Oh, Sleepy Hollow fandom...
I've pretty much given up on tumblr being a form of interaction that I really enjoy or feel is interactive for me (which isn't to say that i don't think it isn't interactive, it just isn't in a way that I can gel with). However ,sometimes I still venture in, lately to the Sleepy Hollow tags, which consistently amaze me in their ability to become more and more toxic.
At this point, it appears that fandom has almost universally declared it illegal to like both Abbie and Katrina at the same time. Or something like that. This, of course, appears to be about 80% for shipping reasons.
On the one hand, we have Katrina, who's pretty much straight up in the position of being the character who canonically "interferes" with the popular fandom pairing. It doesn't help that the show apparently completely changed her background halfway through the season, and is too busy making her "mysterious" to really flesh her out, and so Katrina not only gets the full on hate of the people who demand perfection in female characters.
On the flipside, you have the people who constantly try to desexualize Abbie, saying that she's Ichabod's "bro" and that she's a strong black woman and a romantic relationship would weaken her as a character, and that people who ship her with Ichabod don't respect her as a strong, independent, modern black woman (look "strong black woman" always comes up in these posts in one way or another, as far as I can tell, which is the only reason the phrase is leaving my fingertips) and are trying to reduce her to "just" a love interest. Mind you, Katrina/Ichabod doesn't weaken or reduce Katrina, Jenny/Irving doesn't reduce or weaken Jenny, and neither Abbie/Andy nor Abbie/Luke reduce or weaken Abbie, only Abbie/Ichabod does.
Not to mention the fact that popular fandom ships, much less the possible/eventual main "will they/won't they" pairings almost never involve WoC. Or PoC in general, making the Ichabod/Abbie pairing in fandom and the possibility of it eventually becoming canon a fairly big thing. (Not that pointing that out seems to get any acknowledgement beyond more "Strong black woman! Strong black woman! Shipping bad!" comments.)
Also, shipping one character with another who is currently canonically in love with someone else is apparently only a problem if one option is a WoC and the other is in purgatory/has a high probability of already being dead*. Have a spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend/fiance/e right there on screen, regularly interacting with one or both members of the popular ship? That's fine, ship away. Nothing wrong with that. Ship a WoC with a white man whose possibly-dead wife is on flashback and occasional vision duty, and suddenly this is a problem because it's adultery and you're supporting cheating and you are so wrong on the internet and at life.
(Also, never ever suggest that Abbie is more interesting than Ichabod or Katrina, despite the fact that the show itself has spent more time in developing her as a character than anyone else. The episodes focusing on Abbie have been about her motivations and her relationships-the more complicated the better-and the mysteries in her life, whereas the Ichabod-centric episodes are more "Plot and metaplot backstory infodump! You may have it! Also, costumes and wigs. You like those, right?")
And then there's Jenny, who seems to be forgotten by fandom more often than not, aside from some "Jenny is awesome! Let's acknowledge her for about one day after an episode airs. Now lets get back to fighting about Abbie and Katrina."**
This fandom has pretty much takenthe "you can only like one woman at a time, especially when two women share plotspace with the same man" and taken it to an extreme, tossed in a bunch of racism (much of it unrecognized) and let it become the entire fandom. Oh, except the dozen or so people who started shipping Ichabod/Horseman in the pilot because there weren't any other white dudes around.
Meanwhile, yesterday is was 80F outside and I was forced to wear a t-shirt in December. Today I spent 10 minutes getting ice off my car after work, and the sleet had already made the steps up to my apartment slippery when I got home 2 hours ago, so I probably won't be able to go down them tomorrow. Which probably means that I'll spend the day watching anime.
(Also, doesn't it usually take a bit longer for fandoms to become this wanky?)
*I will be happy to be wrong about Katrina already being dead.
**Isn't someone going to write me some nice and juicy meta about Abbie and Jenny and lies and truth and how their choices in that regard pretty much set the paths for their lives, and Abbie still defaults to the easy lie when it'll get her what she needs, whereas Jenny still refuses what we'd consider a necessary and/or convenient white lie?
At this point, it appears that fandom has almost universally declared it illegal to like both Abbie and Katrina at the same time. Or something like that. This, of course, appears to be about 80% for shipping reasons.
On the one hand, we have Katrina, who's pretty much straight up in the position of being the character who canonically "interferes" with the popular fandom pairing. It doesn't help that the show apparently completely changed her background halfway through the season, and is too busy making her "mysterious" to really flesh her out, and so Katrina not only gets the full on hate of the people who demand perfection in female characters.
On the flipside, you have the people who constantly try to desexualize Abbie, saying that she's Ichabod's "bro" and that she's a strong black woman and a romantic relationship would weaken her as a character, and that people who ship her with Ichabod don't respect her as a strong, independent, modern black woman (look "strong black woman" always comes up in these posts in one way or another, as far as I can tell, which is the only reason the phrase is leaving my fingertips) and are trying to reduce her to "just" a love interest. Mind you, Katrina/Ichabod doesn't weaken or reduce Katrina, Jenny/Irving doesn't reduce or weaken Jenny, and neither Abbie/Andy nor Abbie/Luke reduce or weaken Abbie, only Abbie/Ichabod does.
Not to mention the fact that popular fandom ships, much less the possible/eventual main "will they/won't they" pairings almost never involve WoC. Or PoC in general, making the Ichabod/Abbie pairing in fandom and the possibility of it eventually becoming canon a fairly big thing. (Not that pointing that out seems to get any acknowledgement beyond more "Strong black woman! Strong black woman! Shipping bad!" comments.)
Also, shipping one character with another who is currently canonically in love with someone else is apparently only a problem if one option is a WoC and the other is in purgatory/has a high probability of already being dead*. Have a spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend/fiance/e right there on screen, regularly interacting with one or both members of the popular ship? That's fine, ship away. Nothing wrong with that. Ship a WoC with a white man whose possibly-dead wife is on flashback and occasional vision duty, and suddenly this is a problem because it's adultery and you're supporting cheating and you are so wrong on the internet and at life.
(Also, never ever suggest that Abbie is more interesting than Ichabod or Katrina, despite the fact that the show itself has spent more time in developing her as a character than anyone else. The episodes focusing on Abbie have been about her motivations and her relationships-the more complicated the better-and the mysteries in her life, whereas the Ichabod-centric episodes are more "Plot and metaplot backstory infodump! You may have it! Also, costumes and wigs. You like those, right?")
And then there's Jenny, who seems to be forgotten by fandom more often than not, aside from some "Jenny is awesome! Let's acknowledge her for about one day after an episode airs. Now lets get back to fighting about Abbie and Katrina."**
This fandom has pretty much takenthe "you can only like one woman at a time, especially when two women share plotspace with the same man" and taken it to an extreme, tossed in a bunch of racism (much of it unrecognized) and let it become the entire fandom. Oh, except the dozen or so people who started shipping Ichabod/Horseman in the pilot because there weren't any other white dudes around.
Meanwhile, yesterday is was 80F outside and I was forced to wear a t-shirt in December. Today I spent 10 minutes getting ice off my car after work, and the sleet had already made the steps up to my apartment slippery when I got home 2 hours ago, so I probably won't be able to go down them tomorrow. Which probably means that I'll spend the day watching anime.
(Also, doesn't it usually take a bit longer for fandoms to become this wanky?)
*I will be happy to be wrong about Katrina already being dead.
**Isn't someone going to write me some nice and juicy meta about Abbie and Jenny and lies and truth and how their choices in that regard pretty much set the paths for their lives, and Abbie still defaults to the easy lie when it'll get her what she needs, whereas Jenny still refuses what we'd consider a necessary and/or convenient white lie?