Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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fandomsecrets2016-04-06 05:15 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2016-04-06 05:15 pm
[ SECRET POST #3381 ]
⌈ Secret Post #3381 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 020 secrets from Secret Submission Post #483.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
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(Anonymous) 2016-04-06 11:20 pm (UTC)(link)I'm not arguing that there are not a lot of white males who can be slashed together. I'm arguing that it seems to be all I see when looking at Western media, when, in fact, there are a lot of other possibilities out there.
Just to give some examples from the comment I made above, look at Avengers. Certainly there are a lot of white males in that cast. But why is there no love for Rhodey or Sam? They are attractive and the right age and have the right interactions with other characters, but they get a fraction of the attention.
Or look at Sherlock Holmes. So Elementary's Watson is a female, and maybe people only want slash. But in Elementary's case, there is Bell. He is young and has a lot of interaction with that version's Sherlock and could easily be slashed with him. (It's one of my ships, so I am a bit biased, perhaps.) And yet there are only 39 fics of that pairing on AO3 to over 40k fics of Sherlock/Watson from BBC Sherlock.
There are other examples of various shows. Sometimes fandoms don't get big if they don't have two white male characters to ship. Sometimes fandoms get big and often ship the two white male characters over other characters for whatever reason. (Like people saying they prefer Shawn/Lassiter over Shawn/Gus on Psych because it is an antagonistic relationship vs. a friendship.) But I hate that it is often claimed that white males are the only ships because the only interesting and complex characters out there are white males. They are a majority, sure, but they are not all of them.
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(Anonymous) 2016-04-06 11:40 pm (UTC)(link)I'm a casual at best MCU film-watcher, so maybe this isn't the norm, but sometimes the lack of popularity for a given ship really is just as simple as that.
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(Anonymous) 2016-04-06 11:54 pm (UTC)(link)Avengers has 34k fics. Thor has 11k. Captain America has 5k. Iron Man doesn't even have a movie category. But the comic one only has 3.5k.
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(Anonymous) 2016-04-07 12:32 am (UTC)(link)Have you seen Avengers Age of Ultron? He's in that. He's even in at least one of the previews for that movie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XIx0oM5mow
And I understand that the movie isn't as popular as some of the others. But I don't like people claiming that Clint/Coulson is a totally rational ship because... reasons. There is little to no basis for Clint/Coulson. There is no way that you can tell me those characters were "fleshed out" after Avengers. I'm not saying every ship has to be justified for reasons other than "it's pretty" or "it hits my kinks" or whatever. Enjoy what you like. I just hate when people justify shipping two white guys with the fact that obviously only white male characters are complex and thus the only ones worthy of shipping.
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(Anonymous) 2016-04-07 01:20 am (UTC)(link)I have seen Age of Ultron once, and now that it's been pointed out to me i do remember Don Cheadle being in that movie, but I can't for the life of me remember what he does in it (well he has an Iron Man suit so I guess there's that, but nothing else rings a bell) and I didn't know his character's name was Rhodey.
The only reason I knew Clint and Coulson's names is because the first Avengers and Thor are movies that get played on TV all the time here. I wouldn't call them a rational ship, or either of the characters particularly fleshed out (well, Clint as of AoU maybe a little more, and Coulson has a show that I assume fleshes him out), but I really think it's more about the about the visibility of the movies they both have roles in.
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(Anonymous) 2016-04-07 12:07 am (UTC)(link)Okay. But this would be a problem if Elementary had as many fics as BBC Sherlock. But they don't. They have like....5,000 fics altogether?
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(Anonymous) 2016-04-07 12:27 am (UTC)(link)Which works to my point of one of main reasons I think Sherlock was so popular in fandom was because it had white cock to ship. Theoretically Elementary is dealing with the same characters and similar stories, but it has vastly less fic. I think there is at least an element of the main characters not being two white guys as to why it is not as popular.
Discounting that (although that was my argument in the first post), still look at the proportions. In Sherlock, 42,648 of the 84,187 total works are Sherlock/Watson. That is about half. In Elementary, there are about 1700 fics, and only 39 are Sherlock/Bell. Even if you factor in Sherlock/Watson fics for Elementary, it is still less than a quarter of the fics.
But, again, that wasn't my point. My point was that shows that have two white guys to slash tend to develop huge fandoms for that reason. It isn't a bad thing. People can like what they like. I just dislike when people claim that the only reason white slash fics are popular is because white guys are the only interesting and fleshed out characters. No. There are lots of non-white characters who are just as interesting and fleshed out. Elementary and Sherlock show that even similar characters don't seem to get as popular if the white slash couple potential isn't there.
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(Anonymous) 2016-04-07 01:25 am (UTC)(link)Sherlock/Watson has been a long-standing slash ship even before Sherlock the TV series ever aired, though, so that's kind of a bad example to use.
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(Anonymous) 2016-04-07 02:44 am (UTC)(link)I am well aware that ACD's Sherlock Holmes has a history. However there are only 3412 works for the entirety of that fandom on AO3. Compared to the over 40k of just Sherlock/Watson fics for BBC's Sherlock on AO3. I somehow think the latter has way eclipsed the former.
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(Anonymous) 2016-04-07 03:26 am (UTC)(link)In most fandoms these days modern AUs eclipse all other types of fic. In this case, they have an entire modern AU canon, so why are we surprised again?
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(Anonymous) 2016-04-07 05:56 pm (UTC)(link)Did I say I was surprised? No. In fact, I said the opposite. I fully expect a show with two white males who can be shipped to take off as a fandom. I was just comparing the fandom popularity of Sherlock (a modern AU with two white males) with the lack of fandom popularity of Elementary (an AU with a white male and an Asian female). I am not at all surprised that Sherlock fandom is as big as it is. I am saying that people can't use the excuse that "only the white males are developed and complex characters so of course the two white guys ship is the only viable one" in that instance, as Elementary exists. Like what you like, that's fine. But don't claim you have to do it because there are zero minority options who are well-developed out there.
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(Anonymous) 2016-04-07 07:20 am (UTC)(link)no subject
(Anonymous) 2016-04-07 05:58 pm (UTC)(link)I can imagine. And I'm so sorry. I was really into ACD's Sherlock Holmes back when I was high school before Internet fandoms existed. I would have liked to have been a part of it. I have zero desire to be a part of Sherlock fandom.