Your Guide To Fandom Ships and New Characters That Interfere With Them

[obsession_inc]

Some times, when one main character and another main character keep looking at each other intensely, and get scared for each other's safety, and each finds the other's company and opinions more valuable than anyone else's, and both main characters are pretty hot and they have chemistry like WHOA, a ship is born.  And shippers board this ship and

Comments

[dollsome]

Option two gave me so many Karen Filippeli flashbacks! It was like traveling through time!

6. Someone finally slashes the female minor character with the female main character. This, as it turns out, is perfectly acceptable.

KAPAM!!!!

Option three reminds me discouragingly & immediately of Kate from Lost -- and that is such a bizarre situation, because it's not like most people are even shipping Jack and Sawyer! There's just this 'I want her to die' violent, ugly hatred because ... two dudes want to be in love with her and she can't pick one? Kate is one of my favourite fictional ladies ever -- even though the Lost showrunners kinda suck at writing women in general and therefore she has had some low moments -- and it genuinely disturbs me to puruse Lost message boards and realize that wishing death upon her is just the accepted universal stance toward her character in that fandom.

[obsession_inc]

God, I forgot to even mention the "catfight" trope which is, possibly, my least favorite kind of story in fandom. And KAPAM! Awwwww, so great. Still, I wish there were more stories in fandom about women just, you know, getting along, instead of having to either be competing for a guy or having sex with each other. Sigh.

There's just this 'I want her to die' violent, ugly hatred because ... two dudes want to be in love with her and she can't pick one?

Ew. This is causing me to summarize my vaguely-planned sister post about shipper wars (main characters all, none of them minor) with "no matter what, the woman will get blamed eventually." It's like the good old days in Office fandom where suddenly the TWOP boards decided that there was something very wrong with Pam for not immediately leaving Roy and having sex with Jim, and therefore she was a terrible person who must be punished. Ick, ick, ick.

[dudski]

My favorite was when the point was made that Roy was right not to support Pam's artistic interests, because she couldn't even paint as well as Hitler.

[buongiornodaisy]

Here from metafandom.

The Kate hate IS kind of ridiculous. They skewer her for things that, you know, other characters do (like being selfish) and then blame her for the stupid situations the writers have put her in. In the grand scheme of things Jack has done things that are much, much worse than what Kate's done, but the Jack hate is comical, whereas the Kate hate is not.

[obsession_inc]

Thanks! I should add a bit grain of salt to this: I've never participated in any fandom that has a femmeslash main ship, so I haven't the foggiest idea. Any thoughts?

[hradzka]

Ohh, man. Three words: Joxer the Mighty.

Joxer was a comic relief wanna-be warrior on XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS. He was mostly around to be the butt of jokes, but he was on the show a lot, and the fanfic writers HAAAAAAAAAAATED him. If they didn't ignore him, they mocked or pulverized him.

To be fair, a lot of the time Joxer really wasn't funny, so he got slagged on by the discussion fans, of which I was one. But remember, XENA was probably the first fandom to have a really really vocally active queerfen contingent (in my experience, anyway) -- for a lot of lesbians who'd felt unrepresented, XENA was *their* show, and Xena/Gabrielle was *their* ship. Man, did they ever hate Joxer.

[hradzka]

This is a really great post. Makes strong points, is interesting, and describes accurately *stuff that happens all the time.*

Some times, when one main character and another main character keep looking at each other intensely, and get scared for each other's safety, and each finds the other's company and opinions more valuable than anyone else's, and both main characters are pretty hot and they have chemistry like WHOA, a ship is born. And shippers board this ship and ride it for all it is worth. This is normal, and good, and is the engine that keeps the fan community running.
Here's the funny thing: for me, *this is everything that's wrong with fandom.* I really wish that shipping *wasn't* the engine that keeps the fan community running, and just now I actually entertained the notion that a less ship-crazed fandom would be more female-character friendly. I had an enjoyable few moments of smugness in my anti-shipping bias before I remembered old fanzine accounts of how Princess Leia was treated in fanfic in the late seventies and

[amonitrate]

dude, are you trying to forward the GEN AGENDA? Did you know that there is a GEN AGENDA? and that it makes you HETERONORMATIVE? or something?

Yeah, I didn't either.

ahem. All this to say as a big fan of gen, I have sympathies for your viewpoint. So maybe I do subscribe to the GEN AGENDA's newsletter.

[cofax7]

Where do I go to sign onto the Gen Agenda?!

[margi_lynn]

+1 Me too! Where's the Gen Agenda? Lemme sign :)

[amonitrate]

It is explained, in great solemnity, that feminism does not extend to women on TV that we hate, because they don't DESERVE our support. If this is questioned, the obvious point is made that this is a MAKE-BELIEVE WOMAN so it doesn't count.

This.

Like, all of this. My Unified Theory of the Other Woman totally fits all of this, especially since The Other Woman can totally be a dude.

It's interesting that it happens far more rarely to The Other Dude in slash OTP fandoms, but it does happen! Interestingly, though, the hate of the Other Dude is rarely framed in gendered terms the way the hate of The Other Woman is. But it can be just as virulent.

[vehlr]

I got linked to this as 'an interesting read'.. which is a bit of an understatement but hey ho.

Option 2 had me in hysterics because, although it's not a show I thought of, it's just spot on.

It does make me think, though.. this works for television shows because the content is being added to with every new episode. But although a lot of the principles mirror onto other mediums (films, video games, etc) there are a few differences and exceptions and other viewpoints that come with the canon material having an endpoint.. really thought provoking, actually, because even though the sandbox is just as open, new rules come into play because of the 'happy-ever-after' that the canon material reaches.

Thanks for this! <3