Bear Your Fandom Allegiance
This is very peripherally related to angearia's recent ponderings about het/gen/slash. Okay, not really even related, but discussing it in comments brought me to this side-question of fannish identification and affiliation. Obviously, fandom has its "factions". A lot of it thanks to The Great Shipper Wars that I missed, being a late-comer and all. But fans have a tendency to identify themselves by whatever ship or character they're a fan of. I do.
I was struck once, though, when I was doing the poll on whether Buffy/Angel was subversive to see a Bangel fan elsewhere on LJ wonder why a Spuffy fan was polling about Bangel. It puzzled me. The idea that, as a Spuffy fan, I couldn't show an interest in another aspect of the show, especially one that was a "rival" pairing.
Cause I love Spike and Spuffy. But...hello, check my icons! All Willow. I'm also a fan of Willow. I'm a fan of Giles. I'm a fan of Andrew and Tara and Xander/Anya and Faith and...well...I'm just a BtVS fan. I like entire episodes that have nothing to do with Spike and/or Spuffy!
Course, then I started wondering about the distinction between someone who likes, say, Willow/Tara and a Willow/Tara shipper. What, exactly, pushes a fan into "shipper" territory?
Then I started wondering about how this all connects to fanfic and the poor genfics that dare to not be about romance.
So...um...lots of questions without much answers. I'm just kinda curious about a few things. Humor me and take the poll that's under ye ol' cut? :)
Notes: If you choose "No" to #1, you don't need to answer any other questions. Also, you may well be a fan of multiple pairings/characters. That's fine. Just mentally pluralize the questions. :)
Poll
I was struck once, though, when I was doing the poll on whether Buffy/Angel was subversive to see a Bangel fan elsewhere on LJ wonder why a Spuffy fan was polling about Bangel. It puzzled me. The idea that, as a Spuffy fan, I couldn't show an interest in another aspect of the show, especially one that was a "rival" pairing.
Cause I love Spike and Spuffy. But...hello, check my icons! All Willow. I'm also a fan of Willow. I'm a fan of Giles. I'm a fan of Andrew and Tara and Xander/Anya and Faith and...well...I'm just a BtVS fan. I like entire episodes that have nothing to do with Spike and/or Spuffy!
Course, then I started wondering about the distinction between someone who likes, say, Willow/Tara and a Willow/Tara shipper. What, exactly, pushes a fan into "shipper" territory?
Then I started wondering about how this all connects to fanfic and the poor genfics that dare to not be about romance.
So...um...lots of questions without much answers. I'm just kinda curious about a few things. Humor me and take the poll that's under ye ol' cut? :)
Notes: If you choose "No" to #1, you don't need to answer any other questions. Also, you may well be a fan of multiple pairings/characters. That's fine. Just mentally pluralize the questions. :)
Poll