in 2021 I made a spreadsheet tracking the growth of the John Kreese/Terry Silver tag over the year, because I was very excited to see more people getting into the ship. But, like, again, individual people's ships and favourite characters and what they like to create and engage with is not even remotely an issue, in my opinion.
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Date: 2023-01-22 03:59 pm (UTC)I really dislike the idea that certain characters are only interesting or worth engaging with because they belong to marginalised groups, because I think that's inherently dehumanising to real people who are members of those marginalised groups. I guess what I meant was that diversity leads to a better fandom experience for everyone.
I think I definitely muddied the waters by doing such a deep dive into my own navel wrt a breakdown of numbers like I did, but honestly that was just for fun because I like this sort of thing—in 2021 I made a spreadsheet tracking the growth of the John Kreese/Terry Silver tag over the year, because I was very excited to see more people getting into the ship. But, like, again, individual people's ships and favourite characters and what they like to create and engage with is not even remotely an issue, in my opinion.