#random realization

I enjoy straight ships too, but after spending years reading male-female romances, I started noticing certain gendered expectations and dynamics that kept showing up. Not in every story, obviously, but often enough that many began to feel repetitive to me.

I don't even remember what my first queer ship was, but I remember being drawn to how different the dynamics felt. There was a sense of equality there that I found refreshing. The conflicts, power struggles, emotional baggage, and character interactions felt less tied to traditional gender roles and more tied to the characters themselves.

Right now, my relationship with SoulSeeker fanfics is very on-and-off. I tend to drift between different fandoms and hyperfixations, but I almost always find myself coming back to it. Whenever my current obsession runs out of stories that interest me, or when the fics I'm following are still in progress and I'm waiting for updates, SoulSeeker is one of the ships I revisit. There's usually something new to discover, or an old favorite worth rereading.

That's not to say queer ships are automatically better. I just personally find them more interesting to explore. Part of the fun for me is exploring dynamics that would be messy, strange, morally complicated, or outright impossible in real life while still understanding where the line between fiction and reality is. I tend to read fiction with a pretty open mind, and I enjoy examining ideas through stories without feeling the need to agree with or endorse everything that happens in them.

Maybe I simply haven't found enough straight ships that scratch the same itch yet.

Or maybe there are just a lot of really good authors writing SoulSeeker. Honestly, that's probably part of it too.

At this point, SoulSeeker has become one of those ships I return to the way people revisit an old book or a favorite song. Not because it's the only thing I enjoy, but because it feels familiar. No matter what fandom I'm currently obsessed with, there's always a moment when I wander back and think, "I wonder what's been written lately."

Usually, I end up staying longer than I planned.

I think part of that is because of the authors. Some fanfics arrived at the right time in my life and gave me something to look forward to when I needed it most. There were days when the thought of, "I want to read more stories like this," or "The author hasn't finished it yet, I need to know what happens next," was enough to keep me moving forward.

Stories also gave me a place to feel emotions that I didn't always know how to express. Sometimes it's easier to recognize yourself in a fictional character than it is to explain those feelings to the people around you. Not because they wouldn't understand, but because they have their own lives, worries, and struggles too. Through fiction, I found a space where I could sit with those feelings, explore them, and sometimes even understand them a little better.

So while I love SoulSeeker for its endless possibilities and fascinating dynamics, I think part of my attachment comes from gratitude. Gratitude for the stories, for the authors who shared them, and for the fact that something written by a stranger on the internet could make me laugh, cry, think, hope, or simply give me something to look forward to at the end of the day.