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.