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Still have not seen the last three episodes of Doctor Who. Suspense: driving me batty. Yes I know given all the time I waste I could probably just watch them already, but that would mean acknowledging that I'm wasting time, and we can't have that.
1. Hey, guys, did you know that there's a Team Fortress 2 version of I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream? (Warning: contains torture, violence, sex, and everything you'd expect from an I Have No Mouth adaptation.) Yeah, there is. And it's actually kind of awesome, and best of all it works as a kind of callback to the original short story, and plays with it in some interesting ways. I can't even tell you how much this made my day.
I don't know what it says about me that my reaction to finding out this existed was not "Why would anyone write that?" but "Oh man, that's awesome. I should go read that right now." Clearly I am unwell.
2. I swear, every time I see someone pairing-bash I just want to reach through the computer screen and Gibbs-slap them. Because it's so pointlessly vindictive and rude, and it's not like it even accomplishes anything. Disliking or not getting a ship I can understand - there are pairings I dislike, certainly, and I'll say so, but if I do I try to have the good manners not to go on about how said pairing is bad and wrong and everyone who likes it is stupid (and feel free to smack me if I ever start going in that direction). Know why? Because other people liking ships I don't like doesn't hurt me. It doesn't detract from my enjoyment of fandom. I can enjoy my little corner of fandom without being ~tormented~ by the thought that other people are Doing It Wrong. And frankly, there's enough far more serious Fail in fandom that I'd rather not waste that much energy on pairings I'm not invested in.
And making an entire art piece bashing a pairing? It's just...why? What does that do for you? Isn't that effort you could have put towards making art about ships or characters you like, or does it mean that much to you to put it out there that you think everyone who ships X only ships it for fanservicey wish-fulfillment?
Ugh. Remind me again why I go on DeviantArt, ever. It's like 90% of the pettiness and stupidity in my fandoms lives there, and especially for TF fandom it was actually kind of nice being on the sane and unwanky side of things for once.How am I supposed to lol at fanboys if the fic-and-shipping fandom acts just as bad, huh?
3. Speaking of shipping, J and I got into something of a discussion while I was over at R's place watching Kiki's Delivery Service (which, by the way, is an adorable movie with an actually excellent dub cast that made me feel all warm and happy inside, and you should all see it); I realized that I actually have no solid definition for shipping. I don't know what "counts" as shipping, what the criteria are in saying you'ship something - physical attraction? A crush? Getting along really well? If you like the idea of a romance between two characters, does that by default imply physical attraction and sexuality? What if you like the idea of a romance but for any number of reasons don't want the characters to have sex? A bunch of times when I try to write ship fic, the characters in question will interact but will never kiss, hold hands, express a particular desire for physical contact, etc. - does that still count as shipping, or is that gen or friendship?
I mean, I realize part of this is getting into things like "what is romance" or different ways of expressing love, which is a crazy huge topic that I don't really want to get into here. But J raised a point I hadn't thought of, and I wanted to see what some other thoughts on the subject were.
---
Ugh. I have to go to bed so I won't wake up at 3 pm like I did today but I have made so little progress on my short story or anything else, for that matter. I'm on page three of the short story! Slowly I am getting there! Perhaps I'll stay up until I get to page four, make some tangible progress, except that will just mean I get up even later. Hmm.
1. Hey, guys, did you know that there's a Team Fortress 2 version of I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream? (Warning: contains torture, violence, sex, and everything you'd expect from an I Have No Mouth adaptation.) Yeah, there is. And it's actually kind of awesome, and best of all it works as a kind of callback to the original short story, and plays with it in some interesting ways. I can't even tell you how much this made my day.
I don't know what it says about me that my reaction to finding out this existed was not "Why would anyone write that?" but "Oh man, that's awesome. I should go read that right now." Clearly I am unwell.
2. I swear, every time I see someone pairing-bash I just want to reach through the computer screen and Gibbs-slap them. Because it's so pointlessly vindictive and rude, and it's not like it even accomplishes anything. Disliking or not getting a ship I can understand - there are pairings I dislike, certainly, and I'll say so, but if I do I try to have the good manners not to go on about how said pairing is bad and wrong and everyone who likes it is stupid (and feel free to smack me if I ever start going in that direction). Know why? Because other people liking ships I don't like doesn't hurt me. It doesn't detract from my enjoyment of fandom. I can enjoy my little corner of fandom without being ~tormented~ by the thought that other people are Doing It Wrong. And frankly, there's enough far more serious Fail in fandom that I'd rather not waste that much energy on pairings I'm not invested in.
And making an entire art piece bashing a pairing? It's just...why? What does that do for you? Isn't that effort you could have put towards making art about ships or characters you like, or does it mean that much to you to put it out there that you think everyone who ships X only ships it for fanservicey wish-fulfillment?
Ugh. Remind me again why I go on DeviantArt, ever. It's like 90% of the pettiness and stupidity in my fandoms lives there, and especially for TF fandom it was actually kind of nice being on the sane and unwanky side of things for once.
3. Speaking of shipping, J and I got into something of a discussion while I was over at R's place watching Kiki's Delivery Service (which, by the way, is an adorable movie with an actually excellent dub cast that made me feel all warm and happy inside, and you should all see it); I realized that I actually have no solid definition for shipping. I don't know what "counts" as shipping, what the criteria are in saying you'ship something - physical attraction? A crush? Getting along really well? If you like the idea of a romance between two characters, does that by default imply physical attraction and sexuality? What if you like the idea of a romance but for any number of reasons don't want the characters to have sex? A bunch of times when I try to write ship fic, the characters in question will interact but will never kiss, hold hands, express a particular desire for physical contact, etc. - does that still count as shipping, or is that gen or friendship?
I mean, I realize part of this is getting into things like "what is romance" or different ways of expressing love, which is a crazy huge topic that I don't really want to get into here. But J raised a point I hadn't thought of, and I wanted to see what some other thoughts on the subject were.
---
Ugh. I have to go to bed so I won't wake up at 3 pm like I did today but I have made so little progress on my short story or anything else, for that matter. I'm on page three of the short story! Slowly I am getting there! Perhaps I'll stay up until I get to page four, make some tangible progress, except that will just mean I get up even later. Hmm.
blah
(no subject)
I actually have no solid definition for shipping
It's difficult for me too.
There are pairings for which I want to read romance. This case is clear for me, even if sometimes I want no sex in it (often when they're young, as I'm not fond of futurefics, but not only). ^^ Still, it doesn't stop me from writing genfic about them! Sometimes I even only write quasi-gen (which I will label as "gen-ish" since in my head it's pre-romance or subtexty attraction). It's still shipping!
There are also pairings for which I want to read UST / one-sided crushes / maybe even wild sex, but absolutely no happy romance. It still counts as shipping in my book, but sometimes people look at me the strange way when I'm all "I ship them, but I absolutely don't want them ending together"
There are pairings for which I want to see fics, any interaction, and if it's good I will take romance too, even if it's not my first choice. These ones I really don't know. (When pairing fics are my first choice and friendship a close second, it counts as shipping, this I know)
There are also the canon pairings I accept in the series, I won't read about them (even if, of course, they don't bother me in a plotty fic). I'm not sure I ship them, but sometimes, I'm still a little sad when the canon (or a fanfic) breaks them up.
And there are gen relationships that I wildly love, want to read about, but I actually like shippy fics less. Sometimes, I won't even read them. Doesn't count as shipping for me, even if I still can squee and write and read fic and bother people with it and all the attitudes traditionally associated with shipping. Maybe we should need a word like gen-shipping. ^^
(no subject)
I generally limit "shipping" to the romantic pairings where I want them to end up together - sex or no sex. The ones where I like it one-sided, I tend to use UST as a verb: thus "I UST Three/Liz". (I don't have any pairings I want to have a wild fling and then break up, so I don't have a word for that.)
'There are pairings for which I want to see fics, any interaction, and if it's good I will take romance too, even if it's not my first choice. These ones I really don't know.'
*nods* I agree with this statement. I just wind up saying "I like Jack/Janet friendship, but I'll take ship if it's good".
As to gen-shipping - yes. I like this. This needs to be a word now. :D
(no subject)
Your definitions for shipping are a lot like all of mine - there are a lot of pairings that I say I "ship", but that doesn't mean I see their relationship the same way. There are some where I still want to see romance or a crush or even romantic feelings at the least, but nothing too physical or sexual (because the characters or young or because I just don't see them being that comfortable with themselves or each other. There are some where I can't see them in any functional relationship but I can see a physical, sexual, or romantic element to it and I'd like to read about that.
I feel like, when I talk about shipping, there's some element of physical attraction and romantic feelings, defined as separate from sexuality, but that's really the only common factor there. And yeah, there are some that I gen-ship as well, and I do wish there was a more definite word for that.
(no subject)
Thank you for saying that, because I'm the exactly same way. My ships are all over the place: sexual, platonic, fuck buddies, etc. My criteria is usually just good chemistry. That's it.
My actual "romance, sex and break them up and I'll be sad" ships are very few (Ian/Barbara and Jade/Graveheart... that's it). All others really depend on my mood and what I want to read at the time. (Washu/Yume and Ten/Donna are great examples here. I see both pairs as bickering-best-friends-who-occasionally-fuck and I'll cheerfully accept both gen and smut. But no sappy, "together forevar". That makes me gag). Then there's all my platoic OTP/OT3s, shipped merely because I just like to see them together (the original Sliders gang, most TARDIS teams, Graveheart/Cryos/Jade, etc).
Yeah, my brain's all over the place.
(no subject)
I do know that for me, shipping doesn't necessarily mean "I want to read about them having sex". Actually, I didn't notice some fans do consider shipping = sex until I saw people in the Avatar fandom say things like "why would you ship 14-year-olds, they're too young for sex".
does that still count as shipping, or is that gen or friendship?
... and then it gets even more complicated, because people have different definitions of shipping and also different definitions of gen.
(no subject)
Kiki's Delivery service! I've seen that. It's been a while so I don't really remember specifics, but it was an enjoyable movie.
With shipping... hm. When I say "I ship it," it means I can picture them together in a romantic or sexual sense, including the more "innocent" relationships that are nothing but sideways glances and hand-holding and the like. For those relationships that I enjoy when they're very close but still not romantic or sexual, I'll usually say something like "I ship them in a platonic sense."
...Just in case it wasn't clear, I consider romantic and sexual relationships to be two different things that are often tied together but don't necessarily have to be. You can have one or the other, or mixes of the two, and it all counts. I also don't consider shipping to mean that I want them to live happily ever after. I like trainwreck ships because they're most likely not going to work in the long run. (Sentinel/Jazz, anyone? ...And when did I forget that I was working on fic for them?)
It's interesting that you bring that point up about what happens when you try to write shipping fic, because it seems like I'm always running into the same thing. The relationship is either sexual or emotional, but I have trouble integrating the two. I've seen plenty of very successful shipping stories that don't focus on getting the characters into bed, so to speak, so it's not something you need worry about, IMO. I'd still consider it shipping because your intent in writing it is to portray them in a romantic relationship, or possibly the precursor to one, whether or not the story itself actually goes that far. And if some people don't want to read it as shipping fic, hey look, your story actually suits a wider audience.
(Also, I never got around to answering that one meme post you put up, but I do enjoy reading this kind of post with all the pondering on fandom-related stuff, and links to stuff you're watching or reading. You should definitely also keep posting about your personal life, too, because isn't that what personal journals are for?) ;)