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u know the zimbio poll got me feelin nostalgic about older ships (have i rly done the great migration so many times??) and of the rly popular f/f ships on US tv i don’t think we’ve ever been treated so respectfully as with Shoot.. like yea it was angsty and harrowing, but so was the show. amy and sarah just be having that chemistry and we were like “they in love” and the writers were like “dang u right”, and it was the 2 female leads!! and the writers/fandom got on so well.. miss them

I don’t share the same opinion on the ending as a lot of the fandom, but that aside, you know, I think you’re probably right. I JUST finished posting about subtext vs canon ships and what Shoot was at the start, that particular evolving connection between two central women, has been such a mainstay of f/f shipping. That it became canon and in a way that respected the characters and the show fulfilled something that we’d been waiting such a long time for.

Yeah, going through other ships, let’s see, I know Brittana had that joke and then became canon, but that wasn’t after years of developing an integral relationship. Lost Girl had a ship introduced at the start that became endgame but there wasn’t the same buildup and there was the on/off nature (and plus, it was Canadian). Also, it is kind of important to this discussion that they did start off as an intentional ship. That isn’t bad, at all, in fact, the opposite.

I remember this as a small debate a while back, endgame ships vs unplanned ships based on chemistry. People were like, I don’t really care that much about endgame ships, give me something where their dynamic is just so good and their chemistry so undeniable. But that was mostly because people were realizing the endgame ships were the same old white m/f ships that often paled (lol) in comparison to underrepresented subtext ships. There were substantial f/f fandoms built on exactly that, Swan Queen, Bering and Wells, Faberry, aside from the big ones of the ‘90s and ‘00s (and earlier…Blair/Jo, anyone?). And also Shoot, until, one day, the writers went there, and with care, not simply a one-off or fanservice, they made it a part of the main plot. That was so particularly satisfying in a way I’m not sure people who weren’t part of old school f/f shipping can understand. To feel as if it’ll never happen, to know it, to have experienced that again and again and again, knowing all the reasons why it won’t. And then it DID. 

And to be clear, I know that Doccubus wasn’t actually supposed to be endgame, it was always canon but only later became endgame, which is also very cool in its own way. But the jump from never gonna happen subtext to canon is still–OH. Korra! Remember that feeling? That’s what I’m referring to, lol. Hmm. Pam and Tara on True Blood also? I didn’t watch but I remember my dash celebrating and it’d been quite unexpected. Funnily enough, Gail and Erica on The Last Man on Earth is one of the only cases I can remember where two first season characters get together later on. But Shoot’s treatment, until the end, did stand out.

As much as I love that feeling, much of it comes from the belief that a f/f ship can never happen, which is not a great feeling. Ideally, I would love to see more intentional endgame f/f ships, with thought and care behind them, of course.