ROUGE_BLOCK
Member
Fans are crazy these days, I don't trust them they have too many stakes!
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Vox: When fandom bemes a crusade, things get ugly
- Thread starter Squire
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Cool
What's AU fic? Alternate Universe I assume... are we talking like, Biopunk Harry Potter or something?
That's the general idea, but 99.9% of all AU fic are high school AUs. Like, taking the characters from say, Supernatural, getting rid of all the monsters and magic and demons and and angels, and dropping them into high school. For some reason, this trope is insanely popular. Like, why do you even watch a show like Supernatural if you want it to be Boy Meets World? I don't get it. I enjoy the show because of the well...supernatural stuff, not in spite of it
WickedLaharl
Member
Shipping is the worst part of any community.
BudokaiMR2
Member
My biggest issue is when certain parts of the fandom will take something like the positive upbeat comradery between between Finn and Poe and act like such a thing could only be possible if they had the hots for each other or whatever. It's not like they were anywhere near something like Top Gun volleyball/locker room scenes of homoerotic tension. They were just a couple of bruhs.
Maybe it was just because I saw so damn much of it when TFA released.
It reminded me of the Japanese fujoshi phenomenon in that it reeked of socially inept people with very little understanding of real life human interactions projecting their own wants and desires onto fictional characters.
Maybe it was just because I saw so damn much of it when TFA released.
It reminded me of the Japanese fujoshi phenomenon in that it reeked of socially inept people with very little understanding of real life human interactions projecting their own wants and desires onto fictional characters.
The Silver
Member
All I know is I thank the lord everyday I managed to completely ignore the Supernatural fandom back during S1-5. Hell I still do ignore them outside of what I hear on GAF.
With Naruto I wasn't so fortunate but the shipping meltdown that happened when the series ended was hilarious, all the crap I was exposed to and finally it all went up in flames.
How did they not mention Arrow, there was a goddamn war between reddit and twitter/tumblr because of Felicity. Even my safe haven GAF was affected, the arrow subreddit got so insane they changed it to a Daredevil subreddit.
With Naruto I wasn't so fortunate but the shipping meltdown that happened when the series ended was hilarious, all the crap I was exposed to and finally it all went up in flames.
How did they not mention Arrow, there was a goddamn war between reddit and twitter/tumblr because of Felicity. Even my safe haven GAF was affected, the arrow subreddit got so insane they changed it to a Daredevil subreddit.
timetokill
Banned
That's the general idea, but 99.9% of all AU fic are high school AUs. Like, taking the characters from say, Supernatural, getting rid of all the monsters and magic and demons and and angels, and dropping them into high school. For some reason, this trope is insanely popular. Like, why do you even watch a show like Supernatural if you want it to be Boy Meets World? I don't get it. I enjoy the show because of the well...supernatural stuff, not in spite of it
Lol, oh, that! Yeah, my ex said high school and coffee shops were like the two biggest themes. Pretty hilarious.
I think coffee shop AUS are the second most popular. My theory is that's what happens when fans of high school AUS get older lol.
WrenchNinja
Member
They want to make their own version of Friends?
TatteredHat
Member
I have no inherit dislike of shipping, it is when it starts dominating every discussion or other fans or the creators get harassed because their canon doesn't conform to some fan's shipping scenario that things get fucked up.
Those people need to go live out in the woods somewhere, away from the rest of society.
Those people need to go live out in the woods somewhere, away from the rest of society.
timetokill
Banned
Hey, "write what you know" lol
Maybe? Though it's usually 'cute barista meets cute customer, cuteness ensues!'
I dunno much more than summaries though cause I don't read those.
I love shipping. If they have chemistry, I'll run with it. If they look cute, even better! Be that as it may, I never expect my ships to actually happen. Honestly, I don't think I would want them too. 9/10 it wouldn't be done the way I imagine it so I would rather the creators ignore me. I have fun coming up with ideas for stories or whatever. I'm fine without canon.
Fwiw I'm old school fandom i guess. Back when it was something you pretended you didn't write about but only tell your friends or bf about it lol. Nowadays I hate fandom and just try to stick to my own bases with a few friends.
There's just way too many people out here acting like shipping is about competition, or winning and/or what's canon like entitled little brats. At the end of the day, it's a ship. It's not your love life so why go so crazy about it? People want canon so bad they don't care how shitty the writing is.
My biggest pet peeve is with the recent surge of shitty ships involving murder, abuse, stalkers or queer baiting/pandering. The latter is the least offensive but i still don't like it. The first two are obviously bad but the third one is particularly disturbing to me.
Just knowing there's people out there who actually think shipping people with a character that is obsessed, a stalker or emotionally crippled to the point their existence hinges on the recognition they get from another is romantic. Oh God it's so....... bad. Or maybe they think it's romantic to feel that way about someone? Oh God why.
The glorification of creeps in media hurts me to my soul.
When people like the above exist, I'm not surprised crazies are getting to creators and harassing them. There's too many people getting hooked up with other enablers who approve of their gross behavior and not enough people telling them to chill the fuck out. I should be one of the people to stand up about it but when it's such a horrible widespread mentality, you just wanna say fuck it and watch them self destruct. Besides, I have tried saying something but I'm apparently being too hard on them. At this point, I'm done.
Fwiw I'm old school fandom i guess. Back when it was something you pretended you didn't write about but only tell your friends or bf about it lol. Nowadays I hate fandom and just try to stick to my own bases with a few friends.
There's just way too many people out here acting like shipping is about competition, or winning and/or what's canon like entitled little brats. At the end of the day, it's a ship. It's not your love life so why go so crazy about it? People want canon so bad they don't care how shitty the writing is.
My biggest pet peeve is with the recent surge of shitty ships involving murder, abuse, stalkers or queer baiting/pandering. The latter is the least offensive but i still don't like it. The first two are obviously bad but the third one is particularly disturbing to me.
Just knowing there's people out there who actually think shipping people with a character that is obsessed, a stalker or emotionally crippled to the point their existence hinges on the recognition they get from another is romantic. Oh God it's so....... bad. Or maybe they think it's romantic to feel that way about someone? Oh God why.
The glorification of creeps in media hurts me to my soul.
When people like the above exist, I'm not surprised crazies are getting to creators and harassing them. There's too many people getting hooked up with other enablers who approve of their gross behavior and not enough people telling them to chill the fuck out. I should be one of the people to stand up about it but when it's such a horrible widespread mentality, you just wanna say fuck it and watch them self destruct. Besides, I have tried saying something but I'm apparently being too hard on them. At this point, I'm done.
This shit in Sherlock and Supernatural is especially annoying. I mean, I ship Johnlock and Destiel, but I don't expect either to become canon and I'm fucking fine with that. And yes, SPN has dropped hints that Dean might be bi, but expecting, no, demanding the creators to follow through simply because of a bit of subtext is really dumb to me. Maybe it's cause I'm old school.
SomeRandomWeirdGuy
Member
There's a lot more to AUs than that though. AU fanfiction is pretty much my favorite category of it, because you get to see sometimes crazy shit and also sometimes only a little bit different stuff. Like Harry Potter being sorted into Ravenclaw, or Anakin never becoming Darth Vader, or Goku dying on Namek, or any number of different things. AUs are rife for creativity. Seeing something you enjoy with a twist is always fun.
High School AUs are indeed pretty common though. It lets people remove any greater plot threads/fantastical elements and grind it down to just characters and their interactions. Also has the benefit of being easier to write. Though that's not to say they're bad, I've read a number of great High School/Real Life AUs.
Oh man, it's like that masculine/feminine traits quiz, I am somehow a guy. Who reads shoujo manga, only wears skirts and dresses, has no upper body strength, and boobs. Or something.
But anyway, shipping, and fans losing their shit over it, actually way predates the internet, or fanzines. Remember Little Women? The readers wanted Jo/Laurie. They DEMANDED Jo/Laurie. And Alcott was having NONE OF IT. She married Laurie off to Amy (and pissed off the fans) and even got Jo a husband (which she hadn't intended to do) to totally bury it. There is a quote that paraphrased is roughly "Jo will marry Laurie over my dead body." SCREAMING LETTERS PEOPLE! How dare she!
Now I'm totally a person with her ships and her OTPs. I was there in X-Files fandom, when the term shipping was born. I've lived through ship wars for anime people don't remember. And sure, it's nice when a ship that makes sense is canon. Well except for the tiny problem that oh 95% of writers (be they writing prose, or for the screen) do not know who to write established couples and hence things become either "boring" or we get stuck in a "break up/make up" cycle. Seriously guys. I'm not married, but I've sure known a lot of people who are or were and life doesn't stop having ups and downs and being potentially dramatic after people get together!
I will say, I tend to live in the world of the canon or at least plausible, or off the deep end crack!fic, which keeps me out of most "wars." (Not that Buffy/Spike becoming a thing wasn't amazing in a truly warped way.) I was in a ship war for Avatar TLA (I was in a weird place) but my anger at the end of the show had nothing to do with not getting my ship canon, which I knew would not happen, and everything to do with me thinking the writing of the last 45 minutes was crap. I do NOT ship Stucky, but go figure, I've read of a ton of Stucky fics because they were well written, or had a interesting concept and oh, most importantly do not ignore that Steve loved Peggy, so no, he has not been oh Bucky you are my one and only for ever and ever, and close tab done with that fic.
Someone recently had an explanation for Coffee Shop AUs (which I admit I was like huh about) and it was something to the tune of "canon tends to be how can we make all our characters suffer because DRAMA and maybe sometimes we need a break where things are fluffy and warm and the stakes are low."
And now I've gotten myself totally lost from whatever I was originally going to say, but hey! I ship Darcy/Bucky for the MCU, two characters who have never and likely will never meet so, yeah, I'm not going to be holding up pitchforks anytime soon.
I agree that some AUs are awesome, just really dislike the High School ones. I love ones that characters to places you've never seen them before, like magic in the Sherlock world. Thats always fun, read some awesome AUs in that vein.
I didn't mean to imply that people outside of those roles aren't women, just that it tends to be women. Sorry!
And yes, crazy fandom behavior has been around forever. Conan Doyle had totally killed Sherlock Holmes and was tired of writing him until fans basically rooted and he wrote another story about him faking his death lol. In the 1880s! So yeah, definitely not a new thing.
SomeRandomWeirdGuy
Member
I can't find the one particular pic, but this is a shitload of posts from various Naruto forums. Before the pairing was 100% confirmed in the epilogue of the manga, more and more info was being released regarding a movie that would take place before the epilogue. The info made it more and more obvious that the NaruHina pairing would win out, but many of the opposing ship refused to believe. You'll see some of that plus the true meltdown in there. It was a wonderful time to be alive
BudokaiMR2
Member
Lol wut. This is glorious.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised but how did everyone not see Naruto/Hinata coming from like a million miles away?
Interesting article.
This something that I know I will have to confront, as a creator. While fandom has grown and evolved in wonderful and progressive ways, it does have its fair share of issues. That's not to say that shipping is wrong, nor that fandom can't continue to grow. We are dealing with some growing pains, thanks to the rise of social media and marginalized voices becoming more louder than ever before. We should be doing more with building up communication and maintaining safe spaces for everyone, and that is going to take a lot of listening and understanding.
This something that I know I will have to confront, as a creator. While fandom has grown and evolved in wonderful and progressive ways, it does have its fair share of issues. That's not to say that shipping is wrong, nor that fandom can't continue to grow. We are dealing with some growing pains, thanks to the rise of social media and marginalized voices becoming more louder than ever before. We should be doing more with building up communication and maintaining safe spaces for everyone, and that is going to take a lot of listening and understanding.
As always: Empathy is key.
Totally agree, perfect match for Perona is Ussop.
Those have always been pretty popular. The "dark abusive dude that's just misunderstood" has to be the most popular fanfiction romance trope, by far. At least it was when i was browsing fanfiction archives 15 years ago.
I generally find fandom to be pretty great, and whatever fanfiction/romance plots fans think up is included in that. Just don't harrass people. Be that other fans or the creator.
John Kowalski
Banned
Nothing twists my nose quite like a bad ship.
Kylo Ren's surge in popularity after The Firce Awakens hit theaters tells me it's alive and well and horribly off-putting.
I'm someone who keeps an eye on the Steven Universe fandom because I'm a big fan of the show, and trust me when I say shipping is both hilarious and scary.
Because of the primarily female cast of that show most ships are lesbian, which has give the fandom this weird progressive zealotry. Like, they see everything single thing they do as some great act of support for the LGBT community. Yet what they're actually doing is often taking two unrelated characters and attempting to smush them together until it looks like they might fuck. Usually this'll be an incredibly unhealthy relationship (that won't stop them from calling out other unhealthy relationships in an attempt to shoot down ships they don't like). And hell thats just the shipping. There's the infamous Rose Quartz thing where the fandom bullied someone into attempted suicide because their art wasn't considered progressive enough and if you go on the SU tumblr tag you can see so many posts which are basically just saying that "if your art is like this then you're scum". I'm pretty sure when one of the creators spoke out against stuff like this, the fandom attempted to frame him as a pedophile (or that might have been something else).
And that's just one show. One show aimed at children.
Because of the primarily female cast of that show most ships are lesbian, which has give the fandom this weird progressive zealotry. Like, they see everything single thing they do as some great act of support for the LGBT community. Yet what they're actually doing is often taking two unrelated characters and attempting to smush them together until it looks like they might fuck. Usually this'll be an incredibly unhealthy relationship (that won't stop them from calling out other unhealthy relationships in an attempt to shoot down ships they don't like). And hell thats just the shipping. There's the infamous Rose Quartz thing where the fandom bullied someone into attempted suicide because their art wasn't considered progressive enough and if you go on the SU tumblr tag you can see so many posts which are basically just saying that "if your art is like this then you're scum". I'm pretty sure when one of the creators spoke out against stuff like this, the fandom attempted to frame him as a pedophile (or that might have been something else).
And that's just one show. One show aimed at children.
IMO this was one of the most disgusting things I've seen on the internet over nothing.
I just started watching Steven Universe, and because of that I will keep my distance from other fans.
Others have made some really good points:
- Shipping has been around for a long time, but the age of social media has enabled fans to communicate directly with content creators.
- With some fans, this can lead to a sense of equality in the creative process or even entitlement (e.g., X is popular, therefore Y should happen).
- And in a few cases, that zealotry has led to unacceptable incidents such as harassment and death threats.
I definitely support shipping of all kinds - whatever floats your boat, as far as I'm concerned. That said, content creators shouldn't feel any obligation to follow the whims of their fans. Digesting feedback doesn't mean it should dictate the creative process. This goes for shows, music, games, anything really.
- Shipping has been around for a long time, but the age of social media has enabled fans to communicate directly with content creators.
- With some fans, this can lead to a sense of equality in the creative process or even entitlement (e.g., X is popular, therefore Y should happen).
- And in a few cases, that zealotry has led to unacceptable incidents such as harassment and death threats.
I definitely support shipping of all kinds - whatever floats your boat, as far as I'm concerned. That said, content creators shouldn't feel any obligation to follow the whims of their fans. Digesting feedback doesn't mean it should dictate the creative process. This goes for shows, music, games, anything really.
Yeah you're right. I can't believe I forgot about the Sasuke craze lol
I guess this is just another phase of the edge love. I think it was a bit more mild for a while tho. I just can't stomach the abuse sympathizers.
Macadinho94
Member
Arrow The Thread
The rise of Kylo Ren x Rey has had an underlying bit of racism as well, considering how much Finn gets thrown under the bus by shippers.
Let's not even get started about Jessica Jones x Killgrave, and how some shippers treated Luke Cage.
The Silver
Member
That's hindsight taking, Kishi revealed later that he intentionally put in red herrings to make people believe Naruto would end up with Sakura.
Eh, it's in the original canon, so most of fandom expected it. When Mary was announced there was even a surge of support for the character and the actress to counteract the vocal minority that was saying nasty things.
radios shipping overview
Member
These people - these entitled fans - need to get lives. Catering to the whims of your audience at every step seems like a great way to break the back of your work creatively.
W...what? The entire article is just about shipping?
Like, i understand it's a problem, but no mention of things like the Steven Universe fandom harrassing the staff and fanartists? I mean, the fact that SU fans harrased an artist into an attempted suicide even goes unremoved from the show's fricking Wikipedia page.
And they're hardly the only fandom that is this violent and dox happy.
Like, i understand it's a problem, but no mention of things like the Steven Universe fandom harrassing the staff and fanartists? I mean, the fact that SU fans harrased an artist into an attempted suicide even goes unremoved from the show's fricking Wikipedia page.
And they're hardly the only fandom that is this violent and dox happy.
That's nice to hear
outunderthestars
Banned
This is where I find myself as well. Fandoms all seem really creepy to me. I just don't understand how people get so consumed by media these days.
I feel really old.
Yeah, that was a bit of a head scratcher for me.
I guess I don't really have strong feelings one way or the other about the rest of the article, other than an inability to imagine being so invested in someone else's work. As someone further up the page said, I'd rather create my own stuff. Still, an interesting read, especially the Sherlock stuff (given that I am a fan of the show).
WhateverItTakes
Banned
Maybe this is part of the the reason I stay out of fandoms. I read shipping fics
, but it feels really dumb to me to interact with the creators with it. Maybe not completely, they old Star Trek fan magazines love people have talked about here seem sweet, but these days the vein of tweeting directly at people and hunting them down at conventions seem unsavoury to me.
Yeah, this shit is fun, and the culture around them too as long as you remember to sprinkle your love with irony, as opposed to treating the way you want the story to go as gospel, and somehow better than any other way of doing things.
hell, I've written them
Yeah, this shit is fun, and the culture around them too as long as you remember to sprinkle your love with irony, as opposed to treating the way you want the story to go as gospel, and somehow better than any other way of doing things.
There was apparently another anime about sibling incest, plus sex between said adult sibling and under aged sibling, but people seemed to receive that one positively. Someone who watched it might know specifics.
Unspeakable Evil
Member
When it comes to fandoms and shipping... My God.
Arrow/Bleach/Naruto/Avatar/Korra/MCU have some of the worst fandoms on shipping alone.
Arrow/Bleach/Naruto/Avatar/Korra/MCU have some of the worst fandoms on shipping alone.
Shipping is fun or funny when it's just playing around/fan fiction type of stuff. Zero interest in having the artist be forced to change their visions for any type of fandom though.
If a show or some other entertainment medium doesn't live up to your hopes and dreams then drop it and move on. An artist owes you nada. Or otherwise we run into the shit that is Metallica for some 15 years now. "hey fans like this grunge stuff, let's become rock n roll. Oh hey now they like nu metal and solos aren't cool. oh hey they keep badgering us about Master of Puppets so lets make a shitty album trying to emulate that." No. Do whatever you want as an artist and pay no attention to the consumer (unless some studio head forces your hand. Then it's not like you have a choice).
If a show or some other entertainment medium doesn't live up to your hopes and dreams then drop it and move on. An artist owes you nada. Or otherwise we run into the shit that is Metallica for some 15 years now. "hey fans like this grunge stuff, let's become rock n roll. Oh hey now they like nu metal and solos aren't cool. oh hey they keep badgering us about Master of Puppets so lets make a shitty album trying to emulate that." No. Do whatever you want as an artist and pay no attention to the consumer (unless some studio head forces your hand. Then it's not like you have a choice).
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