Wings of Fire Ship Thoughts, Critiques, and Overall Opinions

Qinter // Qibli x Winter

Woooo! We're onto non-canon ships! Qinter is what we see as the most popular non-canon ship, so we decided to tackle it. And... by god... it's finally a ship we actually like! (Note: We, eaz in particular, do not believe we know enough about The Lost Continent to tackle the ships in the third arc, and do not want to get some information wrong... so... we're sticking to ships from arc 1 and 2.)

eaz's thoughts

I'm gonna get straight into my thoughts on this one. Now, I do like Qinter. I do have some reasons, although my explanation and analysis on this might be a bit shorter than my previous ones. 

So, it's not my favorite ship, but it certainly is my favorite for Winter. There are not a lot of popular Winter ships- off the top of my head, there's Winterwatcher, Qinter, and I've also seen Winterjou. I think that Qibli works best with Winter, because guess what: he can take care of himself. As I discussed in my Winterwatcher review, I think that Moonwatcher's quiet nature doesn't work well with Winter, as as we see in the books, he can push her around easily. 

 Winter, by no means, is always nice to Qibli, but even when he is rude, Qibli doesn't mind. He's very patient with Winter, and refuses to give up on befriending him, even when he badly injures him with icebreath. 

 In the books, there are some bits that suggest this pairing (mainly on Qibli's part, such as how he says they should get married, and calls him handsome a plethora of times.) The two spend a lot of time together, both when they were in JMA (as they shared a cave,) as well as on their journey- they had to rely on each other a lot while the Jade Winglet was split up and the others were at the NightWing home. This period gives a lot of time for development of their relationship. 

My only real gripe with this ship is not even a real issue with the pairing itself- I just think it overshadows a lot of good non-canon ships (I find a lot of the Wings of Fire archive on Archive of Our Own is filled with Qinter.) I just wish there was more space left for other good non-canon ships. 

Overall, I much prefer Qinter to Moonbli and Winterwatcher, and I think it would make a lot of sense if it became canon at the end of Darkness of Dragons.

gale's thoughts

qinter is one of those ships where you either love it or hate it. i'm not really one of those people who ships it religiously, but qinter is a fairly enjoyable ship to me.

 for starters, their dynamic is very fun to work with and read. i've always loved the rivalry / jokingly insulting each other dynamic for ships, and it works really well for qinter, in both canon and non canon interactions. and even if winter was rude to him during a majority of their interactions, they eventually fall on better terms and become better friends by book 10. people may wonder why I prefer this ship for winter to winterwatcher, when winter really isn't the nicest to either of them a majority of the time, and it's because qibli stands up for and takes care of himself when dealing with winter's rudeness. 

these two have definitely got a lot of chemistry and development as well. as much as I don't really like book 10, their interactions in this book especially are fun to read. 

 although I have a few gripes with this ship, they're both really minor. first off, although I really can't control what people like, I just feel like there's too much content of it, and at times this ship just gets old to me. it's not necessarily a bad thing, and as stated above I really do enjoy this ship! it's just... seeing this ship too much makes it get pretty stale sometimes. 

 the other small gripe I have with it is that it was queerbaited to hell and back. qibli constantly makes jokes about winter's relationship (or honestly, lack thereof) with him, and he even made a joke about them possibly getting married one day in book 10. and then... nothing comes out of it. not one mention of the possibility of it being canon. 

 anyways this ship deserved to be canon more than moonbli. you can't change my mind :)

Overall Rating Out of 10 (from both of us)

8/10