dork crystal

I’m not usually a fan of het ships and admittedly I am a little lukewarm towards Stonegrot (mostly bc I think Rian needs more time before jumping into another relationship) but....

I think the Dark Crystal universe is one that’s actually perfect for having F/M ships simply because Thra has a matriarchal system as opposed to a Heteropatriarcal system. From what we’ve seen in the show, books and comics we could certainly infer that things like sexism, homophobia and transphobia don’t exist in Thra. Gender for both the gelflings and skeksis is ????? At best. All we know so far is that wings = girl and no wings = boy to them.

The biggest issue with F/M ships in most media is that they’re often defined by their gender differences. The two biggest issues is that:

A) There’s often an inherent power imbalance in the relationship which can make things icky. This is especially true of F/M ships in period pieces.

B) The couple must be together due to heteronormative ideals. It’s expected to find an opposite sex partner and get married, have kids etc so the characters are fulfilling what society views as the ultimate goal of finding that person.

C) Many F/M ships are made to uphold gender roles, but this can be very limiting for writers and mean that F/M ships may often be ‘boring’. I.e the woman is often the more submissive partner, the man is usually more stoic and is expected to not cry. The most common trope for F/M ships in rom-coms is that the woman is uptight and nagging while the man is immature and goofy. This trope is done so often that it becomes tiresome.

That being said, even shows set in our universe can still produce good F/M ships as long as they have a couple that respects each other, and has actual chemistry rather than just being together because they’re both straight. As well as playing around with gender roles a bit more. More shows are definitely beginning to do this but a lot of mainstream media falls into the above.

Dark Crystal is good for F/M ships because

A) All gelfling are inherently equal to one another, with the exception of the position of Maudra, there are no limitations on gender. No partner can hold power over the other.

B) No expectations to marry, have kids etc. Many Maudras have no partners or children, which is unusual since most monarchal systems often emphasised the need to have an heir. We can infer that this is not true for the Maudra system in Thra.

C) The lack of clearly defined gender roles allows more interesting dynamics. Many men in the Dark Crystal are comfortable with their emotions and often cry. The women aren’t submissive (I.e whatever Mira was about to do before that damn Arathim showed up 😂)

Also should note: we never really hear them use explicit terms like lesbian/gay/bi/trans despite many characters fitting those labels. This may be due to the lack of heteropatriachy making labels unnecessary. Therefore ships like Stonegrot may be F/M but not necessarily Het, as either characters could bi.

Oh wait I know why

Took me a while be here we go:

Becoming a castle guard is a huge honour, since they only except the best.

most of the guards are young, Most of them will retire by the time they’re ready to have kids, and only a select few will go on into important leadership roles like Ordon

This is because of four reasons:

1 - it is hard to raise children as a guard (Rian was an exception)

2 - because the skeksis associate youth with strength

3 - The skeksis are deeply uncomfortable with death which is less likely to happen with younger guards

4 - it’s also easier for the skeksis to indoctrinate younger and more naive gelfling. This ensures their guards are loyal

Most of the time they just muck around, since there’s no real threat facing the skeksis, they spend most of their shifts gossiping or mucking around (or what Rian and Mira did *cough*)

A lot of the younger guards play games on their break

While they don’t care about clan divisions, they do engage in occasional friendly competition (I.e Vapra vs Stonewood)

Mira, Rian and Gurjin were pretty much the popular kids of their cohort

While Tolyn was pretty much bullied by everyone lmao

Like the gelfling clans, they all eat dinner together at a mess hall, usually with the podling workers as well

The food is pretty basic and boring, which is why many of them try to steal from the skeksis tray (like Rian and Mira did)

Since they’re very isolated from the culture outside the castle, they’re years behind on Gelfling fashion trends. Every castle guard Dresses like they’re from the 2000s

Casual hookups, between all clans, are very common. It’s basically like the high school of Thra.