fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2781 ]

[ SECRET POST #2781 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2781 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Game of Thrones]

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09. [broken]

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[Kevin Sorbo/Hercules: The Legendary Journeys]

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[Transformers: Prime]

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[Darkchylde]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 022 secrets from Secret Submission Post #397.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I don't get shipping.

It's not like I hate it, or I think it's bad, or that it makes fandom bad. I just don't GET it. I don't understand why it's a thing, or how it inspires such followings in fandom. It's baffling to me.

That's how I feel about porn/smut and how shipping = wants to see them "bone".

I wish I could explain it to you but I don't really get what's not to get.

I just don't get why it is the way it is in fandom, I guess. I of course get that it's nice to watch characters fall in love, but I don't get the whole "I ship it!" phenomenon, or the way people will completely rearrange canon and add enormous amounts of completely new information for the sole purpose of writing a romantic story between two characters. I just...I don't get it. I don't understand what people get out of it that's so much stronger than all the other stuff in a fictional work that DOESN'T have to do with romance.

ayrt - I've always assumed it's the same phenomenon that makes people go to war over their religions. *shrug* Sorry. People are weird.

I don't think I an explain it tbh because I don't really understand why I enjoy shipping so much myself, I guess I just really love watching or reading about two characters falling in love and it makes my heart happy? I don't know why though, I just like it.

That's the part I DO get. It makes my heart happy too.

I just don't get all the REST of shipping -- the need for a ship to be endgame, the complete undoing and rewriting canon just to get two characters together (or in some cases, to make them more gay), the shipwars, the kneejerk reaction of "shipping!" to any marginally interesting interpersonal relationship, the need to "find ships" or distress because "I can't find anything to ship", the focus on couples at the expense of everything else going on in the story.

More of a style/narrative trope problem than a content problem for me, I guess.

Honestly? I'm not sure I can even really give an answer to any of this, people focus their enthusiasm in different ways and I guess for some people shipping is where they invest it?

It's like people who get really into their sports teams.

ayrt

Haha I've thought of the sports team analogy too, because I also don't get why people get really into their sports teams. I guess I'm destined to never understand. ;)

I "ship" Steve/Bucky in that it's my favorite pairing to read about/see fanworks of. I also ship "Steve/Tony" or "Tony/Pepper" in that I like to see content related to those relationships. For me, and for many people, that's all there is to it - it's a shorthand way of saying what you are interested in.

The most I can say about shipwars and wank, though, is it's a convoluted effort to get more people into a ship, as way of generating more content in relation to that ship. Outside of that, I just shuffle it into "everyone needs a hobby" and be done with it. I don't get a lot of other people's hobbies (that anyone can enjoy cooking is beyond me), and a lot of people don't get mine (people are perpetually surprised that the amount of effort I put into creating languages is entirely for fun).

You create languages?

*chinhands*

Yup! It's called conlanging, a very of conlang, which is short for "constructed language". I've been making language since was 10. Well, 8 really, but at 8 I was just replacing vocabulary or making codes, they weren't really languages until I was 10.

The most well-known conlangs are probably Tolkein's languages (he actually wrote Lord of the Rings as a way of showing off his conlangs), Klingon from Star Trek (there is, in fact, a Klingon Language Institute), and Dothraki from Game of Thrones tied with Na'vi from Avatar. (The maker of Dothraki can be found on Tumblr as dedlavs - he also made the Dark Elf language in Thor). Esperanto - a widely spoken language, and even a native language for some people - is also a conlang.

Conlanging is a thriving community. The Facebook group alone is big and friendly. ^_^

Dothraki is ahead of Volapük, Esperanto, and Loglan? That surprises me.

In terms of the average layman knowing about its existence, yes. Once you get into anything remotely linguistics or cultural related, then Esperanto and Loglan will start to come ahead. Until then, pop culture tends to take precedence over, well, linguistics, linguistic experiments, or just languages in general.

The other three conlangs could probably best be seen as "obscure languages", and the vast majority of people don't know the existence of the vast majority of languages. If you asked random people on the street to just start listing languages, how many of them will say Bengali, or Basque, or Xhosa? I'm betting Klingon will be more well-known as a language than Bengali, at least in America - even though Bengali is the 7th most spoken language in the world.

If you're talking about people who actually know the language itself, then no, Dothraki is still way behind those. I have no idea if anyone really speaks Dothraki, or if there is even enough Dothraki to be spoken.

I see what you mean. Dothraki is something people would have heard of because of the tv series. (I know several fans of the books, but it seems like the tv series dramatically increased GRRM's profile.)

It just surprised me. I know Klingon speakers (well, they know some phrases anyway), and I've actually used lexicons of the Tolkienian languages to name...things. And those "fictional" languages have been around for decades. I didn't even suspect Dothraki was even a thing on that level, as opposed to just a writer's system of making new words for his imaginary culture.

I'm relieved by your last sentence. The idea that anything GRRM created would pass Loglan in linguistics use just bugs me somehow, and I don't even speak Loglan.

Well, like I said above, he didn't make Dothraki. It was made by a professional conlanger, David Thompson I think? Not sure, I mostly know him by his online handle (dedlavs). From what I know, GRRM originally just wrote "translations" from POV characters (i.e. "Drogo said XYZ, Iain Glen said it meant this, etc.") and/or he made up some phrases, but then the show needed an actual language, so dedlavs made Dothraki, and since then GRRM has been using it in his books, and/or more recent printings of the earlier books include that. I know that it doesn't always work when he tries to use it, though (as dedlavs pointed out/commented on on his Tumblr, which is under that handle).

Meanwhile, at my behest on Facebook, he made an entire post on Tumblr about the language he developed for the Dark Elves in Thor 2. It was only a few phrases, but he had it very well developed (including its origins in/parallels with real life Finnic-Urgalic languages - historically, the Finns and the Norse didn't always get along). :) I honestly wouldn't be surprised to find out more Americans know about this obscure language than Bengali or Basque or Xhosa.

But yay for pop culture promoting recreational linguistics, at least? :P

I think I agree with you on shipwars being a convoluted way of getting more content.

In some parts there is a need for validation. Things like endgame, canon vs. non-canon, shipwars - it's about people saying "My pairing is better than yours!". Kneejerk reactions can be people who get offended at shippers who need to feel superior.

For a long time I didn't really understand it or it's prevalence in fandom. I was never really into it either and I still shy away from it. But I realized that there are certain pairings of characters that I would rather stayed or got together. I mean, I don't care either way what actually happens, but I have a few preferences. And I suppose in a nutshell, that's what it is. Whether it's canon or not, just characters that you think would be good together (on whatever you'd think they'd be good together doing).

I'm glad that you don't have negative feelings towards shipping. I know some people who don't like shipping and do their best just to shit on it.

I think people like stuff they can relate to and many people want/crave/have a romantic and/or sexual relationship. But some people don't, and that's ok. I do imagine though it must be frustrated to have fandom so inundated with something that's just sort of there to you and not very interesting.

I think "shipping" is a kind of amorphous fanclub sort-of thing. People support the concept of a romantic pairing and gather in forums etc to discuss, squee and post fanworks about it. They get thingy to opposition - real or perceived - to the pairing they support.

The "fanclub" that supports a pairing is not an organized thing, it is simply one person saying "I like this pairing!" and someone else responding "Me too!" and them deciding they are allies and will stand together in the face of any objection.

How much you get involved with other people who support a pairing is really up to you. How fiercely you defend your chosen pairing from opposition (real or perceived) is also up to you.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2781 ]

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Ah, so.

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