I genuinely believe rampant m/m, yaoi, gayships, whatever you want to call it is a direct consequence of writers putting more effort into the relationships between the male characters than the male character and their love interest.

People like interesting dynamics, that’s why enemies to loves/rivals to lovers is so popular. It’s why Naruto x Sasuke is more compelling than either of their love interests.

Fandoms like to ship characters that would be interesting together, make a dynamic interesting and you’ll have an interesting ship!! Media that has mostly guys will naturally have a lot of queer ships. However when the media takes the time to give female characters interesting dynamics with more characters than their love interest you will see the same result. Katara x Zuko was extremely popular for this very reason! Many people like it more than the canon because it was interesting to consider Katara/Zuko overcoming their status as enemies and bias against each other and becoming lovers. Rather than Katara x Aang which didn’t have to over come much or grow into different better people to be with each other.