5th Jan - To ship or not to ship? requested by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
monanotlisa:
The discussion that prompted this question was (IIRC) more in terms of 'when is a ship label a lure and when is a ship label a warning' but touched a little on het and gen (because neither of us naturally incline towards slash) and pairing prefs and why we like what we like.
I don't know that I ever get a choice to ship – I usually just do.
While I have a favourite character (almost always female) I usually have a favourite pairing, too. It's not usually the popular pairing – and if it is, then I don't seem to ship it in a way that most other people like to see it shipped.
My general view on shipping in fandom is much like my view on love in life. It's a part of life – expected, natural, understandable. It's not necessary, and it shouldn't be the whole of life.
Which is probably why I have trouble writing 'romantic' romances. I can write characters getting together – but my aim is always to write the story as though there's a whole lot of other things going on and the characters happen to fall in love along the way. Usually in the midst of a crisis. 'Love in a foxhole' is what I call that trope – although, really, it's not just the foxhole, but the whole chain of encounters that make up the process of falling in love.
I think one of the things I struggle with most, fandom-wise, is the knowledge that I am unlikely to ship the popular pairings. For starters, I prefer the women to the men, and the non-white women to the white women. That, I think, cancels out the automatic first-preference fannishness of about 80% of fandom.
(Note: I'm not talking about the 'oh I like her, too' responses – I'm talking about the hardcore, totally fannish, I-really-love-this-character-and-I-want-to-share-her-with-the-world responses. Lots of people like Teyla Emmagan and Maria Hill. Very few of those people are fannish about these female characters. In much the same manner, very few people are fannish about the pairings I ship.)
After that, I do tend 'normative': heterosexual relationships, with a man who is at least the physical and intellectual equal of the woman. I like partnership relationships - and since my favourite type of female character is the no-nonsense, problem-solving, just-get-it-done type of character, then she usually ends up with someone equally solution-oriented and probably more heroically inclined (she's almost always a pragmatist, while he's usually the romantic, which switches the traditional romance dynamics around quite significantly).
The conversation I remember best betweenmonanotlisa and I about shipping was regarding the use of ship labels.
In Stargate Atlantis fandom, I always found myself a little bit stuck regarding pairings. I write gen and John/Teyla, but the John/Teyla was usually in the background to the gen - the story was about what was happening, not about the relationship. Which presented a problem when labelling the fic, because most of the fandom wouldn't read a story labelled 'John/Teyla'. So I'd lose the genficcers when I labelled John/Teyla, but I'd lose a bunch of the 'hardcore' John/Teyla fans when I didn't mark the pairing!
So, yeah...
There'll be more about my pairing dynamics tomorrow.
monanotlisa:The discussion that prompted this question was (IIRC) more in terms of 'when is a ship label a lure and when is a ship label a warning' but touched a little on het and gen (because neither of us naturally incline towards slash) and pairing prefs and why we like what we like.
I don't know that I ever get a choice to ship – I usually just do.
While I have a favourite character (almost always female) I usually have a favourite pairing, too. It's not usually the popular pairing – and if it is, then I don't seem to ship it in a way that most other people like to see it shipped.
My general view on shipping in fandom is much like my view on love in life. It's a part of life – expected, natural, understandable. It's not necessary, and it shouldn't be the whole of life.
Which is probably why I have trouble writing 'romantic' romances. I can write characters getting together – but my aim is always to write the story as though there's a whole lot of other things going on and the characters happen to fall in love along the way. Usually in the midst of a crisis. 'Love in a foxhole' is what I call that trope – although, really, it's not just the foxhole, but the whole chain of encounters that make up the process of falling in love.
I think one of the things I struggle with most, fandom-wise, is the knowledge that I am unlikely to ship the popular pairings. For starters, I prefer the women to the men, and the non-white women to the white women. That, I think, cancels out the automatic first-preference fannishness of about 80% of fandom.
(Note: I'm not talking about the 'oh I like her, too' responses – I'm talking about the hardcore, totally fannish, I-really-love-this-character-and-I-want-to-share-her-with-the-world responses. Lots of people like Teyla Emmagan and Maria Hill. Very few of those people are fannish about these female characters. In much the same manner, very few people are fannish about the pairings I ship.)
After that, I do tend 'normative': heterosexual relationships, with a man who is at least the physical and intellectual equal of the woman. I like partnership relationships - and since my favourite type of female character is the no-nonsense, problem-solving, just-get-it-done type of character, then she usually ends up with someone equally solution-oriented and probably more heroically inclined (she's almost always a pragmatist, while he's usually the romantic, which switches the traditional romance dynamics around quite significantly).
The conversation I remember best between
monanotlisa and I about shipping was regarding the use of ship labels.In Stargate Atlantis fandom, I always found myself a little bit stuck regarding pairings. I write gen and John/Teyla, but the John/Teyla was usually in the background to the gen - the story was about what was happening, not about the relationship. Which presented a problem when labelling the fic, because most of the fandom wouldn't read a story labelled 'John/Teyla'. So I'd lose the genficcers when I labelled John/Teyla, but I'd lose a bunch of the 'hardcore' John/Teyla fans when I didn't mark the pairing!
So, yeah...
There'll be more about my pairing dynamics tomorrow.