Here’s the full Bisexual Rant in response to this article if you want to read it without going to the Accursed Site that is Twitter.
Full text under the cut.
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A series of tweets from user LastOneOut/LookingForLoo
The idea that fans on A03 who prefer Mariner/Boimler are playing into a "heterosexual" view of a character and their relationships is bisexual erasure and in my experience a misrepresentation of the overwhelming queer fanbase this ship has. (Thread)
In just the group of people I know who make content for this ship there are a multitude of queer people of all genders and sexualities. It's irresponsible to use a simple statistic on a fanfiction website as indicative of the diversity of an entire group of people.
And while I cannot pull up all of the proof I have, if you had bothered to read any of these fics, or backread the fandom tags on tumblr, you would have seen that the majority of us have been embracing the idea that Mariner is bisexual from the very first episode.
Which only continued to be a widely embraced and loved aspect of her character after it was revealed that Ramsey was her ex-girlfriend. In fact, a lot of us were some of the more vocal critics of the show not doing more to confirm Mariner's bisexuality.
I, for one, actually cried when Mariner confirmed her bisexuality in the second season. That moment meant everything to me, and it is no less impactful because I enjoy imagining her dating a man.
(And, as this article addresses the potential of Boimler being bisexual or otherwise queer, believe me. That's been something the fans have been talking about wanting since day one, and it's fairly popular among Marinler shippers to headcanon him as transgender.)
And this is perhaps beside the point, but many of us are also multi and poly shippers who enjoy many of the pairings of the characters m/m, m/f, or f/f as well as just think everyone should kiss regardless of gender.
Additionally, the idea that a bisexual woman's queerness only "counts" when she is in a same gender relationship is blatant biphobia that bisexual people face on a daily basis. Bisexual people in m/f relationships are no less bisexual than those in same gender ones.
Like I cannot stress this enough, Mariner is not ANY LESS bisexual if she dates a man. She is not bad queer rep if she dates a man. In fact, many bisexual people end up in m/f relationships, so this would in fact be an authentic portrayal of the bisexual experience.
As a female bisexual fan of Mariner as well as Mariner/Boimler who is currently in a relationship with a bisexual man, excuse me for wanting to write about a relationship in my fanfiction that reflects my own.
There are nuances in a relationship between a bisexual man and a bisexual woman that I like to explore. My preference in this case for an m/f ship where I can make both parties bisexual is a reflection of my queerness, not an endorsement of heterosexuality.
I also find the disregard that this article has for the idea that fans would interpret scenes between Mariner and Boimler romantic baffling. It's true that multiple interpretations of a show can exist, but as characters who reflect other popular ships in fandom such as Kirk/Spock and Mulder/Scully, it only makes sense that the two characters who have the most development in their relationship and spend the most time together would end up being shipped by the fandom. That's just how this works?
It's not a stretch to say that for the first fifteen episodes of Lower Decks Mariner and Boimler's relationship was the main focus of the show. Characters like that get shipped regardless of gender. This makes me doubt the understanding this author has of fandom culture.
I think it would have been more responsible to reach out to the authors on A03 and ask them about their identities and why they prefer the ship rather than assume that we are all straight people who refuse to embrace queer relationships. That or just not bring it up at all.
(Especially because nearly every fandom space I have been in is OVERWHELMINGLY queer regardless of what the fans ship. There are always more queer than straight people. Ship preferences have nothing to do with a person's identity.)
And again, this article really does seem to, while perhaps subtlety, embrace the idea that bisexual people only count as queer when they are in same gender relationships, which is textbook biphobia. We can do better. We deserve better.
I don't expect much to come of this, and I apologize if I sound angry. I just want this thread to be educational and correct the misconceptions and, what I truly hope, is unintentional biphobia that this article perpetuates.
(And also to stand up for the dozens of amazing, wonderful queer people I share a community with who love this show and this ship and do not deserve to have their identities invalidated over which fictional characters they think should kiss.)
Also, not to keep adding to this, but something I feel is worth mentioning, when I say from day one I wasn't kidding. The first fanfiction in the entire Mariner/Boimler tag, posted before we had any canon confirmation, had Mariner say she was bisexual. Day one.
When sorting by kudos, this fic is also the most popular fanfiction in the entire Lower Decks tag, and is sited by nearly all early Marinler fans as the fanfiction that converted them to the ship.
This really does prove to me that the author of this article didn't do their research before making blanket claims about a group of fans, as again, there it is. Hardcore proof that Marinler fans have loved bisexual Mariner from the very begining.
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