@tinkdw mentioned you in a post

@rosemoonweaver interesting addition! Yeah I wasn’t going into the details specifically of good or bad ships tho I accept it comes across as such more specifically trends of shippers which In my experience def has fallen into this division as I stated. Agreed with all your points about why people ship things, as I said, each to their own! However I heavily HEAVILY refute the concept that disliking yet more power imbalance / dark “saviour” rhetoric in Twilight/50 shades is misogynist.

If that’s your experience, that’s fine, however I felt it was important to point out the multitude of reasons people ship what they do.

I will say, however, that a good way of really finding out what draws people to things is to ask them and not just use your own observations. You may not have gone into detail about “good” ships vs “bad” ships, you implied there were “good” ships and “bad” ships. I take issue with this, but I’ve said my piece on it already.

I never said disliking power imbalances or “dark saviors” and the themes in Twilight/50 Shades was misogynistic. What I said was:

Lastly, I’m gonna go to bat for Twilight here a bit. Can we please stop slamming 50 Shades and Twilight as if they’re the worst thing a teenage girl or young woman can read or enjoy? Please? Look, the trope of shitty dudes being changed by the women they love isn’t new. It’s old as hell and most often comes up in literature written by women, for women. […]

I know I’m on a tangent now, but I really need to say that I dislike the undercurrent of misogyny that sits inside the bashing of things like Twilight. Sure, it’s mass media and we ought to be critical of it, but that doesn’t mean it should get blamed for all ills and for “sending a bad message”.

My issue with the way we talk about things like Twilight and 50 Shades implies a certain lack of critical thinking on the part of young women. I never said you were being a misogynist, nor did I say disliking those things was misogynistic, but I can’t help but notice that whenever we talk about these kinds of fiction (”we” as in all people who talk about these things) we put an extra pressure on these kinds of fiction.

The history of literature written by women, for women is full of darker elements. Power imbalances and dark dangerous men, wide-eyed optimistic women, and scandalous affairs are all staples of romance, dating back to capital-R Romantic literature. You don’t have to like that. No one has to like that, but it exists. The misogynistic undercurrent comes in when we use Twilight (and 50 Shades) as the height of “crap I don’t want young women to read”. And of course I have to ask why? Why shouldn’t teen girls read it? It’s not well written, sure, but that’s not the reason most folks give. The reason most folks give is that it’s bad for them somehow, that reading Twilight is somehow damaging. Again, why? Because teen girls are impressionable and will think this is the kind of relationship they should be striving for? Can’t they understand the difference between a romantic fantasy that means nothing, one where they can live vicariously through a fictional character and date the bad body without actually ever being in any danger of anything more than a paper cut?

My problem, as I stated before is that the undercurrent of the argument assumes teen girls will want to emulate the relationships they read about. The undercurrent of arguments that some fiction is somehow bad for women is that women need to be protected from the things they write for themselves as fantasy. It assumes a lack of critical thinking skills that isn’t present when we talk about why teenage boys shouldn’t read about trouble boys who get into fights and get themselves hurt. We don’t really have those kinds of conversations about literature aimed at young men. We don’t talk about how war novels or spy novels or the like are bad for boys. And frankly, if we started I’d be very skeptical of those conversations. I’m always hesitant to lay the societal ills at the feet of art, no matter how well done that art is.

My problem wasn’t liking or disliking themes or tropes in fiction, my problem is the underlying idea that these themes or tropes are harmful specifically to the people who love them the most because they will love those things and that is somehow a bad thing.

Have you noticed a trend or a pattern like certain ships or ship dynamics attracting certain kinds of people? Im not trying to start wank. Im curious bc ALL my rl friends ship my notps like Bill & Sookie over Eric & Sookie. Bangel over Spuffy. Bibro over destiel. And since I have emotional/mental problems, i worry its me bc Im drawn to or I romanticize dysfunctional unhealthy relationships. (Btw my fave Spuffy argument is how Angelus and Spike viewed their souls. A curse vs atonement)

tinkdw:

Hi 🙂

Firstly I want to say please don’t worry about things you like! If you like it you like it, unless it’s causing you or someone else harm it’s all good 🙂

Yes I have noticed a link, I’ve been discussing it recently actually with friends, how there seems to (generally not always but generally) be a Bangel/Sookie x Bill/Wincest divide v Spuffy/Sookie x Eric/Destiel in shippers.

It comes down to why you like things I guess and it does totally make sense to like either an obvious

1.Bangel/Sookie x Bill/Wincest: “first love” or just… first on screen, kind of thing that is quite soulmate-y and including a power imbalance, a kind of “save me prince charming” thing, dark and exciting to watch, the word I hate passionate where what it really means is emotionally abusive and even quite depreciative, with an element of one (usually the woman) being young, naive and wide eyed (the kind of thing that often is pushed on teenage stories because “teenage girls love this” well yeah cos it’s all we got when I was a teen and urgh no more thank you! I’m looking at you Twilight/50 shades! I don’t want this for my teenage girl if I have one!).

versus

2. Spuffy/Sookie x Eric/Destiel: something that is much more long term in coming, takes shape over time, is deep in the narrative, ends up being really quite healthy in terms of real life comparisons with a more equal power balance, making the “male figure” far more soft and giving the “female figure” more power in a het relationship and in a same sex still with a similar meeting in the middle concept, giving them more agency in the relationship (especially the woman when it’s het as usually she’s younger and in awe of the first boyfriend but older and more world wise by the time it comes to the second), giving her far more choice in the matter, totally not soulmate-y at all but about them growing up.

This is just a random person opinion, based on what I’ve seen. Though I have spoken to people where we discussed the way Buffy/Angel as shows finished around the time SPN started and how the exact same online dialogue and terms – eg “delusional”, “unhealthy”, “pandering” “the show is going to shit” – started coming about in SPN fandom and clearly were the same people who were just as vile about SPN as they were Buffy/Angel so I do think there is a clear link as well as the one I had already noted psychologically:

https://tinkdw.tumblr.com/post/171169423912/rahirah-tesla1321-tinkdw-i-wonder-if-the

Ooookay there’s a lot to unpack here. @tinkdw if you’d like to have a conversation about this in a more private way, I’m all for it. Please don’t think that I’m attacking you, because I’m not. I just have a lot of issues with this line of thought because I think there’s a lot more going on here than just “power imbalance” vs “power balance”. I think that’s quite reductive and since I’ve been involved with fandom the concept of shipping, why people ship what they do, and how they ship things has fascinated me. I’ve been drawn to understand it and the shippers who enjoy it. So, please allow me to discuss what I’ve found through talking to folks and reading their works and headcanons.

First of all, yes, different people are drawn to different dynamics and relationships. What “does it” in terms of satisfying drama is different for everyone. Some folks love soft and fluffy pairings with minimum angst, other people love love/hate, slap-slap-kiss relationships. There’s also an element of relatability to characters that plays in to why people ship what they do. If someone is more interested in one or two characters they’re more likely to ship them together, especially if the dynamic is one that interests them.

Every ship that has ever existed has some kind of core “essence” if you will. It’s a theme that runs through nearly every AU and canon fic that these characters appear in and often is the very thing that draws people in. For something like destiel it seems like “meeting in the middle” and “star-crossed lovers” fit pretty well. (I mean, look at how many human/creature aus there are. Hell, the ship itself is human/immortal creature.) That’s fun for some folks. Wincest is more “ride-or-die, ‘til the end of the line” “Us against the world” “I don’t want to live without you” and that just does “it” for some folks. The social taboo might also play into shipping, either as a “sure whatever I don’t care” factor or a “this is wrong and I like that” factor. I could get into the psychology of taboos but I’m not really wanting to right now. All I will say is that this taboo isn’t limited to one ship, nor is it limited to fandom. Some people enjoy the fantasy of it, and that doesn’t mean they’re out there wanting to sleep with their own family anymore than liking professor/student fic makes you want to have sex with your professors or students. It’s fantasy.

Second, there is no one reason people ship things. For some folks, they go off what they believe is or will be canon. Others like to play around with dynamics. Still others use fictional relationships as coping methods for real life trauma. I’ve met plenty of folks who are survivors of all manner of awful things who ship wincest. I haven’t met anyone yet who wants wincest to be A Thing on the show. A large number of people just ship things. They don’t really have a rhyme or reason as to why, they just do. Something has drawn them in and they want to play around with the characters. It’s not like most people sit around asking themselves “Why do I ship this? What does it say about me? What draws me to this?” …. I mean, I do but I’m a huge analytical nerd.

No, I’d say that there’s just some kind of “spark” in a ship for some folks. Sure, you can find patterns in the things people like to ship (I love angsty ships. Gimme battle couples, star-crossed lovers, and big, epic love stories any day.) but it doesn’t necessarily reflect what they actually want IRL. To address the anon, liking certain ships doesn’t mean you’re going to want to or try to emulate them, even with mental illness. It’s not a reflection on the kind of person you are anymore than liking gore-fest horror movies is. There’s nothing wrong with having a preference and there’s nothing wrong with liking unhealthy relationships in fiction.

Lastly, I’m gonna go to bat for Twilight here a bit. Can we please stop slamming 50 Shades and Twilight as if they’re the worst thing a teenage girl or young woman can read or enjoy? Please? Look, the trope of shitty dudes being changed by the women they love isn’t new. It’s old as hell and most often comes up in literature written by women, for women. It’s a power fantasy, the same as something like killing the dragon and getting the girl is a male power fantasy. Is it realistic or desirable in real life? Hell, no, but being the Chosen One and toppling an authoritarian regime single-handed isn’t really either, if we’re being realistic. The thread of thinking that really bothers me here is the idea that it’s bad for teenage girls, frankly, because they’re too dumb to realize that it’s fiction and shouldn’t be something they want in real life. That really bothers me. Teenage girls aren’t stupid. They might very well feel that things in Twilight are romantic, especially when they’re written to be romantic by the author, but I have more faith in teenagers to understand the difference between fiction and reality. This idea that women (especially young women) are too fragile or weak-minded to process fiction is old and it’s dumb.

I know I’m on a tangent now, but I really need to say that I dislike the undercurrent of misogyny that sits inside the bashing of things like Twilight. Sure, it’s mass media and we ought to be critical of it, but that doesn’t mean it should get blamed for all ills and for “sending a bad message”. Look, I was a teenager when it came out. I hate it on principle. I thought I was so much smarter than my peers b/c I didn’t like it. I “wasn’t like other girls” b/c I didn’t like the trashy teen romance. Yet I was the one who wound up in an abusive relationship because of my own lack of self-worth and some shitty dude who took advantage of that. Fiction didn’t do that, some asshole did. And no, I’m not saying we can’t be critical of things. We should. But being critical doesn’t mean “this is just trash and it’s and it’s bad for you”. Being critical involves looking at the media and discussing the issues as well as the value it may hold. Critical thinking doesn’t go out the window when we read fiction, but it also doesn’t mean that we can’t seriously enjoy things that aren’t great in the “morals and values” department. If we really worry about teenage girls and how they value themselves in and outside of relationships, I say we focus more on educating them about good, healthy relationships and encouraging them to built self-esteem. We can change our media, too, but Twilight and 50 Shades weren’t the start or the end of these kinds of stories. They’re always going to exist because people enjoy them, and shame does no one any good.

Wrapping it all back up for my final point: people are drawn to different things for different reasons. We can analyze why a story that involves all-encompassing, fated-to-be story might draw folks in but that doesn’t make it better than a story about two people who come together despite that. Shipping is about love and sexuality and compassion and companionship. There are thousands of stories to tell there and none of them are really “better” or “worse” they’re just different. They speak to people for different reasons. It’s never really so black and white. It’s personal preference. What appeals to one person is a NOTP for someone else. There’s themes in ships and fiction that people enjoy, but I think the best way to figure out what it is that draws certain people do those things is to talk to them.

Some fans are just wankers (meaning they’re assholes) and all they do is wank. Hence the term for fandom bullshit. They get off on being miserable assholes, just like your Aunt Janice who can’t go five minutes without complaining about something.

It doesn’t matter what they ship, there are a cluster in every single ship to ever exist. They’re the bad apples that try to spoil the bunch for everyone else. Sure, there are different flavors of wanker-ness but it’s all the same brand; sometimes it’s wrapped in “activism” or “protection” or “purity” and sometimes it doesn’t bother to masquerade as anything and just let’s it’s “your ship/fave/opinion sucks and mine is better” colors show.

The important thing to remember is that groupthink doesn’t exist and these clusters are just a bunch of butthurt individuals. Each person is their own person, even when they’re clustered together.

And maybe what we really need, is to see people as individuals again and listen to individuals. Sure, some of them are going to just be wankers, but most, I believe, are just normal people with hobbies, and you have more in common with them than you might realize on first glance.

razztazticffn:

scottstilesliam:

I think as a culture we have all forgotten that fandom is supposed to be fun.

It’s not that serious.

It was never supposed to be that serious.

Especially since most of the drama and hurt revolves around shipping.

All of the ships are fictional. Being canon doesn’t actually negate the fact that the ship isn’t real.

No ship, or any aspect of a fictional universe, is important enough to treat another real life human being badly.

It’s not that serious.

“No ship, or any aspect of a fictional universe, is important enough to treat another real life human being badly.”