Anonymous asked:

A bit nervous asking, but what is the general consensus on shipping a canonically gay character with someone of the opposite sex? For example, I find a male/female pairing really cute, but the female is canonically gay. It makes me feel somewhat guilty to ship them, so I was just wondering if this is looked upon negatively or not.

As always, people, I will not tolerate y'all shitting on anon in the notes. People who ask respectful, polite questions get the courtesy of a respectful, polite response. Ok? Ok.

I don’t know that there’s any such thing as a general consensus about anything when it comes to shipping. Shipping discussions are mostly an excuse for everyone to be an asshole to everyone else tbh. But if you want my personal opinion, here it is:

I think people should write whatever the hell they want. There are things I wouldn’t be willing to write and things I wouldn’t be willing to read. This would probably be one of them. But my personal boundaries are different from yours and you should write what you want to write. That said, I would urge you to follow a few guidelines.

Make sure all your work is clearly and thoroughly tagged. If you’re writing this character as bi, put a “Bi [Character]” tag on the fic. Same if you’re writing her as straight. If you’re writing her as breaking up with a female partner to date the guy you ship her with, tag that. If there’s any character bashing, tag that. Write an author’s note. Say that you understand and respect her canon sexuality, that your fic is not intended as a denunciation of her sexuality, and that anyone who has issues with a portrayal of the character as non-gay should look elsewhere. Say this politely, but do not beat around the bush. If you’re posting about this ship on tumblr, keep the post out of the main tags for the relevant characters. This may be the first time in my life that I’ve urged someone not to tag something in any context, so that’s new. But queer people who are fans of the character are likely to look through the character tag and it isn’t really fair to them to have hetero content for a canon queer character hanging out in there. I also recommend this for your own sake. If you’re putting your posts in the main character tag, you’re probably going to end up in the middle of a fandom shitstorm and that’s no fun at all. Be sure to tag any tumblr posts with the ship name and with something like “straight [character]” though. You want people to be able to filter out this content. And if anyone else ships these two, you want them to be able to find your content.

Finally, anon, you might want to do a little soul searching about this. I’m not saying you’re doing anything wrong; you should engage with your fandom however makes you happy as long as you’re not an asshole about it. But it’s worth thinking through why exactly you find the idea of shipping this gay woman with a straight man appealing. Maybe it just boils down to “I think they’re both hot and I want to write the smut” and that’s fine, but you should consider whether or not this is a pattern for you. Do you have any queer ships? Do you have any f/f ships? Have you shipped other gay female characters with men before? If this isn’t just a one-off, you should give some thought to whether the idea of f/f relationships or queer relationships in general makes you uncomfortable.