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There is nothing wrong with shipping Joker and Harley

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WTF is a ship?

I had the same thought.

giphy.gif
 
I'll admit it's been something like five years since I read DC, but the last thing I remember was Harley breaking up with Joker and going straight, setting up a women's shelter.

Is that not the case anymore?
 
It's kinda strange seeing how heroic she's portrayed considering she still murders innocent children in her current run that's barely two years old.

Jesus fuck

These comics is part of the reason why the continuation of batman's rule is so incredibly silly. And how DC can't help itself but go to absurd extremes of shock, even though it barely holds up for the character

My personal favourite will remain TAS Harley (as much as TAS anything related to batman, really...). It was very on the nose but at least kid me empathized with her and made me understand her character more
 
I mean, it's much better than the people who shipped Kilgrave and Jessica Jones

YO HOLD UP, WHAT THE FUCK

it's funny because Jessica Jones is essentially the heroic, well-intentioned version of Harley that should be getting the kind of fanbase and attention that Harley gets, but she's not edgy enough for the teenage communist blue hairs that drive this kind of discourse.

Maybe Jessica Jones would be more popular with that crowd if she murdered some guys for hitting on her? Worth a shot.
 
Jesus fuck

These comics is part of the reason why the continuation of batman's rule is so incredibly silly. And how DC can't help itself but go to absurd extremes of shock, even though it barely holds up for the character

My personal favourite will remain TAS Harley (as much as TAS anything related to batman, really...). It was very on the nose but at least kid me empathized with her and made me understand her character more

I mean, TAS Harley still helped Joker
kidnap a 14-year old child and brutally torture him for three weeks straight.
 
Eh, when writers aren't fucking up the characters three ways to Sunday, Joker and Harley together can br entertaining.

I mean, it's much better than the people who shipped Kilgrave and Jessica Jones

I should be surprised, but I unfortunately expected this. Nothing says romance like a deranged rapist and his victim.
 
I just hope this audience made up narrative about who she is doesnt translate into Suicide Squad

I really dont want her to be portrayed as "woo yeah strong chick dont need no man!" but I fear she might

that's just not who she is. Im all for strong female characters in film but she's 100% nothing without the joker and her entire character trait is that all she wants is his love and approval and nothing more than that

literally all she does is for the approval of a man. she's literally the opposite of what internet people now apparently think she is

shit's hilarious and scary at the same time
You have missed the last few years
Shes been separated from the joker for a hot minute
 
WTF is a ship?

It's when people forget fictional characters are fictional and start to treat them as real.

A good reason to "ship" characters: it makes a good story

A bad reason to "ship" characters: Their personalities match so well that they'll be happy together!
 
Harley was created solely to be the female Joker. People complaining about their relationship most likely also complain about sexism in a lot of things.


There are still people that don't know what shipping is? On a niche forum?

Not everyone is a young millenial who spends all their time on social media.
 
I mean, TAS Harley still helped Joker
kidnap a 14-year old child and brutally torture him for three weeks straight.

Ah yes...I remember that

I see what you mean. My point wasn't really that I like/want a ineffective/harmless Harley. To me, she's a villain OR an antihero at best but she's mostly joker's associate and everything she does revolves around him. Her
torturing Tim Drake
at least makes more sense as it's directly aimed against Batman, and well it's mostly Joker's plan. In the same series she's shown to have empathy or affection for people not directly related to the batman/joker feud too.

Not to say the TAS was without faults or that this portrayal couldn't be improved, but I prefer Harley as she was portrayed there rather than a straight up monstrous mass murderer. As I understand tho, most people ignore that story from New52 anyway
 
It's fine to change some things, but you can't remove the entire core to her character and expect her to still work. Harley being over the Joker is like writing Batman as "over" crime fighting. It's change, but it isn't change that keeps the character in a recognizable state.
They did

And shes one of the most popular characters at dc right now

So its fine and your reverence doesnt matter

The nature of comic books


Harley is no more of a role model than Deadpool or Tank Girl.

Why can't people stan She Hulk or Storm or Power Girl or someone who's not a murderous sub?
Her character design is and is always on point.
 
There's this weird culture I've seen around shippers where if you see someone ship something you don't get behind then you try to come up with some way that relationship would be abusive in order to attempt to I guess stop them? It's honestly kind of gross.

A nice spin on it is when people try to accuse people of being homophobic if they ship a character with a character of the opposite sex when they themselves ship them with a character of the same sex.

Shipping is a bizarre, bizarre culture. Sometimes you get some funny fan art out of it though.

This is true. People stoop so low sometimes.
 
isn't the point of their relationship it's an unhealthy one?

That's just a guess from a few things I remember from the cartoons etc
 
There's this weird culture I've seen around shippers where if you see someone ship something you don't get behind then you try to come up with some way that relationship would be abusive in order to attempt to I guess stop them? It's honestly kind of gross.

A nice spin on it is when people try to accuse people of being homophobic if they ship a character with a character of the opposite sex when they themselves ship them with a character of the same sex.

Shipping is a bizarre, bizarre culture. Sometimes you get some funny fan art out of it though.
Yeah, it seems like it can get really nasty if people don't approve of what someone else ships. But I also think that's somehow bound to happen whenever people get passionate about something, no matter what topic.
 
They did

And shes one of the most popular characters at dc right now

So its fine and your reverence doesnt matter

The nature of comic books



Her character design is and is always on point.

This is correct.

Harley is basically a "badass" antihero who plays by her own rules and does whatever she wants. DC has been doing their damnest to turn into her into a feminist icon after they realized how bankable Harley is.
 
Not everyone is a young millenial who spends all their time on social media.

The term goes back to X-Files fandom online in the early '90s. It's not an obscure term, as online lingo goes.

I can understand why some people on Neogaf haven't heard of the term because game discussion revolves around game mechanics and industry news rather than game stories and characters, but this isn't a new term just because you haven't heard it. Hang around any fandom specific places, it is bound to come up.
 
I can understand why some people on Neogaf haven't heard of the term because game discussion revolves around game mechanics and industry news rather than game stories and characters, but this isn't a new term just because you haven't heard it. Hang around any fandom specific places, it is bound to come up.

I've read and seen a whole lot of fiction couples idolized/imagined by fans over the years and I honestly didn't know the terms shipping or shippers until this thread. I'm happy I can now categorize guys like NaruHina1990, oOsheptalimancerOo and Vegeta_X_Goku under one clear denomination.
 
It's kinda strange seeing how heroic she's portrayed considering she still murders innocent children in her current run that's barely two years old.





Didn't that change recently? I remember seeing a few covers where she's drawn like any other sexy female character.

Honestly she's always been sexy, maybe not in the standard comic bombshell look (she has short hair, weird eyes) but she's never been portrayed as having a non-athletic body type until the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl comic. It's a lot less egregious than Harley though, they didn't really change anything about her character or personality outside of just dialing everything up a bit.
 
WTF is a ship?
tumblr_inline_nsvt97uJFG1s3ztk8_500.gif

You take two people and put them on a boat, that's what kids these days calls "shipping".

It's kinda strange seeing how heroic she's portrayed considering she still murders innocent children in her current run that's barely two years old.

Didn't that change recently? I remember seeing a few covers where she's drawn like any other sexy female character.

Would have loved the see the Youtube video of someone opening up that console in one of those hardware shows.
"So here we see a packet of explosive C4, not really sure why they needed to implement C4 into the console but I guess it does add some extra weight to the device so it gets a bit more heft in your hand. C4 being a plastic explosive makes it moldable and easy to fit inside the casing. Right, so just gonna pull out the wires and we can look what's beneath it."
 
Honestly she's always been sexy, maybe not in the standard comic bombshell look (she has short hair, weird eyes) but she's never been portrayed as having a non-athletic body type until the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl comic. It's a lot less egregious than Harley though, they didn't really change anything about her character or personality outside of just dialing everything up a bit.
I'd say it's mostly because of the artist in Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. Squirrel Girl looks like a normal superhero in New Avengers (freaky teeth aside)
 
They did

And shes one of the most popular characters at dc right now

So its fine and your reverence doesnt matter

The nature of comic books

This is correct.

Harley is basically a "badass" antihero who plays by her own rules and does whatever she wants. DC has been doing their damnest to turn into her into a feminist icon after they realized how bankable Harley is.

Never implied my personal views dug into DC's bottom line. I mean, I know why it sells. DC has tried very hard to forge Harley into some kind of pseudo-feminist figure and it worked, but that doesn't mean it isn't gross that they did that.
 
How is it shipping when Harley's entire premise is that she's the Joker's woman?

Yeah I don't think it counts as shipping if the relationship is actually part of canon.

I'm convinced shipping is literally ancient and is the reason why there are so many conflicting myths about certain gods being married to certain other ones, and all of the extramarital shenanigans going on, especially in Greco-Roman mythology.

thisisdamngood.gif
 
How is Harley and Joker ok? Isnt there one comic were she talks about having a kid but she had give it away because she knew if Joker found out he would kill it.
 
Also Unbeatable is the latest version of SG and AFAIK, there hasn't been any real "comic book sexy" Squirrel Girl.

I think it was in an ensemble book. Though usually those change character design regardless.

I mean, TAS Harley still helped Joker
kidnap a 14-year old child and brutally torture him for three weeks straight.

Yeah but that was her following Joker's plan, not hatching it on her own.
 
I think a lot of the people who "ship" harley and joker and really just "shipping" their headcanon version of those characters.
 
Never implied my personal views dug into DC's bottom line. I mean, I know why it sells. DC has tried very hard to forge Harley into some kind of pseudo-feminist figure and it worked, but that doesn't mean it isn't gross that they did that.

I wouldn't call it gross. I would call

well this


" hey girls , like not women,girls like this character and this design, maybe we...shouldn't have her being smacked around all the time. And give her agency and... actually make her a character. She doesn't have to be a good guy, but getting out and past an abusive relationship seems better than the status quo. Maybe we should use this opportunity to present i dunno... female characters better in general"

Harley ain't perfect, The batman arkham games had her in the same position and joker had to die, for that to end. But i can understand seeing a need for change
 
I wouldn't call it gross. I would call

well this


" hey girls , like not women,girls like this character and this design, maybe we...shouldn't have her being smacked around all the time. And give her agency and... actually make her a character. She doesn't have to be a good guy, but getting out and past an abusive relationship seems better than the status quo. Maybe we should use this opportunity to present i dunno... female characters better in general"

Harley ain't perfect, The batman arkham games had her in the same position and joker had to die, for that to end. But i can understand seeing a need for change

... but she was those things with the Joker. In fact, she was a more defined and grounded character with him. Now, she's basically "wacky anti-hero girl". We don't really know what drives her anymore, she's just kind of random, and no one does anything about the crimes she commits because she has her own comic and she can't be in Arkham anymore.

And the Arkham game version of Harley was good. She's different from the comic version even after the Joker died because she's driven by a tangible thing. She wants revenge, she's driven by rage and desperation in that world, and that's great. That's something. In the comics she's basically empty.

I also don't like your implication that female characters trapped in an abusive relationship are somehow "lesser". The argument here is that every one needs to be a "strong female character" for them to be a "good" character, and I think that's a fallacy. Harley Quinn is a tragedy, she was conceived as one and works best as one. Even though it would be more healthy for her if she broke off from the Joker entirely, it doesn't make for interesting story telling. 99% of her and Joker's screentime is spent scheming and screwing Batman over, which is a hell of a lot more fun than what she does now.

I know you disagree with this and enjoy current Harley, but that's not where I'm at. All I'll say is that she hasn't had a single memorable story in 20 years, but if you ask someone who's seen Mad Love or Harlequinade about them, they'd remember them fondly.
 
Ship is short for relationship. If you want to see a fictional couple stay together or get together, you shipping (rooting) for that relationship.

I too managed to go over 20 years on the internet before I came across the term here a couple years back.
Thanks. I truly never heard of it until yesterday.

The origins of the term explains a big part of why I personally probably never heard of it. I do not care about fictional couples whatsoever. Cool if other people do, that is not my point by saying I do not care. What I am saying is not all people are into the same things.

The term goes back to X-Files fandom online in the early '90s. It's not an obscure term, as online lingo goes.
Perhaps I am misinterpreting your tone here, but it comes off to me like you state that as a matter of fact. That everyone should know the history of X Files fandom online. I can sincerely say I was never part of that scene at any point in time, and I have been online since online was a thing. Again to reiterate, cool if you were into it yourself, to each their own, but it was just not something I paid any attention to or even really knew about. I mean sitting back and thinking about it, sure, it absolutely makes sense to me there was X-Files fandom online, it was a damn good show. I just never partook in any of it and/or paid attention to it myself.

So I would say obscureness is all relative.

f this term does in fact have origins in both of these things mentioned above, it is pretty unrealistic of people to expect that everyone who is online should someone know this term, even if the term itself has grown from where it originated.

Online is not the same place for everyone. It is very much like life, it is what you make it. What one person does online is vastly different to what another person does online. I would think this goes without saying. Sure, there are some universal things most everyone knows, but I would say generally speaking they are pretty limited actually.
 
I can understand why some people on Neogaf haven't heard of the term because game discussion revolves around game mechanics and industry news rather than game stories and characters, but this isn't a new term just because you haven't heard it. Hang around any fandom specific places, it is bound to come up.

This is besides the point. As indicated by this thread, the term "shipping" is new to many people.


Never implied my personal views dug into DC's bottom line. I mean, I know why it sells. DC has tried very hard to forge Harley into some kind of pseudo-feminist figure and it worked, but that doesn't mean it isn't gross that they did that.

Well, I agree with you. I was just stating the current canon for Harley in comics. DC wants her to be this feminist icon for a new era. The kind of badass antihero who does whatever she wants, says whatever she wants, doesn't care what people think, and totally gets away with it. People on social media are going to go apeshit over Harley in SS next month.

I don't consider it "gross" though. Just predictable
 
I'm not sure that Harley and Joker are "in a relationship" or ever really have been.

Joker doesn't give a fuck about her but will use her.

It's an abusive relationship and was designed from it's outset to be an allegory for abused women. In the comics, her character wants nothing to do with Joker any longer, and I think that's for the best.

That said, DC went and sexed her right the fuck up, so this is really on them, not shitty fanfic writers
 
Well, I agree with you. I was just stating the current canon for Harley in comics. DC wants her to be this feminist icon for a new era. The kind of badass antihero who does whatever she wants, says whatever she wants, doesn't care what people think, and totally gets away with it. People on social media are going to go apeshit over Harley in SS next month.

I don't consider it "gross" though. Just predictable

Shouldn't have quoted you lol, I was mostly responding to the first guy. I have a bad habit of responding to entire comment chains when I really shouldn't.
 
I've read and seen a whole lot of fiction couples idolized/imagined by fans over the years and I honestly didn't know the terms shipping or shippers until this thread. I'm happy I can now categorize guys like NaruHina1990, oOsheptalimancerOo and Vegeta_X_Goku under one clear denomination.

That is honestly surprising. There hasn't been a fandom that I've been part of where that term wasn't used. It was all over livejournal, dreamwidth, and several fanfiction sites.

This is besides the point. As indicated by this thread, the term "shipping" is new to many people.

I didn't deny that. In fact, I agreed that it was possible for someone to not come across the term. I was disagreeing with shipping being some new thing that millennials created.
 
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