Oh, but if anyone on tumblr admitted this, they would have to come off their moral high horse and concede that most reasons for liking a show, ship or character are at best a mix of interest in social relevance of the material and emotional investment in specific narratives and tropes.

Quite. I'm trying to decide when "my ship needs to be canon FOR GREATER JUSTICE" as opposed to "my ship needs to be becaus I like it" or even "my ship needs to be because best chemistry/actors hot/whatever" became such a thing, and the first time I really noticed was when the Star Trek Reboot got released and the Spock/Kirk versus Spock/Uhura battles centred on who had the most socially progressive argument on their side...