fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3091 ]

[ SECRET POST #3091 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3091 ⌋

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

01.

__________________________________________________

02.

__________________________________________________

03.

__________________________________________________

04.

__________________________________________________

05.

__________________________________________________

06.

__________________________________________________

07.

__________________________________________________

08.

__________________________________________________

09.

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 051 secrets from Secret Submission Post #442.
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

OK, secret #1 made me curious. This is an observation I had and I wonder if this is true or if it's my bias maybe.

I'm a huge slash fan, and I've seen some nasty ship wars in my day for sure, but I have never seen shippers descend on each other as viciously as when two concurrent het ships are involved. Like, whether it's Harmonians or Zutara, or the one in the secret, or very recently Clint/Natasha vs. Bruce/Natasha - idk, it seems to be brutal. The only time I was actively involved in a fandom that sorta had this was Community of all things, where the Jeff/Annie and Jeff/Britta fans were so unspeakably nasty to each other that I kinda tiptoed backwards out of there. (FTR, I liked both.)

I mean, there's big rival slash ships too - like idk Tony/Steve, Steve/Bucky, Steve/Sam etc. in the MCU - but I rarely see the fans go at it like that.

This isn't a thing where I'm trying to say that slash fans are inherently more reasonable than het fans (I know enough to know that ain't true lol), but I still wonder, why do so many het ship wars explode like that? Is it because the fanbases are bigger? Is it because the chance for canon validation is bigger? (And why do people care about canon validation? But OK, different topic.) Or am I wrong and there really is no difference at all?

People in fandom identify themselves more closely with people in het ships than with people in slash ships, because the majority of people in fandom are women who are attracted to men

This also means that canon validation matters more, but yeah

That's because nobody wants to outwardly admit that they like two fags humping each other by speaking out publically for their ship.

boy is that not the case

trying too hard

"why do so many het ship wars explode like that?"

Because there's a chance of them being canon.

Slash ships have no chance of being canon basically.

DA

That was my first thought too. Het pairings have the chance to be endgame, someone is right and someone is wrong. Slash is always noncanon

I have seen some brutal ship wars involving slash ships though.

One I was part of was the Kirk/Spock vs Spock/Uhura in the Star Trek Reboot

In this case, I think a lot of the K/S fans were more vocal than normal because they actually thought they might have a chance (since Star Trek has a history of progressivism, Roddenberry was okay with K/S, and the public wasn't completely ignorant of the pairing since it had had some mainstream press and academic coverage).

You saw charges of homophobia and racism all the time in that ship war (both of which were fucking stupid a lot of the time, IMO).

I think a lot of the harshness of that stemmed from K/S fans' bitter disappointment (which I can understand to a degree but that doesn't excuse terrible behavior on either side).

Interesting example! Though it's worth noting that it involves one het ship. Which was canon. So yeah, I see your point, canon validation seems to be a huge reason for the wankiness.

Yea, this would be my first guess.

On occasion same sex ships become canon, but not often.

And some people seriously want their ship to become canon. In a way I understand that, but I've shipped so many ships that had no chance of being canon that I just roll with it.

Uh, the Dean/Sam vs. Dean/Cas ship war got that bad.

It was my understanding that we don't count SPN, because the fandom is/was batshit crazy and counts as an extreme outlier with regards to almost any fandom behaviour you care to name. Mind you, it's been a few seasons for me. Maybe that's changed?

The question was whether any slash ship was as bad as het shippers when it comes to ship wars. I gave an example. I don't know why SPN wouldn't count.

op

(Anonymous) - 2015-06-21 23:28 (UTC) - Expand

but I have never seen shippers descend on each other as viciously as when two concurrent het ships are involved.

Someone didn't see that recent shitstorm in the Sherlock fandom.

Does it count if both sides of the ship war ship the same pairing?

What did they war about? Is this more about the "is Sherlock asexual" thing?

Ooh what was the shitstorm? I'm out of that fandom completely.

Here you go! http://failfandomanonwiki.pbworks.com/w/page/95246807/Sherlock%20221b%20Con%20Wank

Re: Ship War Question

fingalsanteater - 2015-06-21 23:32 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Ship War Question

(Anonymous) - 2015-06-21 23:38 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Ship War Question

(Anonymous) - 2015-06-21 23:56 (UTC) - Expand

Steve/Bucky vs Steve/Sam usually gets really ugly on certain spaces.

...Where?

I mean, I've never seen Steve/Bucky fans attack Steve/Sam fans (they almost universally ignore Sam or write him as a supportive BFF and given how dominant Stucky is, that's not surprising).

I have seen a couple of bitter Steve/Sam fans attack Steve/Bucky as "unhealthy" but not many.

I'd actually say Steve/Bucky vs Steve/Tony is more prominent, though even then it's still incredibly mild.

Because het is more likely to be canon, so that's what people are fighting about. I think being so invested in something being canon is silly, when fic can be just as valid to fans, but yeah. It's about proving yourself right, that you got the canon "better" than the other fans.

With slash it doesn't happen that much except when slash fans fight each other it's usually people trying to see which slash ship is "more problematic", fighting about people not writing enough of Slash Ship A as opposed to Ship B, or fighting about HOW people are shipping a popular slash ship. But it all boils down to people being obsessed with looking like the "least problematic" slash shipper.

Because het ships have a bigger posibility of becoming canon, while slash ships do not.

If you've never seen slash fans ready to tear each others throats out over their ships, either you've been incredibly lucky with your fandom choices, or you haven't been paying attention.

I think we get that impression that het shipping disputes are more volatile because the most famous ship wars have involved het ships, not because het fandoms are inherently more volatile than slash fandoms. But the really big ship wars do seem to skew towards het, and I think it's because:

1) Canon validation potential. If BruceNat hadn't been canon, its shippers wouldn't have been at odds as much with Clintasha shippers, because neither ship would be "getting in the way" of the OTP. There might be passive aggressive posts about one getting more fanworks, or about how one obviously has more canon support/is healthier/is more interesting/is generally uperior, but I doubt it would have been as vicious. But you make one canon, or bring in an actual chance of one being canon, and suddenly it's a competition. Those shippers are the enemy, because without their ship, yours would be canon! Most slash/femslash pairings have zero chance of ever becoming canon, so it doesn't matter as much if someone doesn't ship your ship.

2) Fandom size. Slash fandoms are usually dominated by one ship, with every alternative to the juggernaut pairing having much smaller fanbases. There's often just not enough people to get a big, bona fide ship war going. So you'll get people making passive aggressive posts on their blog about that ship that everyone likes even though it totally sucks ugh!!but unless their ship has a fanbase big enough to compete with the juggernaut's fanbase, they're just one hater screaming into the void.

In fandoms like Supernatural, where there are two or more similarly popular ships, with enough shippers who are in deep enough to think that there's a genuine possibility that their ship will become canon, then you start to see really nasty slash ship wars. And that was the crux of the Nu!Trek ship wars too, IMO: Spirk shippers started to think of Spock/Uhura (and by extension, people who shipped Spock/Uhura) as being the only thing standing in the way of their ship happening.

It's all about whether or not "rival" ships are actually a threat to your OTP, and it seems more likely for het shippers to feel this way, because there's often a chance that their ship will actually be canon. Slash shippers usually have so little chance of their ship being canon that there's nothing to threaten.

Erwin/Levi vs. Eren/Levi shipwars in SNK fandom are awful and ridiculous.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only