last thing i’m gonna say on this, but the backlash against shallura in the wake of the reveal about Shiro’s ex-boyfriend is as tiresome as it is predictable, and it’s particularly unfair since the shallura fandom has been enthusiastic and supportive about queer Shiro as a headcanon for a really long time. i mean, this is my general impression of the shallura fandom as someone who’s been involved with the ship for a year-and-a-half:
many of us are bi/pan/queer women
a lot of shippers are women of colour, including queer woc
the bi/pan/queer/mlm Shiro headcanon is incredibly popular in the shallura fandom and always has been
most of us headcanon Allura as queer, too
a lot of us side-ship Shiro with guys, or have headcanons for him about past boyfriends etc.
so many shallura fics make reference to bi Shiro one way or the other
as a whole the shallura fandom was over-the-moon excited at the canon confirmation that Shiro is queer and had a boyfriend
as a fandom we have always been supportive of queer/mlm headcanons for Shiro and many of us actively wanted this to be canon because we see ourselves and our sexualities in Shiro
this isn’t a case of most of us seeing him as straight, and then seeing the boyfriend reveal and panicking, and latching onto bisexuality as a loophole to make the ship work. but that is what we’re being accused of right now by certain sections of the fandom, and it’s a gross misrepresentation of the make-up of the shallura fandom and who we are and how we reacted to this. unlike klantis (who desperately need Lance to be bi in order for kl0nce to be feasible), we never needed bi/pan Shiro to make the ship work - we headcanoned queer Shiro for months/years out of love; out of a desire for representation; out of genuine care for and investment in Shiro as a character and a desire to see him as one of us and like us in some way.
i have so much bi Shiro content on my blog. i made bi/pan/rainbow icons for Shiro because i’ve always seen him as queer. i wrote ex-boyfriends into his backstories for my fics; i wrote him as bi in every shallura fic ever, even if it was just lowkey and hinted at. this isn’t some sudden swerve into “oh he could be bi though!” just to make a ship work - it is the continuation of a longstanding headcanon that is incredibly meaningful for me. i’m sure there’s plenty of other bi/pan/queer/etc. shallura shippers who can say the same thing.
y’all don’t get to come for shallura shippers like this. especially antis, who constantly called Shiro straight whilst shallura shippers viewed him as bi/pan/queer the whole time. we have been some of the most consistent and enthusiastic supporters of the idea of canon queer/mlm Shiro in this fandom - and you know it was genuine and sincere coming from shallura shippers, because it wasn’t about “we need this to make our ship work” but was instead “we just love it, so that’s how we see him”.
i’m not trying to speak for each and every shallura shipper, but the shallura fandom as a whole has reacted to the boyfriend reveal with grace and excitement and enthusiasm, and for our trouble we’ve just been told our ship is dead by a bunch of assholes who (a.) saw Shiro as straight up until a week ago and (b.) apparently forgot that bisexuality exists as soon as they saw that Shiro had a boyfriend.
you don’t have to like the ship and you don’t have to share the headcanon, but respect the fact that many of us have been consistent in our view of Shiro as bi/pan/queer and that we are not suddenly jumping onto the “oh but he’s bisexual” bandwagon just for the sake of ship-wrangling. for many of us, this is about representation and seeing ourselves in our favourite character. the writers have {left Shiro’s specific orientation open to interpretation}, and we are not doing anything wrong by continuing to headcanon Shiro as bi/pan and continuing to ship him with men, women, and characters of any other gender. we’ve been doing it all along, even when no one else did.
