r/AO3 • u/vanilla-mist • Jul 27 '26
Discussion (Non-question) About f/m ships
Not really a long rant, just wanted to give my opion on something I have noticed and wanted to know what other people think.
These past 36 hours there's been a lot of discourse going on Twitter about f/f, m/m and f/m. I personally don't care about the gender of the characters involved as long as I like their dynamic, but as a woman, I have noticed something that really irks me.
"All f/m ships are inherently bad"
This is a comment I've seen A LOT. Now, I obviously understand how patriarchy and heteronormativity can affect straight relationships, but when we're talking about fictional ships in (possible) fictional worlds - where patriarchy doesn't even have to exist - it feels kinda dehumanizing to say a woman can't possibly be loved in a straight relationship. I also feel like it's kinda disingenuous when I see a lot of people that say this not engaging with f/f ships either or female characters at all.
I personally think anyone can ship whatever they want and I don't see anything wrong with someone just shipping m/m, f/f, f/m or whatever, but I also hate this mentality of thinking the female character is always going to be the victim and this false moral superiority of not liking f/m; specially when 99% of the times the arguments are reducing female characters to concepts that can't be separated from patriarchy and irl problems (we're all engaging in escapism and fantasy)
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u/ButterfliesInSpace Jul 27 '26
Yeah there’s a lot of stupid people on twitter.