i also think this new trend of neo-victorian purity culture in fandom that ridicules people for shipping “bad” ships and attacks writers whose fics have “problematic” content is subtly tied to fandom’s new visibility and conditional mainstream acceptance. because of twitter and the increasing celebrity and showrunner interaction with fans, and because representation politics have somehow melded with respectability politics, there’s this push to “cleanse” ourselves of weird, freaky, disturbing, embarrassing content and present ourselves to the world as just “normal” people who love tv shows and books. because if they see we’re normal and cool, they’ll listen to us right? they’ll respect our demands right? they’ll give us our ships right? nope! instead we’re experiencing a massive dearth in fandom creativity because people are only invested in supporting and uplifting canon ships and canon stories, and instead of looking to ourselves for creativity and representation we’re depending on showrunners who’ve never had our best interests at heart. and honestly eff that. i don’t care about being seen as “normal”. i’m a weirdo! i’m a freak! fandom is weird and freaky and i’m okay with that! in fact, there’s power in that. we don’t need some stamp of approval from showrunners and celebrities, and we certainly don’t need to justify why we write or desire certain content in our fics. be weird! be freaky! be embarrassing! own it! it’s the only thing that’s truly ours.
I feel like there was a gradual migration from “don’t show fanart or porn to actors/writers, that’s gauche” to “never produce any fan content which would, if shown to a creator, make them uncomfortable” as fandom became more accessible to creators
It just kills me when writers create franchises where like 95% of the speaking roles are male, then get morally offended that all of the popular ships are gay. It’s like, what did they expect?
I feel this is something that does often get overlooked in slash shipping, especially in articles that try to ‘explain’ the phenomena. No matter the show, movie or book, people are going to ship. When everyone is a dude and the well written relationships are all dudes, of course we’re gonna go for romance among the dudes because we have no other options.
Totally.
A lot of analyses propose that the overwhelming predominance of male/male ships over female/female and female/male ships in fandom reflects an unhealthy fetishisation of male homosexuality and a deep-seated self-hatred on the part of women in fandom. While it’s true that many fandoms certainly have issues gender-wise, that sort of analysis willfully overlooks a rather more obvious culprit.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that we have a hypothetical media franchise with twelve recurring speaking roles, nine of which are male and three of which are female.
(Note that this is actually a bit better than average representaton-wise – female representation in popular media franchises is typicaly well below the 25% contemplated here.)
Assuming that any character can be shipped with any other without regard for age, gender, social position or prior relationship – and for simplicity excluding cloning, time travel and other “selfcest”-enabling scenarios – this yields the following (non-polyamorous) possibilities:
Possible F/F ships: 3 Possible F/M ships: 27 Possible M/M ships: 36
TOTAL POSSIBLE SHIPS: 66
Thus, assuming – again, for the sake of simplicity – that every possible ship is about equally likely to appeal to any given fan, we’d reasonably expect about (36/66) = 55% of all shipping-related media to feature M/M pairings. No particular prejudice in favour of male characters and/or against female characters is necessary for us to get there.
The point is this: before we can conclude that representation in shipping is being skewed by fan prejudice, we have to ask how skewed it would be even in the absence of any particular prejudice on the part of the fans. Or, to put it another way, we have to ask ourselves: are we criticising women in fandom – and let’s be honest here, this type of criticism is almost exclusively directed at women – for creating a representation problem, or are we merely criticising them for failing to correct an existing one?
YES YES YES HOLY SHIT YES FUCKING THANK YOU!
Also food for thought: the obvious correction to a lack of non-male representation in a story is to add more non-males. Female Original Characters are often decried as self-insertion or Mary Sues, particular if romance or sex is a primary focus.
I really appreciate when tumblr commentary is of the quality I might see at an academic conference. No joke.
This doesn’t even account for the disparity in the amount of screen time/dialogue male characters to get in comparison to female characters, and how much time other characters spend talking about male characters even when they aren’t onscreen. This all leads to male characters ending up more fully developed, and more nuanced than female characters. The more an audience feels like they know a character, the more likely an audience is to care about a character. More network television writers are men. Male writers tend to understand men better than women, statistically speaking. Female characters are more likely to be written by men who don’t understand women vary well.
But it’s easier to blame the collateral damage than solve the root problem.
Yay, mathy arguments. 🙂
This is certainly one large factor in the amount of M/M slash out there, and the first reason that occurred to me when I first got into fandom (I don’t think it’s the sole reason, but I think it’s a bigger one than some people in the Why So Much Slash debate give our credit for). And nice point about adding female OCs.
In some of my shipping-related stats, I found that shows with more major female characters lead to more femslash (also more het). (e.g. femslash in female-heavy media; femslash deep dive) I’ve never actually tried to do an analysis to pin down how much of fandom’s M/M preference is explained by the predominance of male characters in the source media, but I’m periodically tempted to try to do so.
All great points. Another thing I notice is that many shows are built around the idea that the team or the partner is the most important thing in the universe. Watch any buddy cop show, and half of the episodes have a character on a date that is inevitably interrupted because The Job comes first… except “The Job” actually means “My Partner”.
When it’s a male-female buddy show, all of the failed relationships are usually, canonically, because the leads belong together. (Look at early Bones: she dates that guy who is his old friend and clearly a stand-in for him. They break up because *coughcoughhandwave*. That stuff happens constantly.) Male-male buddy shows write the central relationship the exact same way except that they expect us to read it as platonic.
Long before it becomes canon, the potential ship of Mulder/Scully or Booth/Bones or whatever lead male/female couple consumes the fandom. It’s not about the genders involved. Rizzoli/Isles was like this too.
If canon tells us that no other relationship has ever measured up to this one, why should we keep them apart? Don’t like slash of your shows, prissy writers? Then stop writing all of your leads locked in epic One True Love romance novel relationships with their same-sex coworkers. Give them warm, funny, interesting love interests, not cardboard cutouts…
And then we will ship an OT3.
I would like to add a probably problematic addendum to this. In that in certain pieces of media that are pretty much all centered around families–where everyone interesting is related to each other in some way–that makes the probability that incest ships will get somewhat popular fairly high. Simply because there aren’t any real OPTIONS for ships that aren’t in some way incestuous or otherwise weird and taboo, like huge age gaps or really noticeably unbalanced power dynamics.
I’m not CONDONING shipping those things. I am simply saying that when you decry the horrific depravity of fandom for daring to ship two people who are related, maybe consider the statistics involved, and consider HOW those ships are commonly shipped over the fact that they are at all. Like if you find that fans are going out of their way to write characters who are siblings as not related to each other in AU for fic or whatever then like?? Yeah. That’s probably a factor.
I’ve been in different fandoms for ten years so far, and in that time, I also happen to have gotten a Sociology degree. And these are the “rules” I’ve picked up on.
1) Shipping will happen. Accept it and plan for it.
2)The most popular ship will be amongst whoever character’s inner life, relationships, and screen time are delved into the most–as long as…
Addendum to 2: they’re marginally attractive. If that important main character happens to be, say, a talking dog, then most of the fandom will resist and ship other things because of the “marginally attractive” rule. Others will come up with elaborate body switch/humanization/whatever plots to handwave it away and imagine the dog looking like their favorite actor. There will be a small group who straight up ships the dog as is anyway, but waaaaaay smaller than if it was a normal attractive male human. But still–you’ve put a talking dog in center stage, so prepare for fanfic to be written about it in some way. It will just be significantly less if it breaks the “marginally attractive” rule.
3)There will always be outliers in fandom. Just because a fanfic exists of Roy Orbison in clingfilm, doesn’t mean much. That just tells us about the proclivities of that particular dude who write it. When we notice overall TRENDS and popular ships of broad swaths of people, then we can start seeing actual patterns. So there WILL be people who break these rules in disturbing ways, but those people are exceptions to the rule that don’t discount the overall trend.
Now, WHAT fandom and people as a whole considers acceptable for the “generally attractive” rule, that’s when we can notice some interesting things. The majority of fandoms where I’ve seen lots and lots and LOTS of ships around what are technically underage teenagers are from media that are a)Films with characters played by much older actors, and b)written narratives where we can imagine the characters as said much older actors. Our idea of what certain ages “look like” is warped pretty heavily from Hollywood casting much older people in the roles. Fanart of teenage characters from written works usually bear this out–they will usually be drawn older than an actual person that age tends to look.
Now, let’s apply this rule to one of the mysteries of Tumblr: The goddamn Onceler. Now WHY of all goddamn things the completely mediocre Lorax movie got so much fanart and fanfiction attention, I don’t know. I’m still picking apart what creates MORE fanfic of one media property over another(its not just popularity–lots of book series can be popular but have bupkis for fic), but I have a feeling, even if I did, the goddamn Lorax would probably still end up as a paradox. But when you look at the characters with ACTUAL SCREEN TIME in the movie, it becomes easy to apply this rule. The only people with significant lines and screen time are characters who are VERY clearly children, a strange little creature voiced by Danny Devito, and the Onceler. The only marginally attractive one is the Onceler, so the only possible option fandom could come up with is to pair him with HIMSELF from the FUTURE.
When you frame it in terms of how fandom makes decisions on who gets shipped, it makes perfect sense. Weird Onceler time shipping was bound to happen just from how the movie is written. If your only alternatives are straight-up pedophilia and imagining this strange orange creature with DeVito voice having sex, then yes, I’d choose shipping the Onceler with a future version of himself too.
Let apply it to another fandom: Supernatural. Now, any fan of that show can tell you that for a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time, everyone but the two main characters–who are brothers–dies around them. ESPECIALLY if you’re presented as a love interest in any way. The two attractive brothers have absolutely no one to depend on but each other, only about once a season visiting a long-time associate holed up in a bunker, who provides pretty much only resources and infodumps(spoiler alert! They also inevitably die, it just takes longer). Think of the rules: the Supernatural writers basically wrote their fandom into either writing incest, or sitting on their hands and shipping nothing at all. I will certainly not deny that incest is a kink some people have, but statistically there are no doubt lots of shippers in Supernatural who never thought of doing such a thing–and for which the kink has no particular thrill–who have nevertheless been roped into doing so just because the need to write SOMETHING to comfort those beleaguered characters.
After Supernatural had an episode or two lampooning fan culture and generally letting the audience know they were aware of their fandom, they finally wised up that they’d put their fans in this weird position and gave the brothers the consistent angel associate, Castiel. But this was seasons and seasons late in the game, so for some, that damage has already been done, so to speak.
You’ve made a show where most of the characters are robots, like Transformers? Well, prepare for written robot sex. You’ve written a show about humanized animals and their adventures? Congratulations, you’ve made furries. You can apply this to basically anything.
I think this also ties in with fandom’s accepted problem with racial minority characters as well. If the show just shoves a character in there for diversity’s sake and the writers seem unwilling/afraid to actually use a character, then the fandom won’t either. The characters fandom will write the most about will statistically be white males, because those are statistically the most common heroes and characters with the most development and screen time. Now, does the usual unconscious bias of fans also hurt matters? Ab-so-fucking-lutely. But fans also aren’t writing in a vacuum. They’re building off the original work, and some of the flaws of the original are going to come through.
While many people think fanfiction is about inserting sex into texts (like Tolkien’s) where it doesn’t belong, Brancher sees it differently: “I was desperate to read about sex that included great friendship; I was repurposing Tolkien’s text in order to do that. It wasn’t that friendship needed to be sexualized, it was that erotica needed to be … friendship-ized.” Many fanfiction writers write about sex in conjunction with beloved texts and characters not because they think those texts are incomplete, but because they’re looking for stories where sex is profound and meaningful. This is part of what makes fan fiction different from pornography: unlike pornography, fanfic features characters we already care deeply about, and who tend to already have long-standing and complex relationships with each other. It’s a genre of sexual subjectification: the very opposite of objectification. It’s benefits with friendship.
I think a big part of why I read way more fanfiction than books is that there’s just a hell of a lot less exposition
the first 10 pages of most books are always “these are the main characters and here’s some background on each of them and this is the setting etc etc” and it’s such a fucking hassle getting to the plot sometimes
fanfic is just like “fuck it you know all of this already let’s go”
That’s a really good point.
this is actually one of the most challenging transitions to make as a fanfic writer going pro author. how to introduce people to characters and settings smoothly.. but more importantly, how to get people INVESTED in your characters, since with fanfic that investment is often something your readers are bringing in with them already
As far as back story, my transitional phase here was AU fanfiction – because you have to set up what’s different and what’s the same in an AU, so when I started writing original fiction, I just kind of… jumped off there.
However, when it comes to getting you invested in the characters…ehn, I’m not sure how good I am at that in the beginning. I just assume you’re going to love them because I love them and away we go.
Every writer on Tumblr: “I would combust out of love if someone ever drew fanart of my fic!!”
Me: “oh man I wanna draw this scene BUT THEY WOULD PROBABLY HATE IT AND HATE ME FOR THE NERVE”
Dear artists.
We, the writers, will accept any of your fan arts.
We don’t care if it looks like shit to you, or you think your art skills are not good enough.
We will love any fan art, because it’s the most beautiful way to say “I love what you write”.
C – A ship you have never liked and probably never will.
Just one? I will leave out those where I simply dislike one character altogether, regardless of pairing (like, say, Kylo Ren, or Palpatine), but here, have a list.
Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy Severus Snape/Harry Potter Duncan MacLeod/Methos (and not just because I don’t like MacLeod) Odo/Kira Julian Bashir/Ezri Dax Aeryn Sun/John Crichton Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler (as a romance, particularly) Erik Lenscherr (Magneto)/Charles Xavier
X – A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.
Huh. I’m not sure there’s a trope I’m going to love in all my fandoms. I like the theme of found family across the board, but that’s not a trope. And I do not have the time to go poking around TVTropes to figure anything out.
(I don’t even do mirror-verse type things across the board, and that’s the trope that I use most broadly.)
Y – What are your secondhand fandoms (i.e., fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)?
Supernatural Dishonored Discworld Game of Thrones Sense8 (I think that’s how it’s spelled?)
And then there’s a whole list of things I’ve blacklisted either because I’m not interested and there’s a lot of it, and/or because it’s bad for my mental health for reasons I’m not getting into.
MEANS: You mean so much to my life. I’ll never leave this fandom.
NOT: A series of insults.
7. Adhkydvkvecibggrxavjnxjxsz
MEANS: A state of wordless excitement.
NOT: An aneurism.
Also, 8. Rude! MEANS: This gave me a lot of feelings I didn’t ask for. NOT: Discourteous or impolite.
And, 9. How Dare You? MEANS: You are amazing, this is amazing! NOT: And express of indignation.
10. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on! MEANS: You made my heart hurt, but it’s a good hurt. I love you! NOT: I hate you and wish harm on you and your animals.
11. Was that necessary?? MEANS: Why did you remind me of that painful bit of characterisation/canon? NOT: You took that too far/That was needlessly painful for the sole purpose of reactions.
hux had like 2 minutes of screen time total which he spent the entirety of being a fucking space nazi and yet somehow he still receives more love and attention from the star wars community than the actual male hero lead. fucking incredible
Canon Hux would find Pepe the Frog memes funny
… this isn’t new. Original Trilogy, Boba Fett, a character I’m reasonably sure has no lines, got a lot more attention than Luke from the fandom…
There is a lot of appeal in fandoms to characters that stand out from the background but DON’T have backstory or concrete personalities. They are a part of the story that they get to paint in however they want.
Boba Fett did have lines, and he was never more popular than Luke. He was disproportionately popular considering his minimal screen time, yes. But it wasn’t like Hux’s popularity.
Boba Fett got popular initially because of the action figure. It was released between ANH and Empire, he had a cool jetpack, and a new Star Wars toy was a big deal at the time ( bigger than now because there was so much less SW merch). The franchise promoted his popularity.
Interesting note (which actually does parallel Hux), Lando, a major character, was also introduced to fans ahead of Empire, but fans responded much more to Boba. That’s usually attributed to the jetpack, but I don’t think anyone can honestly say that Lando being Black had nothing to do with it.
Also it’s worth noting that Boba Fett’s popularity came to a screeching halt when the backstory for him that fans had been begging for revealed that he was not white under the suit.
I would also like to note in this context that the moment it became clear that the Fetts (Boba and Jango, and all the clones) weren’t white (i.e. when Attack of the Clones came out), his popularity nose dived like nobody’s business. I was around at the time and while I hadn’t been that interested in Boba prior to AotC, even I could help but notice the extreme drop in popularity.
So if anything Boba proves the point, rather than disprove it. Fandom hates characters of color with a passion, even when they once passionately loved them.
*sticks out the no fun sign* Alright, I’m ‘bout to burst some of y’all’s bubbles re: shipping and call out some very common, but very entitled and rude, fan behaviour.
This is Michael Chu–lead writer for Overwatch–responding to a Pharah X Mercy fan who was apparently devastated by the implied Genji/Mercy and initial speculation of Pharah’s mystery “date” in the Reflections holiday comic. It’s a kind and tactful response, and a reminder of something most fans know, yet seem to forget: nothing can invalidate your personal explorations as a fan. In the land of what is speculated, assumed, headcanoned, or alternate universe, everything can be “true.” Chu is worth following on Twitter as he often clarifies many speculated lore points, including Tracer’s sexual orientation. It’s awesome that a creator would make himself so available to fans and address specific concerns.
What follows this Twitter exchange, however, is several other fans tagging/@-ing Chu with their own shipping related grievances and whining. Some complained that Pharmercy shippers are being harassed with every Gency affirming piece of content that comes out, and so Blizzard is only providing further fodder for them. A few said they only liked Overwatch for Pharmercy, and they could not enjoy the game if it wasn’t canonly plausible. Or that if Pharmercy isn’t (or is) canon, then WidowTracer needed to be. On and on, several tweets with fans basically talking over his head about how angry, depressed, and hurt they were by Michael Chu/Overwatch’s storytelling. In light of the Mercy/Genji Valentine’s Day lines found on the PTR today, I can’t imagine what his mentions must be like.
I understand why shipping can be significant. Reaffirmation or reflection of one’s own self is often tied to speculated romantic explorations. It can be a response or a solution to the lack of sexual diversity in media. A biracial same sex relationship in Overwatch would be a powerful presence undoubtedly. And criticisms of canon relationships can be valid when they are not developed and presented well. But there is a thick as hell line between approaching Blizzard with sentiments of wanting to see more diversity among characters and exploring outside of the straight romance narrative, and harassing creators and condemning their work because they didn’t affirm your ship. And fans so often cross it.
Creators have no responsibility to make your ships valid, and by demanding that they acquiesce to the desires of the fans, that is invalidating their right as storytellers to develop their vision as they want. No matter how popular a headcanon, desire, or opinion may be among the community, fandom does not have to dictate or drive the decisions and actions of creatives.
Overwatch has been extremely receptive to fans, both in evolution of game play and story, so to say that the community has not been significant to the development of the game would be false. Yet this heavy exchange has a double-edge to it: if fans think that Blizzard will respond to every complaint/want and act on it, then fans will further believe that they have to. And that every time they do something against the will of the fans, it is wrong or an aggressive act against the community. “If Blizzard doesn’t make Pharmercy/Reaper76/MeiZarya/etc. canon, they are homophobic and will never include a canon gay couple.” and so forth. There is no topic in fandom that brings out indignant entitlement and idiocy like shipping. It is what often leads to the most cringe-worthy and fetishistic actions and perceptions of fandom.
And I’m going to be honest: people are really reaching with these “the voice lines prove the ship!” justifications. Many of these lines are not blatantly romantic or sexual, and context and tone can be completely up to interpretation. Every friendly interaction between two characters is not proof for romance. That’s some “that girl smiled at me, she must like me!” kind of reasoning. The only blatantly (IMO) lines that have insinuated any sort of romantic/sexual attraction are lines between Reinhardt and Ana, and now the Valentine’s lines between Genji and Mercy (but even those are subjective.) So using these “voice lines” as gospel justification is pretty biased and inaccurate. Odds are, Blizzard has a pretty good idea of what characters will end up with who/what their sexualities may be, and anything that “implies” otherwise is due to biased perception of the fans.
So, check yourselves, fandom. Creators–even those of popular, million dollar games–deserve to explore their characters as they wish, and though every piece of media put out for public consumption is eligible for criticism, not every fan opinion or desire is valid or needs to be addressed or pandered to. Your shipping is as significant as it is trivial. Enjoy your ships and headcanons no matter what the canon is, but respect (or at least constructively criticize) the decisions of creators.
(Also: shipping as a “war”, us v. them thing is so utterly embarrassing and stupid. Let people ship what they want, and enjoy your own ships without impeding on them. Please stop.)
I’ve been thinking about how to word this, because this is a well-written article that eloquently explains my beef with fandoms, and I don’t want to turn everything on this page about me. But I HATE shipping. I hate that word with a passion, because when I hear the word “ship” I have come to associate it with this ^^^^^ behaviour.
People who have been following my art for years may have noticed I stopped drawing certain characters, or draw them much, much less frequently. While I wish I could say it was mostly for personal reasons, lack of time time, or just changing interests, I would be lying if I pretended the close-minded, entitled responses I got to had nothing to do with it.
Due to the frequency of these remarks I’ve become uncomfortable with receiving comments on my art. Don’t get me wrong, I love receiving comments, but every new alert has come with a sense of anxiety first, and relief and happiness second. I no longer interact with my few fans for the reasons above: as with Blizzard responding to theirs, it seemed like the more I tried to interact with fans, the more they felt entitled to their opinions. It didn’t matter that they were my own characters, that I had created them with plans and intentions going back years, I had to pander to their wants.
Louis needed a boyfriend because they wanted a happy story, otherwise I was “just asking for it” when people started shipping my characters with other people. It was my fault. I was asking for it. I should have expected it. And while unfortunately internet culture has reached the point where shipping is inevitable even despite the artists wishes, if you’re going to be a royal fuckwit about it then I may not feel inclined to draw these characters anymore.
It’s for this same reason I stopped drawing other people’s characters. I know people have been asking about Clopin, or Malfatto, or my old Star Wars shit, but I stopped because I took a step back and asked myself how I would feel if someone took one of my creations and ran wild with it. Fanart is good in the sense that it inspires young artists to create and explore, and hopefully they will eventually use these skills to develop new, interesting characters of their own. But I hate inappropriate fanart, entitlement, and shipping so much I realized the hypocrisy of what I was doing, and stopped almost altogether.
So for those who were asking where certain characters have gone, this may be the explanation you’re looking for. And to those who may have been responsible for those comments, just maybe take a step back and think about what you’re saying next time.
Would you like it if someone did this to you?
This is a really important addition, thank you, and important perspective to remember.
As much as fandom communities or other groups that value the work of creatives, especially fan artists, vehemently protect them against art theft, unfair criticism, etc., they have a tendency to treat professionals–whether actual professionals or just popular artists–with the same lack of respect and entitlement they claim to be against. Fan entitlement also includes the notion that once an artist becomes above the level of amateur, creates primarily for audience consumption (especially if they get paid for it) or get lots of notes/views/comments, they must always satisfy the demands of their audience. Fans have the perception that an artist’s creation is more for them/the audience than for themselves, and thus they are entitled to direct it.
Whether an artist works for Blizzard on big budget games, an independent webcomicker, or an amateur just starting out, their vision as an artist is valid. They are entitled to keep space between their audience and their creation/themselves, and to be respected for the decisions they do or do not make. Money or popularity does not negate this. Every artist deserves respect and complete control over their creations. Fans think that money and popularity are a shield against criticism and hate, like creators can just soothe themselves with the fact they are profiting off of what they love to do, and so they can take the abuse. This is absolute bullshit. Criticism can be hard enough to endure for anyone, yet I cannot imagine how exasperating and disheartening it is to have fans constantly barking and whining at you for not doing what they want. It’s one of the reasons I fear popularity or making anything meant for audience consumption.
There's a Mirror on the Wall 