[ SECRET POST #3258 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3258 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 0100 secrets from Secret Submission Post #466.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: OP

[herongale]

The difference with Haikyuu!! is that the characters are more complex (not necessarily more interesting or more winning; I really love several of the Free! characters) and the story itself has absolutely no ship teasing whatsoever. And even though merch does tend to pair up the characters along popular shipping lines, it's always very clearly friendship-themed and not secretly suggesting romantic relationships... so if you ship a less common pairing you're not going to feel like the creators hate you, NOR are you gonna get all smug if you happen to ship the pairings that end up in merch because the merch isn't "confirming" anything.

I honestly blame KyoAni for a lot of the shipping wars. They knew that Free! had a very lightweight premise and that the story they were telling was a kind of weird combo slice-of-life/dramafest/fanservice deal which is what they usually do, because KyoAni is less about telling great stories than they are about superbly beautiful animation and also making tons of ¥¥¥¥¥¥. By introducing the kind of fanservice that feels more like queerbaiting and then by making merchandising and storytelling decisions based on ideas of pleasing the fans rather than following some kind of interesting artistic vision.... well, KyoAni is happy with what they do and I think that stirring up shipper ire is a way to help keep people fanatically invested when the actual story itself is not all that compelling.

Really, I think Free! fandom could be 1000% improved if shippers stopped snipping at each other and instead just recognized how KyoAni is to blame for pretty much everything. :)