Shipping and Fandom
Feb. 6th, 2019 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatThere's an article about fanfiction, fandom and shipping in the new romance magazine Blush, that's just been launched. (Got it via Smartbitches. )
1. Critiques?
* Damn print is minuscule. Today's magazines have decided to save space by doing 8 font type size and four to five columns on a page. Making it impossible to read. It's why I've given up on buying magazines and am thisclose to cancelling my subscription to EW (well among other reasons but that's a whole different discussion.)
* Also, she's pretty general in the article. And the focus is on mainstream series, not the true cult stuff. I'm sorry X-files, Star Wars, Harry Potter and Twilight are far too popular to be termed cult. I had a lengthy debate about this with a guy I dated briefly at evil library company --it didn't work. For a lot of reasons, I won't go into. I sort of intimidated him. So did my friend. It was hilarious. Anywho, what I argued was that a series that is massively popular, gotten awards, and the mainstream is into on some level is NOT cult. Cult is the X-men, which granted is popular to a degree -- but just with comic fans. The Avengers is mainstream -- because of the movies. Spiderman -- mainstream. Superman and Batman mainstream. Cyclops? Magneto? Phoenix? Shadowkat? Cult. Same deal with Buffy -- Buffy is cult. X-files is mainstream -- it was nominated for Emmy's come on. Game of Thrones is mainstream, Battle Star Galatica is cult for the same reasons. Sopranos - mainstream, The Wire - cult. Star Wars - mainstream, Star Trek cult, although I'd say Doctor Who is more cult than either. If a mainstream newspaper, magazine, etc is writing a lot about it - it's not cult. If it is nominated for Emmy's? Not cult. If it is nominated for Hugos? Cult.)
2. Wrong-headed shipping or shipping bad guys with heroes...such as Kylo Ren and Rei, or Draco Malfoy and Hermonine, or Angelus and Buffy.
Quibbles aside..I don't ship the way the person being interviewed does. I don't really do or tend to do "wrong-headed" shipping. With a few rare exceptions -- and usually those are one's that fit the story thread and are canon. I don't tend to ship counter to the canon.
Not even Spuffy was really wrong-headed from my perspective (although that could be the closest that I've ever come to it from a general perspective, since I didn't get into the ship until sometime after/around Once More with Feeling, and possibly Intervention in s5.) I was not shipping the characters before Spike sacrificed himself for her and attempted to change. And I was a Buffy/Angel shipper up until I Will Always Remember You -- when Angel royally pissed me off and proved he was another narcissistic egotistical asshole with a hero complex, who'd only break her heart and anyone else who gave a shit about him -- repeatedly to boost his own worthless ego. From my perspective from that episode forward -- shipping Buffy/Angel was wrong-headed shipping and against the canon and story-thread. (And no, you won't change my mind on that -- I've read every argument, and none have convinced. Various people have tried. If my own brother can't do it -- you can't.)
I actually stopped watching Angel after that episode and didn't come back until Faith popped up in a cross-over, then watched intermittently until friends on a posting board coaxed me into watching it again. Why? I had major problems with Angel. The only way I could watch the series was pretty much how I watched Breaking Bad, which was with the caveat that it is was a series about an anti-hero, pure noir, and I wasn't supposed to see any of the characters as heroes, and of course everyone including Angel would fall into the Abyss...this series wasn't going to end well for anyone. Turns out that was the correct approach -- the writers were writing a pure anti-hero noir series. (They pretty much admitted to it.))
3. Canon vs. non-canonical shipping (not to be confused with m/m or f/f slash - which can be canonical or non-canonical depending on the series.).
Per the above, I ship with the canon or with the story-thread. And don't have a lot of patience for shipping against the story-thread. It's rare that I'll ship characters that aren't going to end up together, aren't written to be romantic love interests, and aren't written to be friends. And if they are friends or lovers or married and the story-thread leads to their inevitable separation and the demise of their relationship in a convincing manner that tracks -- and shows why, doesn't tell, I'll go along with it. (See Buffy/Angel above as an example. The writers successfully broke that ship up for me in S1 Angel.)
I do ship slash or m/m or f/f but there has to be something subtextual in the series that lends to it. For example -- I can see Xander/Spike together -- Xander, I could see as gay. The writers appeared to be on the fence at various points. Spike read as clearly bisexual, as did Angel -- hello Vampires. Just as Darla and Dru read as bisexual. I can totally see both Angel/Spike and Darla/Dru getting it on. The subtext is there. Killing Eve? I can see Eve and Villenelle going there. Also it's in the subtext of Vampire Diaries with Damon/Alaric, and Stefan/Mikalas.
I've also shipped non-canonical gen usually when the writer has failed to convince me of the pairing she/he prefers -- Harry/Luna Lovegood. (Sorry Harry Potter is an excellent example of a series where I never bought the canonical ship --Ginny/Harry and Ron/Hermoine never quite worked for me.) Another series that didn't do a great job of selling the ship? Hunger Games. The writer had to bend over backwards to convince me to go with her ship. Because the character of Katniss appeared to be going counter to it. YA -- often has this problem. I think because it has a tendency to fall into romantic cliche or tropes too easily and the writers often don't do a good job of building the romances.
In short, generally speaking, I tend to go wherever the writers take me. In most cases if the writers want me to love a relationship -- I will if the writing and acting is there to support it. There are a few exceptions to this rule -- and most of those are in long-running serials such as comic books and soap operas, where often a new writer will come on board and decide for no good reason to throw two characters together that just don't work. Examples? Wolverine and Jean Grey (eww, and that was Chris Claremount who did it because he was upset Marvel broke up Madelyn Pryor and Scott Summers and retconned his Phoenix epic.) Dude? Characters before ego, please. Also, Scott Summers and Psycholock -- did not work. For the same reasons Wolverine and Jean don't. I'm not sure anyone works with Jean but Scott. What appeals to her about Scott -- is he's willing to let her into his head. No other guy is. Wolverine certainly isn't. There's a trust level that's lacking elsewhere. Scott on the other hand did work with Emma Frost -- for the same reasons, they'd established a level of trust for a time -- until it was broken by her own insecurities and the fact that he'd gotten in way over his head.
4. Where the line should be drawn regarding shipping...
Where I get annoyed with shipping is when the shippers in question attempt to influence the writers of a series to give their ship an HEA, even if it goes against the story-thread. A strong writer will ignore their fans and do what they please. But television writers have an annoying habit of catering to whiny fans or the squeaky wheels, thinking they are the majority. (They aren't.) And have at times ruined their series. Whedon kept his love triangle vague because of shippers -- instead of letting Buffy decisively choose one or the other, he stretched it out and kept teasing. It was annoying. Write fanfic, but don't petition the writers.
I actually preferred how Vampire Diaries dealt with it -- which was -- to make the story more about the Stefan/Damon relationship or the Bonnie/Elena/Caroline friendship than the romantic ships. And to decisively put Damon and Elena together, and Stefan and Caroline. It had love triangles, but it resolved them quickly and ignored the whiny shippers who missed their ship. Basically telling them - move on or go away. Kudos.
If you ship against canon, and I have on occasion, the same rule applies -- you know going in that you are shipping against the story-thread. If your ship has sunk and become shark-feed, you sort of have to move on or just write fanfic.
5. My ships or the one's that I have shipped the hardest in recent years and still do to an extent?
Canonical Ships:
* Spuffy or Spike/Buffy ( I don't really like merging the names, I find it confusing.)
* Cyclops/Jean Grey and Cyclops/Emma Frost
* Spike/Angel -- weirdly I only like Angel when he's paired up with Spike. Spike like Faith calls him on his stupidity. [ETA: not entirely true, I will also ship Angel with Darla, who like Spike calls him on his stupidity, and Lindsey...which is just fun.]
*ETA: Lilah/Wes...because that's just crack
* Apollo/Starbuck -- which was admittedly more platonic
There's a bunch in General Hospital that I won't bore anyone with. Also, a bunch in the X-men comics and Marvel Verse.
* Damon/Elena, Stefan/Caroline,
* John Crichton/Areyn Sun
* Kate/Curran
*Doctor Who/Doctor Song
*Amy/Rory
*Captain Jack/Captain John
* Maze/Doctor Linda
Nothing new though. I don't ship much any longer. Shipping for television shows is ridiculously painful.
Non-canonical?
* Faith/Willow
* Xander/Spike
* Apollo/Starbuck (non-platonic)
* Rei/Poe - Star Wars -- although I've a feeling they may go there yet. (I'm possibly the only person in fandom who is turned off by Kylo Ren/Rei.)
* Cyclops/Wolverine -- that pairing would be interesting. (Also there is subtext)
* Merlin/Arthur (Merlin series...which had oodles of subtext -- and honestly I thought there was more chemistry between them than the actual pairings.)
* Morgana/Gwen (also Merlin series..see Merlin/Arthur)
* Damon/Alaric
* Harry/Luna Lovegood
But I can't say I was passionate about any of them.
1. Critiques?
* Damn print is minuscule. Today's magazines have decided to save space by doing 8 font type size and four to five columns on a page. Making it impossible to read. It's why I've given up on buying magazines and am thisclose to cancelling my subscription to EW (well among other reasons but that's a whole different discussion.)
* Also, she's pretty general in the article. And the focus is on mainstream series, not the true cult stuff. I'm sorry X-files, Star Wars, Harry Potter and Twilight are far too popular to be termed cult. I had a lengthy debate about this with a guy I dated briefly at evil library company --it didn't work. For a lot of reasons, I won't go into. I sort of intimidated him. So did my friend. It was hilarious. Anywho, what I argued was that a series that is massively popular, gotten awards, and the mainstream is into on some level is NOT cult. Cult is the X-men, which granted is popular to a degree -- but just with comic fans. The Avengers is mainstream -- because of the movies. Spiderman -- mainstream. Superman and Batman mainstream. Cyclops? Magneto? Phoenix? Shadowkat? Cult. Same deal with Buffy -- Buffy is cult. X-files is mainstream -- it was nominated for Emmy's come on. Game of Thrones is mainstream, Battle Star Galatica is cult for the same reasons. Sopranos - mainstream, The Wire - cult. Star Wars - mainstream, Star Trek cult, although I'd say Doctor Who is more cult than either. If a mainstream newspaper, magazine, etc is writing a lot about it - it's not cult. If it is nominated for Emmy's? Not cult. If it is nominated for Hugos? Cult.)
2. Wrong-headed shipping or shipping bad guys with heroes...such as Kylo Ren and Rei, or Draco Malfoy and Hermonine, or Angelus and Buffy.
Quibbles aside..I don't ship the way the person being interviewed does. I don't really do or tend to do "wrong-headed" shipping. With a few rare exceptions -- and usually those are one's that fit the story thread and are canon. I don't tend to ship counter to the canon.
Not even Spuffy was really wrong-headed from my perspective (although that could be the closest that I've ever come to it from a general perspective, since I didn't get into the ship until sometime after/around Once More with Feeling, and possibly Intervention in s5.) I was not shipping the characters before Spike sacrificed himself for her and attempted to change. And I was a Buffy/Angel shipper up until I Will Always Remember You -- when Angel royally pissed me off and proved he was another narcissistic egotistical asshole with a hero complex, who'd only break her heart and anyone else who gave a shit about him -- repeatedly to boost his own worthless ego. From my perspective from that episode forward -- shipping Buffy/Angel was wrong-headed shipping and against the canon and story-thread. (And no, you won't change my mind on that -- I've read every argument, and none have convinced. Various people have tried. If my own brother can't do it -- you can't.)
I actually stopped watching Angel after that episode and didn't come back until Faith popped up in a cross-over, then watched intermittently until friends on a posting board coaxed me into watching it again. Why? I had major problems with Angel. The only way I could watch the series was pretty much how I watched Breaking Bad, which was with the caveat that it is was a series about an anti-hero, pure noir, and I wasn't supposed to see any of the characters as heroes, and of course everyone including Angel would fall into the Abyss...this series wasn't going to end well for anyone. Turns out that was the correct approach -- the writers were writing a pure anti-hero noir series. (They pretty much admitted to it.))
3. Canon vs. non-canonical shipping (not to be confused with m/m or f/f slash - which can be canonical or non-canonical depending on the series.).
Per the above, I ship with the canon or with the story-thread. And don't have a lot of patience for shipping against the story-thread. It's rare that I'll ship characters that aren't going to end up together, aren't written to be romantic love interests, and aren't written to be friends. And if they are friends or lovers or married and the story-thread leads to their inevitable separation and the demise of their relationship in a convincing manner that tracks -- and shows why, doesn't tell, I'll go along with it. (See Buffy/Angel above as an example. The writers successfully broke that ship up for me in S1 Angel.)
I do ship slash or m/m or f/f but there has to be something subtextual in the series that lends to it. For example -- I can see Xander/Spike together -- Xander, I could see as gay. The writers appeared to be on the fence at various points. Spike read as clearly bisexual, as did Angel -- hello Vampires. Just as Darla and Dru read as bisexual. I can totally see both Angel/Spike and Darla/Dru getting it on. The subtext is there. Killing Eve? I can see Eve and Villenelle going there. Also it's in the subtext of Vampire Diaries with Damon/Alaric, and Stefan/Mikalas.
I've also shipped non-canonical gen usually when the writer has failed to convince me of the pairing she/he prefers -- Harry/Luna Lovegood. (Sorry Harry Potter is an excellent example of a series where I never bought the canonical ship --Ginny/Harry and Ron/Hermoine never quite worked for me.) Another series that didn't do a great job of selling the ship? Hunger Games. The writer had to bend over backwards to convince me to go with her ship. Because the character of Katniss appeared to be going counter to it. YA -- often has this problem. I think because it has a tendency to fall into romantic cliche or tropes too easily and the writers often don't do a good job of building the romances.
In short, generally speaking, I tend to go wherever the writers take me. In most cases if the writers want me to love a relationship -- I will if the writing and acting is there to support it. There are a few exceptions to this rule -- and most of those are in long-running serials such as comic books and soap operas, where often a new writer will come on board and decide for no good reason to throw two characters together that just don't work. Examples? Wolverine and Jean Grey (eww, and that was Chris Claremount who did it because he was upset Marvel broke up Madelyn Pryor and Scott Summers and retconned his Phoenix epic.) Dude? Characters before ego, please. Also, Scott Summers and Psycholock -- did not work. For the same reasons Wolverine and Jean don't. I'm not sure anyone works with Jean but Scott. What appeals to her about Scott -- is he's willing to let her into his head. No other guy is. Wolverine certainly isn't. There's a trust level that's lacking elsewhere. Scott on the other hand did work with Emma Frost -- for the same reasons, they'd established a level of trust for a time -- until it was broken by her own insecurities and the fact that he'd gotten in way over his head.
4. Where the line should be drawn regarding shipping...
Where I get annoyed with shipping is when the shippers in question attempt to influence the writers of a series to give their ship an HEA, even if it goes against the story-thread. A strong writer will ignore their fans and do what they please. But television writers have an annoying habit of catering to whiny fans or the squeaky wheels, thinking they are the majority. (They aren't.) And have at times ruined their series. Whedon kept his love triangle vague because of shippers -- instead of letting Buffy decisively choose one or the other, he stretched it out and kept teasing. It was annoying. Write fanfic, but don't petition the writers.
I actually preferred how Vampire Diaries dealt with it -- which was -- to make the story more about the Stefan/Damon relationship or the Bonnie/Elena/Caroline friendship than the romantic ships. And to decisively put Damon and Elena together, and Stefan and Caroline. It had love triangles, but it resolved them quickly and ignored the whiny shippers who missed their ship. Basically telling them - move on or go away. Kudos.
If you ship against canon, and I have on occasion, the same rule applies -- you know going in that you are shipping against the story-thread. If your ship has sunk and become shark-feed, you sort of have to move on or just write fanfic.
5. My ships or the one's that I have shipped the hardest in recent years and still do to an extent?
Canonical Ships:
* Spuffy or Spike/Buffy ( I don't really like merging the names, I find it confusing.)
* Cyclops/Jean Grey and Cyclops/Emma Frost
* Spike/Angel -- weirdly I only like Angel when he's paired up with Spike. Spike like Faith calls him on his stupidity. [ETA: not entirely true, I will also ship Angel with Darla, who like Spike calls him on his stupidity, and Lindsey...which is just fun.]
*ETA: Lilah/Wes...because that's just crack
* Apollo/Starbuck -- which was admittedly more platonic
There's a bunch in General Hospital that I won't bore anyone with. Also, a bunch in the X-men comics and Marvel Verse.
* Damon/Elena, Stefan/Caroline,
* John Crichton/Areyn Sun
* Kate/Curran
*Doctor Who/Doctor Song
*Amy/Rory
*Captain Jack/Captain John
* Maze/Doctor Linda
Nothing new though. I don't ship much any longer. Shipping for television shows is ridiculously painful.
Non-canonical?
* Faith/Willow
* Xander/Spike
* Apollo/Starbuck (non-platonic)
* Rei/Poe - Star Wars -- although I've a feeling they may go there yet. (I'm possibly the only person in fandom who is turned off by Kylo Ren/Rei.)
* Cyclops/Wolverine -- that pairing would be interesting. (Also there is subtext)
* Merlin/Arthur (Merlin series...which had oodles of subtext -- and honestly I thought there was more chemistry between them than the actual pairings.)
* Morgana/Gwen (also Merlin series..see Merlin/Arthur)
* Damon/Alaric
* Harry/Luna Lovegood
But I can't say I was passionate about any of them.