I will defend the right for people to read characters as queer and to write m/m fanfic all day, every day.
But if you (seem to) need to justify erasing or dismissing female characters while doing so, or imply that m/m is the only way that fans can imagine a relationship of equals, I get super uncomfortable.
…because it seems to imply that:
– female characters are always less powerful
– OR that we can’t imagine female characters as anything other than less powerful, even in our wildest fantasies
– OR that f/f doesn’t/cannot hold the same value
– OR that any m/f ships in canon are somehow broken or lesser because m/f relationships always have power differentials
– OR that we can’t imagine m/f ships as relationships of equals, even in our wildest fantasies
– OR that all m/m ships are devoid of power differentials
– OR that we are more willing to imagine our fave (white) male characters – sometimes in elaborate-as-fuck aus – valuing each other in a relationship than we are to imagine that they could possibly value/treat women as equals, even in our wildest fantasiesAnd I think fandom is (or has the potential to be) better and more imaginative than that. But maybe that’s just me?
Reblogging myself because I just saw a friend reblog something that said pretty much exactly what I was trying to rebut with this and OH MY GOD WE HAVE BEEN OVER THIS.