here. the four ships most near and dear to my heart right now. my OTPs if you will. gregorzal from thrilling intent, emilalli from stand still stay silent, kypriot from tatttered world, and galolio from promare.
one of the reasons i wanted to draw them in like, a litle series like this, is like an action of reclamation for me, something i’ve been doing a lot lately. it’s been some years since now, but Shipping, as a concept, used to be really uncomfortable to me, and honestly for pretty valid reasons. i was working on reconciling myself, as an aro ace person, in a world where i felt constantly cast aside, invalidated, or ignored. i didn’t really partake so much in fandom as observe, to begin with, and the culture around shipping was pretty different then. at least the way i percieved it, it was like having a ship really just meant putting any two characters into the same relationship mold, a one size fits all. and yeah, i know, that’s a very generalizing statement, i’m aware that’s not the way everyone did it. but for me, that one size fits all relationship mold didn’t feel relatable or interesting, so i swore it off. that’s a personal choice, but it definitely felt very similar to being a girl who isn’t interested in makeup, and all the ways people react to that. make of that what you will.
but hey, times change, i change, i got more comfortable with myself and the way i fit in with the world, i discovered new aspects of myself, learnt to curate my own way to engage with content and fandom, and i found ways to get hooked on fictional relationships that was interesting to me. my problem with that was all that weird shame and guilt i had around it, and carried with me for way too long. i’m just... so tired of carrying that around. i will still have some hangups, some weirdness, but that’s just what being a person is like sometimes. gotta forgive my younger self and learn to thrive!
so that was a weird little speech about why i’m drawing soft gays all of a sudden. i think that based on these ships you can tell What I Am About -
“you like a compelling story about building mutual respect, reconcile differing experiences with the world, and working on your own growth + healing?”
- cute boys with pretty hair. yeah
