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

[spankulert]

Awesome post is awesome ♥

[sothcweden]

This was interesting, if somewhat depressing reading. I'm fairly to to participating in fandom, but I've seen some of what you're talking about.

...if the minor character is female, nothing is bad enough to punish her properly for existing. Frankly, there's nothing feminist about that. I completely agree. While I understand the knee-jerk, hindbrain response, I don't really understand why it ever sees the light of day. I understand not wanting to read fic about the ship the PTB are trying to shove down our collective throats, but why rip the character apart in fic, journal posts, communities?

[sothcweden]

...I'm fairly new to participating in fandom...

Honestly, I really need to double check my typing before hitting post.

[here from metafandom]

[valentinite]

Ugh. I've only really been in one two-main-characters fandom, and that's Doctor Who. Which gets to have this vicious cycle over and over, as new companions come in, sometimes as minor characters before they replace the old one and become major, or sometimes just because fandom can't get over the replacement.

With the bizarre* addendum of the legion of fans claiming the Doctor is asexual in order to bash a ship they dislike whenever a New Girl shows up. And the legion of fans claiming he's bi/omni/pansexual whenever a New Boy shows up.

* NOTE: I'm not saying there's anything bizarre about asexuality. Or even that there was anything wrong or strange about the fact that the Doctor was, in a lot of ways, portrayed as such at times. (Or sexual but not attracted to humans.) Just that leaping onto the asexuality bandwagon just to bash a ship is creepy. Especially when they leap back off when "the right ship" comes along. Uh, no, that's as bad as telling someone their sexuality is just a phase.

[rubynye]

This is not the post I thought it would be.
This is a post that made me nod, and cheer, and make a note of it for use in future discussions.

Here based on a rec...

[mfirefly10]

ITA with absolutely everything you've said here. It's just...*applauds*...Brilliant and very accurate piece of meta!