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

[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 early eighties. Nope!

Sharon Saye had a really interesting essay about the various SW characters' treatment in fanfic in WOOKIEE COMMODE #2 (1985):

Leia Organa is the one character who has had more than her share of detractors. In some fanzines she is pictured as cold, manipulative, and heartless. Leia in reality is a very complicated character who changes throughout the saga while staying essentially the same. She is loyal, dedicated, understanding, committed and intelligent, but she is often depicted as one-dimensional and selfish. Even in the best of stories, "Life-Line" by Anne Elizabeth Zeek (Kessel Run 4), for example, Leia emerges as the most dangerous of the series stars. In this story she would slag the Rurlizar Prison where Luke is held in order to prevent his revealing Alliance secrets to Vader. Later, only Han prevents her from murdering eight unconscious prison guards. Leia's pragmatism and relentless loyalty to the Rebellion earn her an eternal revenge in Zeek's sequel, "Blood Line"(Kessel Run 4). One zine, Against the Sith [which ran from 1978-1980, per fanlore.org -- DH], was extremely anti-Leia; in an analysis of the virtues of each of the SW characters, Leia ranked just above Darth Vader.

Saye wasn't writing a feminist treatment of the fandom, FWIW, but looking at the popularity of the various characters. But the same dynamic popped up in the gen, even when Leia wasn't getting in the way of the slash.

[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 :)

[hradzka]

...and are there toasters?

btw, awesome discussion. Thank you.

[obsession_inc]

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.

Well, to each their own, I suppose. Since most things that people get really excited about are things that have a strong emotional pull for them, I think you're stuck with the ship part of it. And, personally, I'm not planning on making any excuses for it. I like writing stuff that doesn't involve the main ship of a canon, and that's the stuff that will interest me the most, but the spark that propels me into a fandom in the first place is, usually, a ship. Emotional propulsion is a strong thing.

As for the idea that a less ship-centric fandom would be more female-friendly: I think we have different ideas on which is the cart and which is the horse in this situation, because I see it being more along the lines of if women weren't trained from, like, BIRTH to judge their social value in terms of what men think about them, shipping would probably not be the only game in town. And this kind of antagonism toward female characters wouldn't happen so much or on this level, because that sort of ingrained concept of ANOTHER WOMAN = THREAT / ANOTHER MAN = YAY would, I'd hope, subside, so that treatment would be more equal.

And while I'm building castles in the sky, I'd hope that such a miracle would affect all parts of society so that ships aren't considered the girl ghetto of fandom. (Just because it's large, doesn't mean it gets respect.) There's always this whiff of superiority that comes with gen-- I appreciate greatly that you did not play that card-- that, I think, comes from the idea that shipping is not SERIOUS BUSINESS like gen is. A lot of the time, it isn't, but then again, gen is prone to stuff like the WHO WOULD WIN, WOLVERINE OR BATMAN? discussions / stories which aren't exactly exploring the way the fictional world works or exploring the ramifications of canonical decisions. The best kind of shippy material, I think, can stand up with the best kind of gen; not because of porn or pink clouds and happy endings, but because it's expanding the fictional universe and hashing out hard questions of human behavior. I keep finding myself in an odd spot where on the one hand, I think I hate a lot of the same stuff you do about ship-centric fic-- but on the other hand, I've heard variations on the theme of "girls are only interested in relationship stories, so those kinds of stories are therefore less respectable and not serious business"* way too many times for me to completely agree with you.

*Note: not saying you're using that theme, just... kind of explaining why I'm jumpy.

+1

[wemblee]

I really love this response. <3

[wendelah1]

The best kind of shippy material, I think, can stand up with the best kind of gen; not because of porn or pink clouds and happy endings, but because it's expanding the fictional universe and hashing out hard questions of human behavior.

I agree. In addition, I'm a gen person when I'm watching shows for the most part, but a good enough writer can convert me to pretty much any ship for the duration of the story.

I'd just like to see more gen because I like gen.

[lilacsigil]

I'm largely a gen-writer and a non-shipper (sometimes an anti-shipper!), but a lot of the same dynamics play out in genfic, too. I think there is considerably more female-centred genfic than there was, say, 15 years ago, but I don't know if it has even kept up with the proportional increase in female characters.

[troubleinchina]

There are people who don't accept that Leia is awesome?

:(

[lady_ganesh]

The world is callous and strange.