Sometimes I see ships people make and the way they talk abt them and I’m like “making it gay doesn’t make it good, making it gay doesn’t even make it better.”
Like this is not at all meant to say that you can’t or shouldn’t like a gay ship more than a straight ship. You absolutely can. This is not a post abt PREFERENCE. It’s a post abt Quality.
(Like bc this point is rly important to me. You’re allowed to like “bad” things. I have never seen a movie and thought “that’s a bad movie” bc I love shitty movies. Not even ironically I simply do not ever consider if a movie was High Quality. Crack ships r so good. I have a ~20k series based around a crack ship. Please don’t misunderstand my point here.)
Okay anyway on to my actual thoughts:
I don’t want to name any specific examples bc I don’t want to feel like I’m targeting something specific when I’m speaking to a general trend, so I’ll do my best not to. But there’s a — it’s subtle, but there’s a pervasive idea that a ship being gay makes it inherently better than a ship being straight.
(I should probably define “better.” I’m using it loosely, but to me a “good ship” is something that makes an interesting story.)
I think like — Fire/Grey isn’t a better ship than Fire/Sand. This feels like a good example bc they’re so common. Okay. And I don’t mean — if you like best friends who fall in love, you might prefer Fire/Grey, and you would be right, they’re a better execution of that idea. But Fire/Sand isn’t meant to be an execution of that idea, it’s meant to be about maturing and growing into someone and falling in love not despite their flaws but because of them. So Fire/Sand is a better ship to me.
(This point is debatable, but the point is not which is better, I just need to make a damn argument so y’all can get an idea of what I’m talking about.)
Anyway it’s subtle. Rarely do people say they’re picking a ship because it’s gay, and I don’t think the people who automatically ship characters in gay ships are inherently doing this. Man I get it, I’m gay! I do it too. I’m not like. Trying to get anyone to change what they ship. The world always needs more messy queerness, woe be on me to stop that. But it’s been getting under my skin lately because a ship being gay doesn’t make it better and that means I feel like the execution of a lot of ships is just…falling flat.
Y’know like — I’m thinking abt Dovewing and Briarlight ATM. I love Dove/Briar, it’s a cute ship, but it’s rarely developed. It’s just like. Okay dovewing has a girlfriend now!!
And I think that’s a shame because there’s a lot of meat in that ship. I think Dovewing’s desire to be charmed off her feet pairs nicely with Briarlight’s need to feel like an equal partner. And that’s just my interpretation, there are certainly others.
Or like, Bluefur/Rosetail is a really good ship with a lot of canon support. But people just go…okay they’re gay now!
And it’s like — they’re childhood friends, they have all this connection, Rosetail adores romance and Bluefur is so focused she rarely considers it. That’s a really interesting story.
So I’m going to like Bluefur/Thrushpelt more every time because it’s a good ship that hits the sweet spots and until people start developing ships past “character gay?” unless I put in the work why would I care?
Idk if I’m making sense, I’ve been rambling into a void for a while.
