shipping kills puppies!

[xparrot]

I've seen a couple discussions about the negative turn SGA fandom has taken, re: McKeller, people, mostly Keller fans (or at least not anti-Keller fans) who are feeling actively driven from the fandom by aggressive character/pairing hate. They feel this is a recent trend, and I concur; while SGA had its share of past wank, I think it was one of the lower-conflict fandoms for its size. And if that's changed now, then I blame shipping. Or rather, canon shipping.

Every fandom I know of that has these battles, has these levels of anger and resentment between fans, is a fandom with canon ships. Witness Smallville, or HP. Ships going canon wreak havoc on a fandom. Nothing embitters your average fan as much as a ship that sinks their own, and an embittered fan can be eager to share their hate, wants the solidarity of all of fandom telling TPTB that they're wrong, wants all of fandom together seeking change. Even killing a character doesn't cause the kind of conflict that shipping does...

There are other things that get fans' backs up, but the majority of fen are shippers, and ships are often why they fan. There are exceptions, there are other types of fans - and other types of shippers - but in modern Western media fandom, the majority of fans (slash, het, even many gen fen) are in it for particular relationships. Mess with those relationships in canon, and you get fandom meltdown.

(I think there's a reason that a lot of the old fan shows, the big ones, were series that never had canon ships, never had any romances that lasted more than a single episode. Star Trek, Starsky & Hutch, The Sentinel, all those old episodic shows that never really progressed the character relationships - that never changed them, never pulled the figurative rug out from under fannish feet. The only series I know of with low-conflict canon ships are ships which were introduced in the first season, that the fandom grew up around, and even in those there's often little interaction between contrasting shippers. I also suspect it's a major reason why new female characters are viewed with such suspicion, because while male characters are often introduced for plot purposes, nine times out of ten a new female character is going to mean new canon ships.)

I don't blame shippers. I'm a shipper myself; I wouldn't fan without my ships. I need my OTPs to fic. And I strive to be reasonable and fair to all my fellow fans, but I still have been known to go utterly psycho batshit when I feel my OTP is "threatened," so it doesn't surprise me to see other otherwise reasonable types lose it over shipping. It's frustrating since the fandom used to be cooler about it - but then the fandom didn't have canon ships before. A fandom with canon ships has ship wars. It just seems to be a fact of fandom; it's why I tended to avoid Who fandom, or Avatar fandom, why I often keep wary distance from anime fandoms.

My OTPs aren't canon, generally (at least not in my fic fandoms, my active "Type B" fandoms - and I tend to avoid main fandom for my Type As, because I'd just as soon not get drawn into shipping wars.) But I don't need my OTPs to be canon to be satisfied, don't need my interpretation of the characters validated above all other interpretations. As long as they're never actually denied, I'm good. The more open-ended canon is, the more freedom there is for all fans, all different shippers, to peacefully co-exist, and I like it that way.

If I sound like I'm saying I'd rather not have canon ships in my ficcing fandoms - yeah, I am. Bring on the subtext and the UST, and leave the consummations to the fanfic. Maybe it's unrealistic and maybe it's boring, but I don't care. It's more peaceful that way XP

Comments

[lim.livejournal.com]

I debated on whether to even write this. :/ First: I'm sorry fandom is sucking for you right now. Sincerely.

I do feel for you guys, but I really think that it's not fandom that has changed, it's you guys. You've passed from a majority to a minority wotsit...interpretive community, is all that's happened. Schism is painful, but this stuff you're talking about...it's not new. (Ask a Ronon fan: MY FUCKING FANDOM GIVES ME FUCKING FITS, part 34,849 (http://hth-the-first.livejournal.com/46403.html?format=light), 2007).

You just...do have to more actively look after your squee when you're not in the mainstream. I've been in the mainstream in SGA, and it has rocked, but I've also been in the two-shippers-and-a-cat place in other fandoms. I think most multifans have at one time or another. I know it sucks that everyone just tells you to be the change you want to see (http://www.trickster.org/symposium/symp187.htm), but it's really the only approach that works, and that's why folk keep harping on it.

I also suggest a killfile: http://userscripts.org/scripts/search?q=killfile+lj . It helps me. I hope this comment isn't too obnoxious! <3<3

[sholio]

I do get where you're coming from here, but yes, I have had the experience of fanning on minor/unappreciated/unliked characters in other fandoms. As noted in a number of other comments, it's the transition, mostly, that's causing problems for me and a lot of other people, from being able to chat freely with the majority of our f'list, to suddenly finding both the f'list and our own journals full of (metaphorical) minefields. And I gather from this discussion that both sides are having the same problem and both sides are being kind of snowflakish about it, because we've never had a schism like this in this part of the fandom, and suddenly we're finding that we can't discuss the show anymore with people we consider friends. You don't killfile friends, you just find new things to talk about (if you value the friendship), but when most of what you talk about is the show, it makes conversation difficult, painful and confusing, and results in lots of angsty discussions like this one.