Would absolutely love to see more of your commentary of why you donāt like how winter x qibli is depicted in fandom (genuine)! Also would love more qibli x winter art if youāre up for it!
i would absolutely love to provide more commentary! I was decently big on the ship as a kid so this is partially personal, but I also just love a chance to talk.
I should start turning book events into clickbaity Youtube thumbnails...
Of course, the usual disclaimers: YES this is my opinion, YES I am no more wrong or right than anyone else in the world, YES you are welcome + encouraged to carry out a respectful discussion in my comments regardless of whether you agree/disagree with my take!
Nothing I'm saying is especially unpopular, and these issues aren't really uncommon in mlm/queer ships across the board. In fact, there's a lot of good commentary on qinter out there (like right here, thanks ravewing) but it's never too late for me to throw my OWN jumble of words!
REMEMBER: not every fan is like this. This is not an accusatory post. I am answering a question on my own personal experiences and beliefs!
Be warned: this post discusses NSFW, and has mentions of sensitive topics such as non-con. Read at your own discretion.
Very few ships in Wings of Fire involve mischaracterization as frequently as Qinter, and I like to call the fanon an 'uncanny valley' dynamic. this refers to the way certain parts of their chemistry are exaggerated or pulled back, ex: Qibli gets more flirtatious and less genuine... He's almost canon, but not. These mischaracterizations compound over time, leaving us with the present-day hollow slop that is fanon qinter content.
What makes matters worse is how foggy the 'ethics' of fanon content really are. (And no, I don't mean actual ethics: I'm talking about every individual person's right to interpret the books however they want.) Technically, that's true! But you don't use quotes in English class for no reason. I find that when interpretations and headcanons become the widely-accepted truth, the characters involve stop looking like themselves.
To give credit to the culprits of this crime, it's hard not to use headcanons with Qinter - they have minimal content and a vague, unsatisfying ending with no closure. But at what point does this stop being them? Has it gone too far? At least for me, the answer is yes.
I have no kind words about the abundance of NSFW writing/artwork within the Qinter fanspace. Just in case you guys didn't know, here's the official WoF wiki Dragon-to-human age chart:
Here are Winter and Qibli's Dragon ages:
Remember all of that NSFW content you've probably seen at some point? Yeah, those two characters aren't old enough to make a DISCORD account. They also can't get their ears pierced without their parent present, have a part-time job, or hang out at the older kids' club in a Disney cruise. Because they are ELEVEN. The vague depiction of different ages in the series does little to justify this, because Qibli and Winter still act like minors (teenagers specifically) no matter how you spin it.
^ small edit: there has been some discussion about the use of the fanon age chart and strange dragon maturity in WoF. I didn't write the chart, I have no personal attachment to it, I think it's reasonable to disagree with it! Tui DID confirm both characters are minors, so the only thing ruined here is my joke. bummer.
I will never support the creation/normalization of NSFW content in this fandom, because I know YOU GUYS know Wings of Fire is a book made for kids - and by extension, a fandom made for kids. We will never be able to truly stop our younger audience from seeing our blogs, fanfictions and drabbles: and so consciously making 18+ content is as ethically dubious as it is weird.
(This isn't about kinks - do whatever you want! But damn, you couldn't choose to be a monsterfucker anywhere else? really? There was not one other adult fandom with dragons? You couldn't just make wof-ish ocs or something? You had to directly link the KIDS BOOK SERIES?)
I even did a little research (Asking my friends) to see how many of them had accidentally stumbled across NSFW content as kids in the fandom. They did, although it was more of an Ao3 problem (I can believe that LMAOAOA)
But we're not done talking about NSFW just yet - I want to touch on the sexual jokes a little, because they are twice as abundant as the raw 18+ qinter content. (and yes, we are getting back into mlm-fetishization territory!) I know the main defense behind this type of content is that they both know each other, or they're teasing, or it's just a joke...
But is it even a good joke? Speaking from personal experience (again,) I don't really find these super funny. Mostly because they are underage.
3 - The Demonization of Moonwatcher
My third point is arguably more controversial than my first two, mostly because I haven't seen a single soul bring this up. Buckle up, because we're about to get really woke.
Only one real problem stands in the way of Qinter army, and that is poor Moonwatcher. An equally unwilling participant in the arc 2 love triangle, and yet she somehow manages to be either hated or ignored in 95% of Qinter content. As a chronic Moon lover, this enrages me to no end - the more I look, the more I find instances where my GOAT falls victim to the subtle misogyny of a yaoi-centered space.
Plot device, villain or absentee - Moonwatcher rarely ever gets to be her authentic self in a concerning amount of fics and cartoons: always treated more like a roadblock than a developed, well-loved side character. Other female characters are also treated this way - namely Kinkajou, who's joke-crush on Winter is almost never mentioned (it would be inconvenient to Qinter, so why should it be included?) Of course, I do need to clarify that I don't have personal beef with every single Qinter fic that doesn't include a substantial mention of Moonwatcher - I too understand that context is important, and that most people don't even stop to think about things like this while typing up their comfort fanfiction. They might not remember the Kinkajou thing, and That's okay too! But remember: Like many other oppressive ideologies/systems, the patriarchy has a strange way of infecting spaces in ways you wouldn't usually expect.
This issue definitely goes beyond Qinter and fandom/ship culture, so it isn't as directly relevant as my other topics - however, it does still feed into the slew of reasons I don't really fuck with fanon qinter and so I decided to include it in the post.
Ok Chow, Stop complaining
IM DONE! As per usual, you are free to agree or disagree at your own leisure. The beauty of opinions is that we can all have our very own, so be respectful in my comments! Before I conclude this ramble, I have to mention a few post-discussion disclaimers:
Every Qinter fan is different, and most of them are pretty normal. This post discusses the faults of a loud minority, not a collective.
I'm much more interested in being conversational than combative - If you walk away from this doing any kind of inner or outer reflection at all, that's a win for me!
I think making 18+ content in a kids fandom is irresponsible and shady - I encourage NSFW wof content creators to block me.
I don't have anything against kinks that don't hurt anyone - what you like is none of my business. Point #3 is what I care about!
All things considered, I still think Qinter is a very good ship. It's really just the fanon that tends to dissuade me, but that's something I can fix one fanart at a time! On the topic of fanart, I've had a lot of people ask for more Qinter content, and I do plan on making some! Since I am a canon warrior, I plan on re-reading their adventures in Darkness of Dragons first.
This was a long read, and I hope it was entertaining enough. thank you so much for hearing me out! I'd love to hear what you guys think. And if you were part of the fandom at a young age, I'm curious to know about your experience with seeing/not seeing nsfw - my sample size was small, and I think it will be interesting to see how common it actually was!
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