yeah, there’s a very big difference between liking an m/m ship because you think they make a good couple and liking it because you just want two boys to kiss
For God’s sake…
There are times on here where I wonder if I just, you know, hallucinated the last twenty years of fandom, because you get posts with people talking about things that were and are immensely familiar to me in a way that makes it clear they have absolutely no idea what they’re going on about and are (as is the case with the asker) just peddling purity wank that Tumblr’s elevated to the level of Serious Discourse.
CRACKSHIPPING. It was a common thing in fandom. Still is, in the corners I frequent. It involved taking two characters who had never met in their canons or who came from different canons altogether and putting them together, for various reasons.
- ‘I wonder how these two would bounce off each other if they even ran into one another’ was one of the reasons and it was valid
- ‘I got dared to find some halfway plausible method of getting these two highly unlikely people together’ was also a reason, also valid
- ‘I was in the mood to write the crackiest, most nonsensical, most out-there ship in history and I did it or I dared someone else to do it instead’, also a reason, also valid (I’m responsible for daring one of the best fic writers in one of my fandoms to writ a fic that was basically main character x his towel that somehow achieved sentience through hand-wavy bullshit, around a decade ago!)
- ‘The thought of these two together / seeing them written together gives me pleasure, whether that pleasure be aesthetic, emotional or erotic in nature’ was also a reason, also valid.
The fact that it’s gotten to the point where the last part gets consistently demonized on here is, honestly, unbelievable to me and a testimony to how anti nonsense and purity wank (often they’re the same thing) have spread. It’s almost surreal to see people constantly having to twist themselves into knots and lie through their teeth about ‘character dynamics’, instead of just being able to admit ‘erotic fiction of character X and character Y is how I prefer to get off’, for example.without fear that they’ll get attacked or smeared.
It’s something I’ve talked about before, this dangerous, fundamentalist train of thought on here that’s perilously close to shit like ‘if your gender and your sexual orientation doesn’t EXACTLY MATCH that of these characters, then you getting a sexual thrill out of their interactions is a Bad Thing’. It feels, in many ways, as if people got an extremely shallow understanding of the opposition toward lesbian porn aimed at straight men and interpreted it as being justified by ‘straight men mustn’t ever be aroused by same-sex content with women’ when the actual goddamn issue is that the porn in question dehumanizes and decontextualizes the acts and the performers. The people involved are no longer people – they’re empty receptacles for the viewer’s desire, with nary a hint of personality or inner lives of their own or being oriented toward their own pleasure, their own enjoyment. Between that and, for example, fanart or fanfic of two men tenderly looking into each other’s eyes, whispering their feelings for each other or standing locked in a moment of intimate passion, no attention given to the viewer, is a giant difference and the fact that people still try and draw equivalence should be a sign of blatant disingenuousness.
^Amen to all of the above but to add a minor thing. Spideypool? Two characters who inhabit the same universe, the same franchise with so much chemistry to the point that Marvel gave them an entire series of annuals dedicated to their relationship?????? That’s somehow reaching??? WHAT???
I knew they were coming for Spideypool. I fucking knew it.
Yeah, that jumped out to me after I read the post. It’s just… how have people not heard of crackshipping? Also, how is it not understood that chemistry between characters is all up in the hands of the writer, not dependent on the characters being or not being from the same canon? A mediocre writer can take a canon couple with the most stunning chemistry in the world and write them so poorly, in such an insipid way, that nothing of that chemistry would ever be left. In the same way, a very skilled writer can take a ‘LOL I just wanted to smash these two characters from unrelated canons together and see sparks fly’ scenario and work it so well that the chemistry and compatibility between the characters in question just leaps off the page.
They understand it fine. Their actual argument is: fandom has too many women.
I can’t say any of this better than what’s already there. But I just want to add: when the hell did fandom stop being about sharing things that make you happy?
There’s a fanfiction challenge on Live Journal called IntoABar, where every year you can sign up to specifically be assigned a character at random from a fandom of your choice to meet another character (also your choice) from a different fandom entirely. It is the greatest freaking thing ever. (And while sex isn’t at all required, it’s happily accepted.)
Fandom is all about the joy. And if your joy is Jack Frost getting it on with Hiccup? More power to you. Have fun. 😀
The thing I love most about fandom is the endless imagination and creativity of its inhabitants. If that means mashing up characters who are from different source material then bring it the fuck on.
Fandom is where anything is possible. Even crossovers that would never happen in canon because of different corporations holding the copyright.
That’s what makes it fucking awesome: People telling stories for no other reason than they want to tell stories and share them with other people who might enjoy them.
Kids it’s like this: nobody gets to tell you what to ship, what not to ship, or how to do fandom.
They can suggest things, they can advise things (like my personal rule of thumb is tag everything. They can’t say they weren’t warned so if they proceed? their own fault) but they cannot decide for you.
Do what you will, tag all, harm none and if they come for you? Block their asses into oblivion.
There’s nothing wrong with a straight/bi girl shipping an mlm ship, but when it’s a ship like Jack Frost from the guardians x Hiccup from how to train your dragon (who obviously have no chemistry because they’re from two completely different franchises) it gets a little less about “I like these characters’ dynamic” and more “these two hot boys can be hot together for my sexual pleasure”. Same with spideypool or other things like that
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